Today’s Loose Ends is about building for the long run: choosing calm over chaos, being willing to break your own best ideas, and making decisions that feel boring now but powerful later. Less hype, more durability. Quiet advantages compound fastest.

There’s a subtle shift happening in how founders define success.

A few years ago, intensity was the signal. Long hours, constant urgency, public hustle. If it didn’t look exhausting, it didn’t look serious.

That signal is fading.

More founders are now optimising for calm — not as a lifestyle perk, but as an operating advantage.

Calm founders:

This isn’t about working less. It’s about reducing cognitive noise.

The startup environment is louder than ever: more tools, more metrics, more advice, more “must-do” tactics. The cost isn’t time — it’s judgment erosion.

Calm becomes a moat.

Founders who protect attention outperform founders who chase momentum. Not because they’re smarter, but because they’re less distracted.

You can see it in the product layer too. The tools winning now don’t demand daily engagement. They reduce check-ins, automate decisions, and disappear when functioning correctly.

Chaos feels productive. Calm compounds.

In volatile markets, clarity beats speed.
And clarity usually shows up after you stop reacting.

The edge in 2026 may not be moving faster.

It may be moving less — but better.

Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, was willing to hurt short-term sales to protect long-term trust. He famously encouraged customers to buy less—even when it directly impacted revenue.

🌱 Chouinard’s core belief:
A business that sacrifices its values for growth eventually loses both.

⚠️ Why this is uncomfortable for founders:

🧠 What this looks like in practice:

🛠️ Try this:
Ask: What decision would build the most trust, even if it costs me today? That answer is often the right one.

In a tangled startup, Chouinard’s lesson is rare but powerful: long-term integrity is a competitive advantage.

(Insight inspired by Yvon Chouinard)

A snap-on physical keyboard case built for people who miss typing properly on their phone. The Clicks Keyboard adds a BlackBerry-style keyboard to modern iPhones—freeing up screen space and bringing back tactile typing.

Wildly niche. Slightly retro. But for writers, founders, and email-heavy users, it turns a phone back into a serious input device instead of a compromise.

Your weekly haul of tools, links, and discoveries worth stealing.

That’s All Folks

Before you go:

Until next time,

Connor / Loose Ends