My framework for starting a new business

After building up Lead Cookie & Content Allies (opens in a new tab) to a decent state, I am beginning to look at building up a third company with a business partner this time.

As I am doing this, I realized I needed to look back on what worked with my two successful companies, and what failed in the many attempts I made on other ventures.

I’ve tried a lot of things before Lead Cookie, while running these companies, and I even made a lot of mistakes in the first couple of years of Content Allies.

So this post… well it’s kind of for myself. To document what I have learned so I don’t repeat these same mistakes on my third company.

But hopefully you find some value in it as well.

My Business Starting Framework

Pre-Launch: Choosing what business to be in

• Look for growing markets - Everything is easier when you can ride the wave of a growing market.
  1. Do Market Research - Seek out an emerging niche where you see the opportunity to become one of the top 3 players in the niche within a 3 year period of time.
  2. DON’T try to come up with some genius idea from scratch. Copy what others have already succeeded in.
  3. Check your choice against the RESCUE framework (Thanks Alex McClafferty)
     1. R - Recurring - Will revenue be recurring? Does it solve a recurring problem?
     2. E - Emotion - Does the problem you solve elicit emotion. Do people get it or get worked up about the pain point?
     3. S - Scaling - Does this business have the ability to scale? Can this achieve the income goals I desire for this business
     4. C - Cost - Is there a cost to people not solving this problem?
     5. U - Urgency - Is there an urgency to solve this problem? Or can customers just do nothing?
     6. E - Excite - Am I personally excited about this project?
  4. Build a quick financial model - Based on the information that you have now, does this business make sense? Do you estimate that it will make at absolute minimum 20-30% margins (and ideally more because you will misestimate some costs)
  5. Register your business legally — Before you begin selling, it’s essential to establish the right legal structure for your business. This decision directly affects your taxes, personal liability, and long-term financial strategy. Many entrepreneurs choose a limited liability company (LLC) because it offers a balance of personal asset protection, tax flexibility, and relatively simple administration. However, the registration process can involve detailed paperwork and ongoing compliance requirements, which may feel overwhelming. To streamline this, many founders turn to the best LLC service company (opens in a new tab) to handle the setup efficiently, allowing them to focus on growing their business.

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Zoom

The approach described in this article, shown as a visual guide.

1. 1. Ask the Ray Dalio Question - If I started this business 5-10 years ago, would I be happy with that decision today? If I start this business today, will I be happy with that decision 5-10 years from now?
   2. External Risks - Are there any major third-party players who could cripple this business or drastically impact our ability to succeed? (Ex. Platforms like Linkedin, Google, Microsoft, etc.)
   3. Create a rate card with 3 packages - Put a rough series of packages together, start trying to sell to clients on a call. Look for feedback in terms of
      1. What do they care about? What do they really want?
      2. What additional things are they asking for? (Build these into higher-priced packages)
      3. What objections do they have?

Validation: Testing the hypothesis

• Build a simple Squarespace site within 1 week
• Start running a LinkedIn & Email outreach campaign to cold prospects to test the value proposition & messaging.
• If you can get cold leads to engage with your value proposition, then you are on to something.
• Reach out to my existing network or past leads / customers and try to make sales.
• Initial Traction: For me personally, I know that there are enough people in my network that I should be able to make 3 sales within ~30 days.
• If I can’t do that while actively pursuing my network, then it is likely I am going down a wrong rabbit hole.

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Zoom

The approach described in this article, shown as a visual guide.

MVP: The Hustle Ops Phase

• If I completed the previous steps properly, then I will have just sold something that I know I can deliver on, but I have done zero work in preparing to actually deliver it.
• Any time that I started work on operations or backend before selling I found myself in a giant pit of wasted time.
• This is the phase where I just signed myself up for a few months of hustle… It’s now time to begin building the operations to support the customers that I just told.
• At this stage, I hire someone full time who is a swiss-army knife style team member who I can just throw tasks at. I build and document systems (Most likely in Process Street going forward) and hand them over to this person. This person will likely grow into the head of operations for this new company.

Did I really validate it?

• I don’t know what I don’t know.
• I can often sell something, but it turns out to be way harder to implement than I thought. Or customers churn off and don’t like it.
• I went through this iteration multiple times with Content Allies as we tried different offerings. I would sell something, deliver it, and then months later realize “this feels like pushing a boulder up a hill."
• The ideal win is “Sell something, deliver it, and feel progress.” It will be hard, there will be resistance, but it shouldn’t feel like pushing a boulder up a hill.
• Typically 2-4 months after the initial sales of the service, it’s worth going back and asking
• Do I still want to do this business?
  1. Did I have any assumptions that were incorrect?
  2. Am I trying to sell this to the wrong person right now?
  3. This is a big one. I have had a great service at many times and I abandoned it because I simply had the wrong people in my network who I sold it to. While network can be great for early sales, your ideal customer is often not someone in your direct network.
• If the idea is not validated, then return back to the beginning and start over again…
• If the idea is validated and growth is happening… then buckle up and get ready for a growth train. Build operations and systems. Keep marketing and selling. And GO!

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Zoom

The approach described in this article, shown as a visual guide.

In a May 2025 conversation with Alex McClafferty (opens in a new tab), whose RESCUE framework appears above, I went back over how I choose what to start. My new ideas from scratch had never really panned out. By then, for every company I launched, I first looked for big players already succeeding in the space, and took that as a sign the move was sound.

I had used RESCUE a lot, and over time I started building my own framework, including the Ray Dalio question. Making sales is only the first test: you then have to deliver the service and be sure it is a business you want to be in. That is the question under "Did I really validate it?"

I had once ignored the risk behind the External Risks question. When we started Lead Cookie, Alex warned me that putting the whole business on LinkedIn carried platform risk, and I brushed it off because people were buying. By May 2025, LinkedIn's changes had repeatedly forced the team running Lead Cookie to rebuild its operations.