Proof Beats Promises
Every competitor makes the same promises, so the market prices promises at zero. Tyk Sullivan on the proof ladder: borrowed, demonstrated, and accumulated evidence.
Topic · Insights
Companies Essays.
Entrepreneurship, operations, sales, pricing, and building businesses that survive their founder's moods. 12 essays by Tyk Sullivan. Everything publishes first at Insights.
List Everything. Let the Market Surprise You.
Tyk Sullivan listed his occupied rental on Airbnb at a number nobody should pay. A company booked it for a commercial shoot. Offers, not surveys, measure demand.
An AI Wrote My Term Paper in 2015
A paper worth half the grade, one primitive essay tool, twenty-five pages of confident nonsense. Tyk Sullivan on the AI leverage lesson he learned a decade early.
Your Product Is Fine. Nobody Knows You Exist.
Most stalled businesses are unknown, not unwanted. Tyk Sullivan on the awareness problem founders keep misdiagnosing as a product problem.
Do Things That Don't Scale — What That Actually Means
Do things that don't scale isn't a launch tactic you outgrow. Tyk Sullivan on why unscalable care is the moat — and how it eventually becomes the scale.
The $100M Filter: How to Choose a Business Idea
Most ideas can make money. Very few deserve a decade. Tyk Sullivan on the $100M filter — choosing business ideas by ceiling, not floor.
How to Delegate Without It Blowing Up
Delegation is the only exit from the hours in your day — and it has a failure mode. Tyk Sullivan on written process, inspecting what you expect, and the letter from the Postmaster.
How to Price a Product
Price is a story about value, not a markup on cost. Tyk Sullivan on pricing the gap, three tiers, raising until the flinch — and the pricing lesson he learned in fruit snacks.
How to Start a Business With No Money
You don't need capital to start — you need inventory you already own: a skill, a tool, proximity, and time. Tyk Sullivan on how first dollars actually happen.
The Job Is the Bridge, Not the Life
Don't quit on frustration. Tyk Sullivan on the job as bridge financing — the cheapest capital you'll ever raise, and the exit condition that keeps a bridge a bridge.
What Is Private Labeling? (The Oldest Trick in Retail)
Private labeling is selling a product someone else manufactures under your own brand. Tyk Sullivan explains how the economics work — and the version he ran at age twelve.
What a Push Mower in a Lincoln LS Taught Me About Business
Tyk Sullivan's first company was a lawn care business run out of the back seat of a Lincoln LS in Madison, Wisconsin. It grew past 100 clients in high school — and taught the operating lessons he still uses today.
Browse other topics: Capital · Performance · Perspective. Or see all essays.