Cheat codes

And my top takeaways from my founder mastermind.

Tyler Denk
February 25, 2025

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Everyone loves a good cheat code. I recently discovered two that I’m hyped about.

“Discovered” probably isn’t technically right, I’ve known both of these to be true. But after this past weekend at my founder’s mastermind in Costa Rica, both really crystallized for me.

First cheat code: surrounding yourself with cracked founders who are determined to win is a short-circuit for inspiration and motivation.

There’s a reason there are more successful startups in San Francisco than Boise Idaho.

Yes there is lots of talent density. Yes there is tons of entropy and energy. Yes there is a concentration of capital and builders.

But more than anything… wherever you go, whoever you meet, the bar for excellence and ambition is so high. Surrounding yourself with others who want to win is contagious.

I woke up at 7am on Saturday morning and walked out to this…

Rise and grind baby

I was the last person up to begin working (the rest of the group was at a table behind me). This was after a handful of strategy sessions from the previous days and everyone was eager to build and implement some of the stuff we had chatted about.

Straight up hacker house vibes… but instead of a smelly SF basement it was in paradise. Some things never change though: not a female in sight.

Also, let me take a step back in case you’re confused about what the hell I’m talking about.

Two years ago one of my homies in Medellin invited me to a mastermind in Costa Rica with a few other founders I didn’t really know at the time. I also had no idea what a mastermind was, but the house was dope and I wanted an excuse to surf so I agreed to go.

“Transformational” sounds a bit dramatic, but I had been heads down building for more than a year at that point and surrounding myself with other high agency founders was exactly what I needed. I made a handful of new friends that I still hang with today, and the trip injected incalculable levels of motivation straight into my veins.

Last year after Big Desk Energy grew to about 20,000 readers, most of which were founders, I decided to see if I could recreate that experience on my own. I hosted my first Big Desk Energy Mastermind last July with seven other founders, all sourced directly from the newsletter.

The OG gang

We came down to Tamarindo, Costa Rica and really dug in; wholesome conversations, strategy sessions, product demos, plus amazing fresh meals mixed with some yoga and surfing. One founder legit received an acquisition offer while we were on the trip.

Translation: lots of productive shit got done and we’re all super close homies now. It was a smashing success.

When I host these masterminds there’s no strict agenda, no cringy intros, no over-coordinated activities or sponsors or speakers or gimmicks. It’s just really dope people doing dope shit together.

The value I provide is curating a group of founders who are equally interesting and successful as they are curious and willing to learn. It ranges from small solo founders to profitable bootstrapped businesses doing millions to SaaS companies valued at nine-figures.

Anyway, enough of that tangent — I hosted my second last October (smashing success x2) and then this past weekend I hosted the third (maybe the best yet).

Going back to the purpose of this post (cheat codes) — if co-working in San Francisco is one way to surround yourself with ambitious founders, living with them for 96 hours straight is that dialed to a million.

The behind-the-scenes access of watching them operate, what tools they use, how they communicate, what they prioritize, their habits and lifestyle, etc.

You don’t even need to host a mastermind to unlock this; just level up the people you spend the most time with. Mr. Beast had a goal last year to get jacked, so he decided to hang around people who prioritize working out and eating healthy… and he achieved his goals.

“Who you spend time with is who you become.”

Tony Robbins

Second cheat code: simply “steal” the top strategies and tactics of other successful founders.

This past weekend…

Someone was world class at employee engagement and retention → I’m going to steal a few of his processes.
Someone shared a growth strategy I had never once considered → I’m going to launch and test it this week at beehiiv.
Most of the other founders utilize automated workflows a ton → I’m launching a handful of new automations right after I finish writing this newsletter.

Reading biographies and listening to podcasts are impactful for the same reason; you can extract insights and experiences from other experts and leaders. “Standing on the shoulders of giants” or whatever the saying is… if someone is really good at something simply do as they do.

Because (unfortunately) not all 85,000 of you were able to join this past weekend, I’m going to share a few of my top takeaways:

The problems don’t stop with success. No matter how large or successful the company, everyone was dealing with a similar set of problems.
Not for everyone. Some founders tell candidates the office is open on weekends and the expectation is that they’re working. It’s controversial and turns off 99% of people… and that’s fine. You want to find that 1% and shouldn’t settle.
Avoid sycophants. Asking candidates during the interview process to criticize the company or the interviewer → the goal is to avoid sycophants afraid of giving critical feedback.
Expedite the inevitable. Small problems tend to manifest and take up more mindshare than they should if you sit on them and delay action.
Creativity, authenticity, and memes (?). There is so much AI slop on the internet these days, you need to be more creative and thoughtful than ever to stand out (marketing, cold outreach, sales, etc.).
Free tools. Came up over and over again. If used correctly they are a super effective strategy to generate demand and customer leads.
Ditto with downloadable templates (i.e. lead magnets). There are some really clever strategies to leverage these and qualify your leads.
ICP ICP ICP. Almost every founder at one point spent far too much time and effort chasing revenue outside their ICP, which led to more problems and distractions than upside.
The words you speak matter. Write down your goals, communicate them repeatedly to the team, and speak things into existence. I’ve been saying beehiiv will become a multi-billion dollar company (as a fact) before we had $1,000 in revenue. Other founders have confidently communicated the same to their teams.
Negativity compounds. Related to the point above, be cautious of how you and others on the team speak to each other. Manifest positivity and solutions.
The pendulum always swings from abundance to curation.
- Dot-com era: website abundance → trusted voices and sources
- Social media era: content abundance → creator economy
- AI era: generated content → human authenticity
Trust the process. Focus on the inputs and the rest will take care of itself.
Close mouths don’t get fed. YouTube and web thumbnails that show someone with their mouth open have shown to have higher CTRs.
Build with modularity. You want to avoid platform dependence and be versatile enough to be able to swap vendors and models.
Automated workflows. I’m still blown away by how many founders and teams have an entire suite of automations firing for each customer interaction to optimize every part of the funnel. I need to step it up.
Compliance as an advantage. You may be losing enterprise opportunities before they are even on your radar if you aren’t compliant with the right certifications. SOC2, ISO, etc. are all requirements for massive corporations and these leads may not even reach your sales team.
Play the long game. Far too many people engage in transactional relationships. Look to provide value without expecting anything in return.
Overlapping values, complimentary skillsets. You want your cofounders and early team to share the same values or nothing else matters.
90 days at a time. Aim for big ambitious milestones, but break them up into 90 day sprints that are more digestible and easier to communicate.
Time spent on the customer. As you grow and people and problems compound, more time is taken away from solving customer problems and spent towards solving other problems. Be conscious of that and shift back towards prioritizing what actually matters.
Fire fast. A classic startup adage but every single founder identified an underperforming employee, sat on it way too long, and ended up firing them later anyway after delaying the inevitable.
Managing early employees is difficult. They have a (somewhat justified) sense of entitlement and scaling the team around them can cause issues down the line.
Grok is best for communication. The founders who were the deepest in AI all claimed that Grok nailed humor and authenticity the best and was the best model for creating copy and content.
Centralize your data and make it accessible. A lot of founders initially had data stored in all sorts of disparate systems which led to misinformed decisions. Unify your data and make it useful and accessible to the team.
Niche, niche, niche. There are so many benefits to identifying your niche and nailing it. There are always opportunities for expansion later.
Working weekends. I spend a lot of my week on the defense: in meetings, responding to people, solving problems, etc. Everyone agreed the best work gets done on the weekends. The best founders build while others rest.
No one knows anything, trust your own instincts. VCs told founders a year ago that they needed to build their own models to have a chance, now VCs have done a 180 and agree models are commoditized. Don’t look at others for conviction.
Create your own luck. The most successful people have a bias for action, put themselves in the right situations, and make things happen. Don’t wait around for your big break.
Personal touches at scale. Personalized DMs, handwritten notes, sending merch, and going the extra mile to acknowledge users and employees. It makes a difference.
Excellence is the standard. All the founders sweat the little things and hold their employees to the same standard. Things like typos in emails or taking too long to respond to customers aren’t acceptable → how you do one thing is how you do everything.
Urgency. The market doesn’t care about work life balance. Your customers don’t care about your company’s vacation policy. They just want solutions, and if you aren’t going to serve them and improve your product… someone else will.

That’s it for now — I’ll be super busy implementing a handful of new things at beehiiv over the next few weeks.

By the way, I’ll be hosting the next mastermind in late July. Drop a reply if you’re interested ✌️.

If you enjoyed this post or know someone who may find it useful, please share it with them and encourage them to subscribe: mail.bigdeskenergy.com/p/cheat-codes

Credit: Some IG account I forgot

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Some of my favorite content I found on the internet this week…

Ravi Gupta joined Invest Like The Best to discuss his blog post AI or Die (Colossus)
The surprising patterns behind viral AI products (Growth Unhinged)