Essays from our newsletter, field notes from the work, and practical tools across leadership, peer advisory, and sales. Written by Carlos Garrido and Carolina Duran for founders building serious companies in Miami and beyond.
Vistage, EO, YPO, Hampton, C12, TIGER 21, and the free founder communities, compared side by side: formats, eligibility, fit, and the six-question Table Test, with the author's bias declared up front.
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Carlos GarridoJul 15, 20269 min read
A two-week time log that separates the operating work you chose from the work you were pulled into, read by function and tracked weekly on the scorecard.
Carlos Garrido11 min
Five to twelve owned metrics read every week, with cash first. How to choose them function by function, calculate runway, and handle a metric that goes off track.
Carlos Garrido11 min
It can be, and the monthly commitment decides it more than the mileage does. Broward sits inside the service area, and the travel cost differs more between the pathways than between the two counties.
Carlos Garrido10 min
Usually no. Separate tables with separate chairs, one seat only, or a decline when the real need is mediation. What settles it is how decision rights are divided between the owners.
Carlos Garrido13 min
Yes. What settles it is whether the two groups do different jobs or the same one, because two memberships collide on attendance, preparation and candor long before they collide on anything else.
Carlos Garrido12 min
An advisor gives you their answer and agrees to stand behind it. A coach works on your judgment and leaves the decision with you. Seniority and fee tell you nothing about which one you are buying.
Carlos Garrido10 min
One is bought for the senior team, one is bought for a single executive. Ask your leaders the same questions separately, and the spread between their answers tells you which problem you have.
Carlos Garrido8 min
A hired executive can belong in a peer advisory group. Authority to act, what is personally at stake, whose information it is, who pays, and who else is in the group all change when the member does not own the company.
Carlos Garrido13 min
Industry composition matters when the question is about domain content, and much less when it is about a decision you have to make. How to sort your own questions before you choose a group.
Carlos Garrido14 min
An advisory board answers questions about the company. A peer board answers questions about the person running it. Which question you have, which to put in place first, and what choosing wrong looks like.
Carlos Garrido13 min
Your company has stopped growing and you have not burned out. Demand, conversion, capacity, retention, or the market itself, the four numbers that show which one it is, and the wrong first move for each.
Carlos Garrido13 min
Who convenes each format and what they earn from you, how members get in, whether the others compete with you, the failure modes on both sides, and the four cases where a mastermind is the better purchase.
Carlos Garrido14 min
The four conditions that decide whether a group is worth a founder's time, what the first months and the first year look like, what you have to bring, and the cases where the format is the wrong purchase.
Carlos Garrido11 min
Business coach is a label rather than a profession. The five arrangements sold under it, the seven questions that identify which one a provider is selling, and which of them fits the problem you have.
Carlos Garrido11 min
Preparing the company for a planned change of leadership, ownership, or both. The five routes out, what a plan contains, and why the work starts years before the handover.
Carlos Garrido8 min
You are buying whatever portion of the earnings survives the seller leaving. The order to ask questions in so a weak deal dies cheaply, how to test a claim against evidence, what to settle before you name a price, and when to walk away.
Carlos Garrido13 min
Source the board from the decisions you cannot currently make well, rather than from a list of impressive names. Evaluation criteria, how to test an advisor before offering a seat, size, cadence, the agenda, the written terms, and how to close a seat that has stopped earning one.
Carlos Garrido13 min
Work comes back when a task changes hands but the function does not. The three levels of a handoff, in the order they have to be built, and what each one transfers.
Carlos Garrido7 min
Membership is by application, reviewed personally by the principals. What the selection conversation covers, and why pricing is discussed openly in private before any commitment.
Carlos Garrido6 min
The strengths that built the company are the same things a buyer prices as transition risk. The seven areas buyers examine, and the sequence for reducing owner dependency.
Carlos Garrido11 min
Executive judgment on a monthly rhythm fits a defined problem for a defined period. The controller question comes first, and the engagement is structured around systems the company keeps.
Carlos Garrido12 min
The owner keeps direction, capital, and the choice of who leads; the company takes the execution. The four-week readiness test, the staged sequence, and the four ways the transition fails.
Carlos Garrido12 min
Ownership, control, the departing partner's working role, and the money are four separate negotiations. The documents to read first, the five kinds of split, how buyouts get funded, and the handover after signing.
Carlos Garrido12 min
Separating roles from relationships, decisions from dinner tables, and ownership from employment. The recurring patterns in Miami family companies, and succession as the transfer of a system rather than a personality.
Carlos Garrido10 min
The signed agreement is the weakest layer. What protects a founder is member selection, repeated ground rules, chair discipline, controlled issue processing, and consequences for breaches. The full mechanics, the limits, and ten questions to ask before joining any group.
Carlos Garrido13 min
A board of directors governs the corporation, owes fiduciary duties, and generally holds the authority to remove the CEO. An advisory board counsels the founder without taking any of that power. The comparison table, the triggers for formal governance, and which one to build first.
Carlos Garrido8 min
Both paths reward the same preparation: a company that runs without its founder. The transferability review, the comparison table, when selling now is the right call, and the third option of fixing transferability first. From a banker who buys businesses himself.
Carlos Garrido13 min
Past $5M, growth depends on company design rather than founder effort. The up-to-$5M versus past-$5M comparison table, the six shifts, and the wrong moves founders make when the stall arrives.
Carlos Garrido13 min
Buying beats building when what you need would take longer to create than to integrate, and your company can absorb a deal. The readiness test, the financing categories, and where acquisitions go wrong, from a banker who buys businesses himself.
Carlos Garrido13 min
Refresh Miami, The LAB, Miami Made, Founders Club, Grow305, and more, grouped by the job each does. Written by someone who runs one of them and says so up front.
Carlos Garrido13 min
The founders we talk with reach for a mentor first, because it costs nothing and asks little. That is also why it decays fastest without structure. The three compared, and how to ask for mentorship well.
Carlos Garrido13 min
A plateau is stalled growth in the business. Burnout is depleted capacity in the founder. They feel identical from the inside, so the first move is telling them apart before you act.
Carlos Garrido8 min
A number two solves a coordination problem across the company. How to tell if you are ready, and whether you need a COO, an integrator, a functional leader, or a chief of staff.
Carlos Garrido7 min
A management consultant solves a bounded, one-time problem. An installed operating system changes how the company runs. How a founder tells which one they need.
Carlos Garrido8 min
What to judge, where Miami founders find coaches, the criteria that matter, and how to test fit before you commit.
Carlos Garrido8 min
A peer table gives you CEOs who have faced your decision; a coach works one-to-one on your leadership. How to tell which you need first.
Carlos Garrido7 min
Every option in the city compared, plus the six-question Table Test for judging any group.
Carlos Garrido13 min
Five kinds of founder bottleneck, how to tell which one is yours, and the first move for each. With the Miami patterns we see most.
Carlos Garrido13 min
A confidential group of CEOs with nothing to sell you changes how you decide. Here is what really happens inside the group.
Carolina Duran5 min
A company-owned sales approach, a capable seller, and accountable sales leadership. How to tell you have hit the ceiling, and which replacement path fits.
Carlos Garrido7 min