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How I Built This with Guy Raz

Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft

with John Zimmer, Alan Summerfield, Terry Levy, Kobe Goodwin

Published October 23, 2025
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About This Episode

Host Guy Raz speaks with Lyft co-founder John Zimmer about his transition out of day-to-day leadership, the emotional and mental health challenges of stepping away, and his interest in building new, mission-driven consumer businesses. Together they take calls from three founders: a UK inventor of a soap-mixing showerhead seeking to scale to the U.S., a rucking gear entrepreneur struggling with inventory financing and tariffs, and a craft chocolate maker wrestling with work-life balance and long-term employee ownership. The episode focuses on practical advice around focus, financing, go-to-market tests, and personal sustainability for founders.

Topics Covered

Entrepreneurship Bootstrapping Inventory management Small business financing Manufacturing in China Exercise and weight loss Mental health Stress management Sleep Relationships

Disclaimer: We provide independent summaries of podcasts and are not affiliated with or endorsed in any way by any podcast or creator. All podcast names and content are the property of their respective owners. The views and opinions expressed within the podcasts belong solely to the original hosts and guests and do not reflect the views or positions of Summapod.

Quick Takeaways

  • Founders transitioning out of their companies often experience an initial sense of relief followed by feeling lost, making it crucial to proactively design a new chapter and structure for their time.
  • Basic habits like sleep, diet, and exercise are not luxuries for entrepreneurs; they are prerequisites for serving customers, employees, and investors effectively over the long term.
  • When expanding a physical product into new markets, test different use cases and positioning cheaply (e.g., via digital ads or marketplaces) to understand customer acquisition costs before committing to heavy infrastructure.
  • Chronic inventory stockouts can justify exploring alternative financing, including platform loans, specialized inventory lenders, friends-and-family capital, and carefully framed pre-order campaigns.
  • Simple systems like removing your phone from the bedroom or using a minimalist phone can create the space needed for better sleep, focus, and boundaries between work and life.
  • Purpose-driven founders can begin aligning incentives early by sharing profits or equity with their teams, rather than waiting until the business is large.
  • Scaling a mission-centric company can actually increase its positive impact, so aiming for thoughtful growth can be aligned with values rather than opposed to them.
  • Enjoying the journey and treating entrepreneurship as a learning process helps founders cope with inevitable hardships and setbacks without being defined by any single outcome.

Podcast Notes

Show introduction and format of the Advice Line episode

Guy Raz introduces the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab

Explanation of the Advice Line concept[2:53]
• Listeners building something can call in with business challenges and may be invited on the show
• Call-in number is given and listeners are asked to leave a one-minute message describing their business and issues where they want help

Introduction of guest John Zimmer

Guy welcomes John Zimmer, co-founder of Lyft, back to the show[3:31]
• Guy notes John first appeared in 2017 and also attended the How I Built This Summit
Recap of Lyft origin story and early challenges[3:56]
• Lyft began as a carpooling platform that John and Logan Green built into one of the biggest rideshare apps in the world
• They faced cease-and-desist orders from governments and an ugly competitive battle with Uber
• Guy mentions a dramatization of the Lyft-Uber rivalry and tells John he came out looking good in it

Leadership transition at Lyft

Shift from operating roles to board roles and eventual departure[5:04]
• John explains that he was president of Lyft while Logan was CEO
• In 2023, both moved to non-executive roles on the board, and a few weeks before the recording they left Lyft entirely
Reasons for leaving Lyft[4:52]
• John says it was a difficult decision because he loves Lyft, the team, and the current CEO David
• He and Logan wanted another chapter in their lives and also wanted to ensure Lyft had the right leadership for its next chapter
• They undertook a two-year process from operating roles to the board and then off the board
Emotional impact of stepping away from the company[5:27]
• John says leaving the operating role was harder than leaving the board because it was what he did every day and a major source of purpose and meaning outside his family
• He describes going from being obsessed with making Lyft the best company possible to suddenly having all his time free
• He felt relief for about three months as his shoulders dropped after years of constant cortisol and adrenaline from battles and pressure
• After that relief period, he felt a bit lost and found himself at home fussing over reorganizing kitchen canisters
• His wife told him he needed to do something else and get out of the house
• Since then he has advised several entrepreneurs, made some investments, and is now returning to more full-time work building businesses with missions he believes in

John Zimmer's new venture and reflections on capitalism

Introduction of John's new venture "yes. And"

Guy notes John announced leaving Lyft and launching a venture called "yes. And"[7:27]
• Guy references that the announcement said something that leaves people hanging and asks what John can share

John's high-level description of "yes. And"

Zooming out to think about capitalism[7:46]
• During his time away, John spent time zooming out and thinking about capitalism as a whole
• He listened to a speech by Milei, the leader in Argentina, who praised capitalism and entrepreneurship as amazing
• John found the speech inspiring but felt Milei went too far by saying any form of growth is good
Example of misapplied growth: soda and diabetes[8:18]
• John argues that applying capitalism to sugar water leads to people drinking a lot of soda and getting diabetes
• He acknowledges you can build a successful business on soda but does not view the health outcome as good
• He observes that in food, more people are seeking healthy outcomes
Concept behind "yes. And"[8:41]
• John asked how he could create multiple consumer businesses tuned to the modern world of social media, internet, and AI
• He wants these businesses to have self-fulfilling, very positive outcomes for people
• He describes them simply as those types of positive-outcome consumer businesses, without going into specific products

Mental health, self-care, and basic habits for founders

Guy raises John's openness about mental health struggles

The hidden strain behind visible leadership[9:15]
• Guy notes that around John, people see him as a leader who must be inclusive and strong, but at home he might struggle with sleep, anxiety, or a racing mind
• He remarks that this happens to everyone and asks what John would have done differently or wished he knew

John's reflection on what would have helped

Importance of sleep, diet, and exercise[9:36]
• John says it really comes back to the basics of sleep, diet, and exercise
• He acknowledges he put a lot of pressure on himself to work at all hours because many people depended on him
• He felt responsible to investors and to drivers and riders, wanting all of them to do well and be safe
• Taking time for himself felt selfish in that context
Main learning about self-care and effectiveness[10:00]
• John's main learning is that if he does not get necessary sleep, exercise, and nutrients, he cannot better serve all the populations depending on him
• He emphasizes that this lesson is basic but hard to see when in the "storm" of constant pressure

Caller 1: ShowerSpa and scaling a hardware product

Introduction of caller Alan Summerfield and ShowerSpa

Alan's business overview[10:40]
• Alan is the founder of ShowerSpa, calling from Nottingham in the UK
• He says ShowerSpa is on a mission to make showers safer, easier, and more luxurious for everyone
• The brand is spelled S-P-A-A-H and Alan jokes, "We put the R in spa"

Product description and use cases

How ShowerSpa works[11:07]
• Alan describes ShowerSpa as the first device of its kind to mix soap and water on demand
• It produces a shower of warm, scented bubbles straight from the showerhead, likened to a "car wash for people" but nicer
• The system has two parts so users can turn off the soap function to rinse and not remain covered in suds
• It connects by screwing onto the shower piping, and Alan says if you can change a light bulb, you can connect it

Origin story and safety motivation

Technical and personal roots of the invention[11:57]
• Technically, the idea began about 20 years earlier in Los Angeles when Alan worked for a major shower manufacturer
• A few years ago, he noticed his mother having more difficulty with balance around the house
• He recognized bathrooms as dangerous places and wanted to move from purely discretionary products to something that truly helped people
• He realized that eliminating the need to handle bottles of body wash in the shower reduces dropping and bending, making it safer for people with balance issues

Pandemic-era leap and bootstrapping

Decision to launch during the pandemic[12:38]
• Alan had more time during the pandemic and decided not to wait for big corporates to act on his idea
• He chose to bring the product to market himself
Funding approach[13:21]
• Alan calls it a classic bootstrapping story and says he told his children the "bank of dad" would close for a bit
• He cashed in some of his pension fund to finance the business

Traction to date

Sales and customer feedback[13:56]
• ShowerSpa has been on the market about a year, primarily selling online in the UK
• They have sold about 2,000 to 2,500 units and made about $200,000 in revenue
• Reviews include people calling it life-changing, including customers who were previously scared to shower but now can do so without fear of injury
• Alan says the design is fully inclusive; although originally conceived as a luxury product, he discovered a real need among people with mobility issues

Alan's main question: scaling to the U.S.

Balancing logistics and market focus[14:40]
• Alan notes the U.S. market is substantially larger than the UK and asks how to scale into it
• He wonders whether to set up warehousing and replicate his current model, and how to balance expanding from the mobility market into a broader luxury wellness market
• He believes every shower could benefit from the product and wants guidance on the path to U.S. expansion

John Zimmer's reactions and questions

Validation of product and founder story[15:30]
• John says the product looks awesome and praises the personal story of building it for a family member
Clarifying current customer segments[16:26]
• John asks what proportion of current sales are for mobility challenges versus luxury use cases
• Alan answers that they have only marketed to people with mobility challenges, so virtually all sales are in that segment, though some people buy it to wash their dogs
• Guy immediately recognizes the dog-washing use case as appealing, noting he struggles to keep his dog still during baths

Strategic advice: test use cases and understand unit economics

Running targeted tests in the home market[16:32]
• John suggests running tests on different use cases-luxury users and dog owners-to understand cost per customer acquisition
• He recommends doing these tests in the UK first to learn the basic unit economics before expanding geographically
Low-cost U.S. entry via third parties[17:05]
• Alan mentions he uses Shopify and a 3PL in the UK
• John says he does not think Alan needs to set up his own U.S. warehousing initially, suggesting low-cost options like third-party logistics or Amazon, even if margins are lower, to facilitate learning

Focus versus expansion of target market

Importance of focus when a product can do many things[17:40]
• Alan cites business advice that when you have a product that can do everything, you should pick one thing and focus, which is why he chose mobility as his starting point
• Guy agrees, referencing Peloton starting with serious cyclists and Warby Parker starting with people frustrated with expensive glasses before both expanded to mass markets
• He calls leaning into the mobility category a smart initial play

Exploring institutional channels like care homes and hotels

Opportunity in care homes and supported living[18:44]
• Guy asks if Alan has reached out to retirement villages or care facilities, noting they could lead to large orders and that bathrooms in such places are a big need
• Alan cites about 500,000 care home beds and 1.4 million supported living units in the UK, highlighting a widening "care gap" from lower birth rates and longer lifespans
• He is trying to make connections in that sector but says institutional sales are a longer game than direct-to-consumer
Considering a business development hire[19:24]
• Guy confirms that Alan is essentially doing everything himself in the business
• Guy suggests that at this stage it might be time to hire a business development person, perhaps compensated partly with equity, to pursue institutional channels
• John agrees, suggesting finding an entrepreneurial up-and-comer to handle longer lead-time conversations for care facilities
• He notes that in the U.S. care facilities are relatively consolidated and that similar opportunities may exist in the UK, making such channel conversations attractive
• Alan mentions he is entering his first fundraising round with the objective of hiring that kind of person

Short interlude on invention-driven founders

Guy reflects on inventor entrepreneurs

Examples of engineer-founders[22:08]
• Guy notes he loves episodes where founders invent physical products, often engineers who know how to build things, citing Dyson, Litter Robot, and Leatherman
• He shares that Leatherman is named after its founder, Tim Leatherman, which surprised John

Caller 2: Ruckstar and financing inventory for a fast-growing niche fitness brand

Introduction of caller Terry Levy and Ruckstar

Business overview[27:03]
• Terry is the founder of Ruckstar, calling from Los Angeles, California
• Ruckstar aims to make rucking accessible to everyone, especially women, by designing weighted backpacks and vests people can use in daily activities to get stronger
• The brand is spelled R-U-K-S-T-R, and their community members are called "Ruckstars"

Origin story and product design choices

From running to rucking[28:08]
• Terry has been an athlete and runner all her life and notes John was a track star as well
• As she aged, her recovery from running took longer, so about four years ago she discovered rucking as a way to level up daily walks and hikes
• She began building her own packs after extensive market research showed existing products were not designed for women or the everyday woman
Designing for women's comfort[28:59]
• They started with a weighted backpack and focused on comfort, noting that most women and most people dislike discomfort and may assume something is wrong if a product feels uncomfortable
• They optimized extra padding, shoulder blade fit, impact while carrying, and included a removable waist belt and adjustability for ease of use during walks or hikes
• They discovered many women do not like carrying backpacks, so they iterated using a commodity weighted vest and saw huge success
• They now acquire customers with weighted vests and then move them into the backpack product, which has started to sell more

Traction and sales model

Revenue and channel[29:55]
• In the first year, Ruckstar did $400,000 in revenue
• The business is direct-to-consumer and bootstrapped, with sales coming from their website

Terry's main question: funding inventory amid tariffs and delays

Constraints from capital and trade policy[30:24]
• Terry explains that as a bootstrapped startup, they consistently sell out of inventory due to demand but have limited capital
• She says current tariff policies exacerbate the problem by creating uncertainty around capital needs and causing delivery delays from increased customs inspections
• She asks what strategies or funding options they should pursue to front inventory investment, reliably meet demand, and grow sustainably

Advice on financing options and growth

John's initial reaction and suggestion of inventory financing[31:17]
• John congratulates Terry, calling $400,000 in the first year a huge accomplishment and noting that he has recently seen many people wearing weighted vests, suggesting good timing
• He asks if she has looked into inventory financing
• Terry replies they have taken on some debt but need to buy significant inventory and have found few lines available specifically for financing inventory
• John mentions he has a friend in New York who specializes in financing for Amazon and DTC sellers and offers to potentially connect Terry after the show
• Guy adds that platforms like Shopify also offer financing solutions
• Terry confirms they have taken on debt from Shopify but still cannot bring in enough inventory, having sold out about five times in a year
• John calls it a phenomenal problem to have but acknowledges it limits revenue; he encourages continuing to look for financing partners and possibly tapping friends and family using the terms Shopify offered as a reference
• He notes their growing data on working capital needs and demand could make others excited to support them

Manufacturing locations and materials constraints

Considering alternatives to China and Pakistan[33:25]
• Guy asks where the products are manufactured
• Terry says they are importing from China and Pakistan
• Guy wonders if Mexico or U.S. manufacturing could be explored to hedge against tariffs, while acknowledging U.S. production would be more expensive
• Terry says for backpacks they investigated Mexico but found the necessary skill set not yet present, and for vests the challenge is raw materials-special iron pellets
• She has even spoken with U.S. manufacturers of items like frying pans about turning iron remnants into pellets, but found it effectively impossible

Debate over pre-orders as a funding mechanism

Guy proposes customer-financed inventory via pre-orders[34:47]
• Guy asks whether they can take pre-orders so customers pay in advance
• Terry, a digital marketer by trade, has a personal moral dilemma with pre-orders and worries they can set a company up for failure
• She says she feels pre-orders require clear expectations about delivery timing, which can be difficult given her constraints
Reframing pre-orders as community building and fair value exchange[35:04]
• John says he likes that pre-orders make her uncomfortable because it shows how much she cares about customers
• He suggests using pre-orders as a community-building tool: tell customers the story, involve them in the journey, and maybe offer a small discount tied to what she would otherwise pay a bank for financing
• Guy reinforces this idea, suggesting website copy that explains demand is through the roof and offers a discount on pre-orders as appreciation for customers' patience
• Terry notes they are launching a new product and has been considering using pre-orders both to raise funds and to test demand; the conversation nudges her toward trying it
• She expresses interest in connecting with John's financing contact and is told to reach out to him on LinkedIn

Brief discussion of rucking and zone two training

Guy and John discuss fitness benefits of rucking

Popularity and cardiovascular benefits[37:17]
• John notes he has not personally done rucking but recently has seen many people wearing weighted vests in his neighborhood
• Guy explains that zone two training allows conversation-level exertion yet significantly improves VO2 max and has large health benefits over time
• He notes sprints are beneficial, but maintaining zone two heart rate for an hour has powerful effects, and weighted vests help people reach that zone
• John says the conversation might push him over the edge to try rucking

Caller 3: Slow Coco, work-life balance, and employee ownership

Introduction of caller Kobe and Slow Coco

Business overview and sourcing philosophy[40:27]
• Kobe, calling from the Bronx in New York City, is co-founder of Slow Coco
• Slow Coco is a craft chocolate maker that aims to nourish the body as much as taste buds by using no more than one to four ingredients per product
• They always start with single-origin cacao sourced from people they know and can visit
• He mentions visiting farmers in Guatemala, often indigenous communities harvesting cacao for generations, and sharing Slow Coco's chocolate with them
• The business has been operating for just over four and a half years

Kobe's path into chocolate and early experimentation

From real estate to craft chocolate[41:39]
• Kobe describes himself as a "recovering real estate agent" and says he lacked prior food industry experience
• He began making chocolate at home during the pandemic, driven by curiosity about how this familiar food was made
• He bought a kilo of beans labeled single-origin Peru from Amazon, believing the first batch would be the best chocolate he had ever tried
• He roasted the beans (initially in the oven, later with a small countertop roaster) and processed them in a studio apartment with a cat, covering his dresser with tinfoil
• The first bar turned out so bad he could not finish it or share it, which launched his deep dive into what went wrong and how craft makers achieve flavor complexity

Discovering a collaborative craft chocolate community

Contrast with prior experience of capitalism[43:15]
• Kobe says he was one foot out of real estate and found in craft chocolate a space that did not gatekeep in the way he had experienced capitalism
• Instead of classes, he learned from people who should have been competitors; they connected him to farms and answered specific questions
• He observes there is a drive within the industry to elevate all participants, especially farmers at origin, and to address environmental impacts neglected in industrial chocolate
• He frames their motivation as improving livelihoods of people making chocolate possible and addressing externalized environmental costs, rather than individual profit gain

Current business model and customer base

Sales channels and growth[43:56]
• Guy asks how the business is doing and notes that some customers might not care about sourcing stories and just want good chocolate
• Kobe says Slow Coco is doing great and has been more than doubling in size since they started
• They primarily sell at farmers markets in the New York and New Jersey area along with an online store
• He estimates a majority of customers are not focused on the backstory; they mainly want to know whether the chocolate tastes good, which he embraces as central to their work

Kobe's question: sustaining himself while deeply committed to the business

Articulation of the work-life balance challenge

Beyond strategies to the emotional reality[44:55]
• Kobe clarifies he does not need more tactics for delegation or time management; he has read, listened to podcasts, worked with coaches and therapists, and has a support system
• He cares so deeply about his team and Slow Coco that he often does not want to turn it off or step away, even when health or relationships get sidelined
• He asks how to practice personal sustainability when what he is building feels like his life's work

Advice to Kobe: self-care, boundaries, and long-term structure

John Zimmer on self-care as service to others

Reframing self-care as necessary for impact[45:45]
• John says he can relate to Kobe's situation
• He suggests framing self-care as a way to help others more: if Kobe does not take care of himself, he will not be able to care for those he cares about as effectively
• John describes a time when he admitted the thing that worked for him was working out before work, but he felt pressure to go straight to the office
• His co-founder Logan told him to make workouts his priority and said he did not want to see John until he had worked out, which gave John permission to prioritize it
• John advises Kobe to give himself similar permission, recognizing that taking care of himself first is part of caring for others

Understanding Kobe's team and workload

Team size and Kobe's current roles[46:58]
• Kobe says they have three full-time employees including himself, and a first non-contractor full-time hire starting next month
• They have a total team of 10 people when including others working operations and farmers markets
• He is no longer primarily making chocolate due to systems they have built; he now focuses on quality control, recipe development, and sales at farmers markets
• Despite the systems, he remains mentally absorbed in the business and sees dissonance between his constant focus and the desire for balance

Guy's practical tactics: phone habits and morning structure

Bricking the phone and removing it from the bedroom[49:36]
• Guy asserts that Kobe must believe his business is better when he is better, and once that is accepted, logistics like daily tactics can follow
• Guy describes his decision to "brick" his phone using a device that locks apps until he has worked out and gotten sunshine
• His brick device is a magnet on his fridge; swiping the phone over it locks most apps, leaving only limited services like maps or weather
• He cannot check email or get distracted until he completes his morning health routine, which ultimately improves his performance
• John recommends a rule of no cell phones in the bedroom and says he uses a simple alarm clock instead
• He notes phones in the bedroom tempt people to check alerts and harm sleep, which is critical for founders
• John explains his evolution from alarm clock to Brick to now using a Light Phone 3 as his only SIM-card phone, tethering an iPhone only when necessary for specific apps
• Kobe says on some days he does check the phone first thing due to early farmers markets, but tries to have time away from screens on off days

Clarifying Kobe's vision for Slow Coco

Lifestyle business versus scaled impact[51:05]
• Guy asks whether Kobe wants a smaller lifestyle business or a larger company with $10, $15, or $50 million in revenue or more
• Kobe responds that it is less about a revenue number and more about impact, especially building something he can eventually sell to its employees as a worker-owned cooperative
• He wants Slow Coco to exist for generations, touch lives across continents, and benefit stakeholders across the entire value chain
• From studying worker-owned co-ops, he believes achieving that vision requires some scale

Growth, purpose, and early employee ownership

John on why scale can amplify purpose[52:01]
• John says scale really matters for someone so purpose-driven because the bigger the business, the more purpose there is to go around
• He argues that if capitalism is applied to the right things, as Kobe appears to be doing, then bigger can be better due to increased positive impact
Guy suggests starting employee ownership mechanisms now[53:00]
• Guy expresses support for capitalism as the least-bad available system that can lift people out of poverty while acknowledging both good and bad effects
• He suggests Kobe can begin building an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) or similar structure now, giving shares to his two employees rather than waiting
• He cites examples like New Belgium, Bob's Red Mill, and Clif Bar, which introduced significant employee ownership when they were still small companies
• Guy notes that having other stakeholders who are owners can help share the burdens and stresses currently concentrated on Kobe
Kobe's concerns about passing on risk and what he already does[54:04]
• Kobe is wary of passing risk prematurely to employees who may have joined for a steady job and the ability to turn work off, unlike his own inability to fully disconnect
• He shares that they already offer profit sharing on a quarterly basis, particularly for farmers market sellers, giving them a percentage of profits from their sales
• He sees this as protecting employees from downside while tying their success to the company's growth
John's perspective on ownership and upside[54:23]
• John reaffirms that capitalism and ownership can be positive and encourages Kobe to start now, noting employees cannot share in upside if fully shielded from stress and risk
• He mentions Lyft's IPO program that gave drivers equity, viewing such structures as important given Slow Coco's mission

Entrepreneurial impact and enjoying the journey

Guy on the societal value of building an ethical, profitable business[55:14]
• Guy tells Kobe that the best thing an entrepreneur can do is build a profitable, ethical business that employs people and enables them to pay for college and mortgages
• He notes that Lyft has helped support many such life expenses for workers
John's data point on Lyft's reach[56:02]
• John shares that when he was leaving, about 3% of the U.S. workforce had earned income on Lyft
• He says reading stories of people paying for things like college with Lyft earnings was extremely motivating during hard days
• Guy advises Kobe to let that kind of impact be his fuel

Closing reflections: learning, regret, and enjoying the process

Guy asks John what he'd tell his younger self

John's view on regrets and learning[57:07]
• John says he does not live with many regrets, which may be an entrepreneur trait, and prefers to keep going and learning
• He would tell his younger self to enjoy the journey, even though that advice sounds cliche
• He notes that all the hard times, though very difficult, made him a better entrepreneur, parent, husband, and more empathetic human
• A friend once reminded him that entrepreneurship is not only about some defined notion of success but also about learning, advice John found simple yet helpful

Episode wrap-up and reference to original Lyft story

Invitation to listen to the earlier Lyft episode[57:23]
• Guy thanks John for coming back on the show and encourages listeners to check out the full Lyft episode, calling it an awesome story
Short clip about early Lyft marketing in costumes[57:37]
• In a clip from the earlier episode, John recounts how he and Logan used frog and beaver costumes to market their early carpooling service on campus
• John recalls standing on the Cornell quad in a beaver costume handing out cards, and later being recognized at a Lehman recruiting event by a student who had seen him in costume

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

As a founder, prioritizing basic self-care-sleep, exercise, and nutrition-is not selfish; it is a prerequisite for serving your team, customers, and investors effectively over the long term.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What specific self-care habit (sleep, exercise, or nutrition) have I been consistently sacrificing for work, and how is that actually reducing my effectiveness?
  • • How might my decision-making and leadership change if I deliberately protected 60-90 minutes each day for my physical and mental health?
  • • What is one concrete boundary I can implement this week (such as a fixed bedtime, a morning workout, or a no-phone-in-bedroom rule) to support my long-term performance?
2

When expanding a product or market, run small, focused experiments to understand which customer segments respond best and what your real acquisition costs are before committing large resources.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Which 2-3 distinct customer segments could I test cheaply with different messaging to see where my product resonates most?
  • • How would my growth strategy change if I insisted on having basic unit economics (like cost per acquisition and conversion rate) for each segment before scaling?
  • • What low-cost experiment (for example, a targeted ad campaign or limited pre-launch page) can I set up in the next month to validate a new use case or market?
3

Chronic inventory shortages caused by strong demand are an opportunity to creatively finance growth through a mix of specialized lenders, platform financing, friends-and-family capital, and well-communicated pre-orders.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in my business am I consistently selling out or turning away demand that might justify seeking inventory-specific financing?
  • • How could I transparently explain my growth story to customers or supporters so that pre-orders or loans feel like a partnership rather than a risk to them?
  • • What financing options have I not seriously explored yet (such as platform loans, revenue-based financing, or targeted friends-and-family notes) that could unlock my next inventory order?
4

Thoughtful boundaries around technology-like removing phones from the bedroom or using minimalist devices-can create the space needed for better sleep, focus, and a healthier relationship with work.

Reflection Questions:

  • • In what ways is my current phone or device usage eroding my sleep, focus, or ability to disconnect from work?
  • • How might my evenings and mornings feel different if my phone physically lived outside my bedroom for the next 30 days?
  • • What simple constraint (for example, app limits, a time-based lock, or a secondary minimalist phone) could I experiment with to reduce distraction without harming my essential communication?
5

Sharing ownership or profits with employees early-through equity, profit share, or similar mechanisms-can align incentives and distribute both responsibility and upside as a purpose-driven company grows.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Which key contributors in my business would I want to keep and motivate over the next five years, and how could shared upside help with that?
  • • How might offering a small, clear form of ownership or profit sharing now change the way my team thinks and behaves about our long-term goals?
  • • What is one simple ownership or profit-sharing experiment I could design over the next year that fits my current size and risk tolerance?
6

Viewing entrepreneurship as an ongoing learning journey, rather than a single binary success or failure, makes it easier to endure hard periods and extract growth from setbacks.

Reflection Questions:

  • • When I look back at my hardest moments in building this venture, what skills or perspectives did I gain that I would not have developed otherwise?
  • • How could reframing a current challenge as a learning opportunity (instead of a threat) change the way I respond to it this week?
  • • What regular practice (such as a weekly reflection or journal) can I adopt to intentionally capture and integrate the lessons from my entrepreneurial experiences?

Episode Summary - Notes by Micah

Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft
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