Don’t Be an Idiot Sandwich

Everyone wants to build a unicorn.
The billion-dollar valuation.
The TED Talk.
The “we started in a garage, now we’re IPO’ing” origin story.

But here’s the truth most founders avoid like budgeting software:

You can’t build a unicorn if you can’t even manage a f**king donkey.
And right now? You’re standing in the barn, juggling a half-baked product, three underpaid interns, and a Monday board that looks like abstract art.

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You’ve Got Vision. Cool. But Can You Execute?

Founders love talking big:

“We’re disrupting X with AI.”
“We’ve got early traction, we just need funding.”
“We’re pre-revenue but post-hype.”

Alright, champ — but your onboarding doc is still a Notion template from 2022, and your designer just rage-quit because no one’s tracking feedback.

You’re pitching a utopia, but internally it’s Lord of the Flies.

You don’t have a unicorn.You have a confused donkey with a glitter horn duct-taped to its head.

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Real Talk: Startups That Skipped the Donkey Phase

Let’s talk about WeWork.
Valuation? Insane.
Offices? Everywhere.
Basics? Nowhere.

No real ops structure. No sustainable financial model.
Just charisma, chaos, and kombucha on tap.

The result? One of the fastest falls from grace in startup history.

You can’t scale vibes.
And hype has a shelf life.

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Donkey Management Checklist

Before you chase scale, get your foundations locked down:

• Clear roles & responsibilities
  
• Repeatable delivery processes
  
• Strong client comms
  
• Basic project hygiene (scope, timelines, status tracking)
  
• Actual accountability (not just Slack messages and “I thought you had it”)
  
  

If these aren’t nailed, what exactly are you scaling?
Confusion? Burnout? Refund requests?

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The Idiot Sandwich Moment

You’re not failing because you’re not visionary.
You’re failing because your day-to-day is chaos.

And that’s when you need to channel Gordon Ramsay:

“What are you?”
“An idiot sandwich.”

That’s the wake-up call. That’s the mirror check.
Because unicorns aren’t declared — they’re built.

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Unicorns Are Earned, Not Manifested

The fastest-growing companies got good at boring stuff:

• Clean systems
  
• Relentless quality
  
• Small wins, stacked daily
  
• Teams that actually function
  
  

You can raise all the money in the world, but if you can’t deliver on a basic retainer without stress tears and six delays?

You’ve got a donkey problem.

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Final Thought

Stop dressing chaos up in vision.
Don’t scale broken things.
Don’t be an idiot sandwich.

Master the donkey.
Then — and only then — earn your horn.