The Second Climb
Thoughts on What It Takes to Build a Company That Lasts
Yesterday, my son and I climbed the Manitou Incline. Twice.
The first climb is what you would expect; it was hard, steep, and a little humbling. If you’re not familiar with the Manitou Incline in Colorado, it starts at around 6,500 feet and finishes above 8,500, you gain over 2,000 vertical feet in less than a mile; though mercifully short, it’s relentless. My legs started to burn early in the climb, my heart rate and breathing accelerated faster than I expected. And somewhere before the finish, I started negotiating with myself about whether I really needed to get to the top.
It helped that my son provided the encouragement to keep moving.
By the time we reached the top, the question wasn’t whether we could do it. It was whether we could do it again like we had planned.
The second climb was a lot different. It wasn’t easier, exactly, but it was surprisingly less daunting.
I already knew where it would get steep. I had a better idea of how to pace it. And I knew, with certainty, that I can finish because I had done it before.
That second climb took a different thought process. I stopped focusing on getting to the top once and started thinking about what it would take to do it again.
That same shift in approach shows up in how companies are built. There’s a difference between companies optimized for short-term growth and keeping investors happy verses those designed for long-term impact.
On the surface, they can look the same. Strong early traction, coupled with a compelling narrative and some excitement turns into momentum. But if you look a bit deeper, companies built for the short term are built very differently. The former is optimized to get to the top once, but the latter is built to keep climbing.
The Challenge of Growth
In the early stages of many companies, speed drives almost everything including fundraising, hiring, sales, and product development.
Leaders make most of the decisions. Everyone is involved in the day-to-day execution. Goals and metrics change frequently. For a while, this works pretty well.
But that approach doesn’t scale well. Eventually, the shortcuts slow things down. Decision-making is cumbersome. Teams become dependent on leaders to make decisions instead of being empowered. What used to feel like momentum starts to feel like chaos.
It’s easy to think of this stage as a strategy problem. But it’s really a leadership problem.
What Leaders Should Think About
Building something that lasts isn’t just about the product idea or sales. It’s mainly about the systems and culture that we’re building it on.
Here are the things that I think about:
Balance and Energy. Short-term growth rewards intensity. Long-term impact requires sustainability at both the founder and team level. When leaders get pulled too far into execution, energy declines and decision quality follows. Understanding where we operate best, what I think of as Red vs. Blue work, becomes critical as does your balance with health and relationships.
Repeatability. It’s not just about reaching the top. It’s about being able to do it again without breaking the system or the people doing the work.
Alignment. Stay tightly aligned on vision, strategy, and mission. As the team grows, shift ownership of metrics, tasks, and methods to capable team members. Over-aligning execution creates dependency. Under-aligning direction creates confusion.
Design. Culture, systems, and hiring strategy aren’t side considerations; they are the company. Early shortcuts in how decisions get made and work gets done don’t stay temporary, they scale.
Balance and Energy
Another lens that becomes critical over time is how leaders manage their energy and model that for the organization.
There are two key aspects of energy management; the first is the kind of work that we do that I think of as Red vs. Blue work and the second is how balanced we are with the rest of our lives. .
Red work drains energy and is work we avoid, don’t enjoy and are likely not good at doing. Blue work creates energy and is where we operate at our best and create the most value. Early on, leaders do both. But over time, spending too much time in Red work creates drag on energy, decision quality, and the team.
Balance is somewhat related. As companies grow, leaders tend to accumulate more decisions, more responsibility, and more involvement. And over time, that accumulation pulls them out of balance. Not all at once, but gradually.
And being out of balance shows up in the places that matter most: physical health, mental health and relationships.
Leaders who sustain impact over time are intentional about both their Red vs. Blue and their Balance.
Repeatability
The first climb proves you can do it. Repeatability is about whether you can do it again.
On the Manitou Incline, the second climb isn’t about pushing harder. It’s about pacing, rhythm, and knowing where things tend to break. The same is true in building a company.
Early success often comes from effort, founders doing more, teams stretching, decisions happening quickly. And for a while, that works. But effort doesn’t scale.
Repeatability comes from building systems, teams, and ways of operating that can produce results consistently, without relying on intensity or heroics.
A simple way to test this: Could we do this again, with the same quality, without burning out the team or rebuilding everything from scratch?
If the answer is no, the system isn’t ready yet.
Alignment
One of the most useful ways to structure alignment is through what I think of as the Alignment Stack:
Vision → Strategy → Mission → Values → Metrics → Tasks → Methods
At the top are the elements that define direction and how decisions get made. At the bottom are the elements that define execution.
Early on, leaders operate across the entire stack and that’s fine; that’s part of what creates the initial momentum. But over time, leaders staying involved at every level becomes a significant constraint.
Impactful leaders should ensure Vision, Strategy, Mission and Values are aligned and well communicated across the organization to ensure that its running effectively then hire and empower the team who can establish Metrics, define Tasks and operationalize Methods to keep the company running efficiently.
Values matter here more than they first appear. They’re what guide decisions when there isn’t time to ask. They’re what create consistency across teams. And they’re what allow leaders to step back without losing alignment.
Design
Every company is designed, intentionally or not.
Early on, speed drives decisions. Shortcuts get taken. Founders stay close to everything. And for a while, it works. But those early choices don’t stay temporary. They become the systems, habits, and expectations that define how the company operates.
Design, whether intentional or not shows up in a few places:
How decisions get made.
How work flows through the organization.
How overloaded the team is
Who gets hired and what they’re expected to own.
If those aren’t intentional, the company is not very efficient. Decisions flow upward, work slows down and leaders get pulled into things they shouldn’t be doing.
Companies that last treat design as a priority by building systems that scale, hiring for ownership as well as execution, and the invest in a culture that can operate without constant intervention.
Where Leaders Add Value
As companies grow, the role of the leader changes. Early on, value comes from making decisions, solving problems, staying close to everything that’s happening. But over time, that approach becomes the constraint.
The leaders who build companies that last shift where they add value.
They create clarity at the top of the stack and resist the temptation to manage the bottom. They build teams that are capable and empowered so that progress doesn’t depend on the leader. And they protect their energy and the energy of the team so they can keep operating at the level that matters most.
It’s a different kind of work. Less visible but far more impactful over time.
On the second climb, you don’t approach it the same way. You pace differently, you pay attention to your energy and you adjust as needed.
It’s not about proving you can get to the top. It’s about building a way of operating that allows you to do it again.