🔥When You Don't Know What You Want. (Entrepreneurial Entropy)

Most entrepreneurs (and people) don't know what they want.

This indecisiveness not only reflects their minds but also their business.

You might have encountered this: (from any position you are or have been)

The moment the boss leaves the business, people stop working and start gossiping.

Employees talk behind their bosses' backs, deepening the disrespect and creating tension inside the business environment, which leads to a weakening of the company's mission & vision.

The entrepreneur slowly loses authority over his employees.

The business stops running, resulting in a company's entropic state and stress for the founder, which in turn leads to psychological entropy in his mind, scattering the company even more.

(That's why you see so many angry, resentful and asshole bosses.)

In entrepreneurship, a business left unmanaged drifts toward complexity, unclear priorities, lost focus, and operational clutter.

All this occurs not through the business, but through the person who presents the company: The Founder.

The bigger and faster a business grows, the stronger the pull toward entropy becomes—unless the founder actively fights it with systems, clarity, and feedback loops.

This happened at Xanevo (my past startup) as well. We grew from a 2-person freelance business to a team of 9 people in just 8 months.

On paper or LinkedIn, it always looks good to have a team of 9 people, but this comes at a high cost, either financially, in terms of time investment, or in terms of mission & vision.

The more people you hire, the more management costs you incur, which in turn lowers business profit margins and creates more company entropy.

You not only need to pay employees monthly and reliably to ensure security, but you also need to invest emotional labour and resources.

A founder's mind and business can quickly become entropic, leading to:

1) Information Entropy:

Unclear communication, scattered ideas, and conflicting narratives lead to confusion within teams, customers, and/or the founder’s own mind.

2) Operational Entropy:

Inefficient processes, overlapping tools, duplicated work, and a lack of standardization create friction and wasted energy.

3) Strategic Entropy:

Shiny object syndrome, lack of focus, or too many competing initiatives dilute the business’s core direction.

4) Emotional / Cognitive Entropy:

Founder burnout, decision fatigue, and loss of clarity weaken the capacity to lead with conviction.

Before going deeper into the four entropic states:

Many of you might not be there yet, and I am currently not managing a team either, but the following information is not a mistake that happens with a team; it is the entrepreneur's problem itself, the connection to himself and his inner world. This leads to entrepreneurial entropy, which affects his business, whether it has employees or not.

You don't even need to be an entrepreneur.

Most people suffer from entropy.

1) Information Entropy. (Knowledge Management)

In this term, it starts at the founder, the highest on the "pyramid" of the company hierarchy (smaller companies), and then the information is provided down.

Do you know the term "telephone game" (in German we call it: "Stille Post" or "Flüster Post"), where one person whispers a sentence in another person's ear, until arriving at the end of the line?

In most cases, the last person receiving it has a completely distorted version of the original sentence.

It is similarly with information across companies, businesses, families, social groups, etc.

I call it Information Entropy, in this context, related to entrepreneurial entropy.

There are four reasons for this:

1. Either the founder has no idea what he wants, which is the case in most businesses. (Entrepreneurial Entropy)
2. He is unable to communicate effectively, which is a result of entrepreneurial entropy or a lack of skill.
3. The company's communication system is not effective enough or has "holes" in it.
4. The employees create a distorted version of it, even though it was correctly communicated, where the problem results from the incompetence of the employees.

All four issues are related to the founder, and the last one is because he hired the person.

To fix this problem, most people would probably discuss it with their employees or explain it to them. But in many cases, it's hard to explain it to others, even to oneself. Most people tend to make the same mistakes repeatedly throughout their lives.

A practical method I've encountered for helping not only the founder but also the entire team is building a second-brain business system.

The Founder needs a Knowledge Management system.

A second brain, that stores all his information and knowledge, and from there on creates a second brain business system across the entire company hierarchy. "A single source of truth" encompasses a unified vision & mission, as well as a guide to explain the company structure, branding (The Mind Universe Concept), and tonality (Grammarly can help).

From there on, you can also search for and look up any word, piece of information, or keyword organized in folders and tags. Sure, this needs to be created before (Chaos To Clarity Concept), but it would help the employees greatly.

2) Operational Entropy.

Most people are unproductive, not only with their work, but also with their lives.

A chaotic space often shows a disorganized mind.

If the entrepreneur has problems at home with their wives or kids, this is going to reflect on their work.

Also, "operational" processes at home can reflect operational processes at work. If you were to change the position of your toothbrush and toothpaste in your kitchen because the bathroom was blocked the day before, your mind would need to make an extra effort to think about it.

Similar to operational processes, switching between multiple tools can be challenging for your employees, as it creates more complexity in their minds and increases the overall operational workload, ultimately leading to more entropy.

The most important thing here is to keep it lean and use as few tools as possible.

In my experience with my past startup, we had so many different tools and processes between various work groups that it was hard to maintain a clear overview. We were just starting, and had software licensing costing us multiple thousands of euros per month, just to continue our work.

Over time, shifting your focus from the business to learning and managing these tools can lead to lost time and resources, hindering efforts to acquire new customers or drive product improvements.

Most of the heavy load should be automated and systematized so the team or the founder can focus on the work that actually matters.

Consider how many people switch between various apps and tools on their phone, and then think about how this behaviour translates to the desktop.

• Three project management tools (Asana, Notion, Trello)
• Four chat apps (Slack, Teams, WhatsApp, Email)
• Social media (YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, "Email")

Then there are differences between personal and work-related tools, where the mind again needs to change and adapt.

To get to a point and give you practical advice after 5 years in business, from a bigger team to a one-person business:

Use the same tools from your private life for work.

You can't learn and use Notion at home and use Click-Up at work. (tool we used in our startup)

These minor frictions destroy flow and slowly drag you towards an entropic mind.

Choose a straightforward tool that you consistently use in your daily life, and apply the same system to your work. Or, if you are employed, consider using the tools your work provides, which can also save you money at home.

Here are the tools I use now, and I am FAR more productive compared to being a startup founder:

1. Kortex, my second brain, where I store and organize everything
2. Readwise Reader is a tool for collecting knowledge that connects to Kortex.
3. Grammarly, to correct my grammar and writing
4. iCloud to store all of my files online. (currently 6TB)
5. Notion, for project management. (Mainly YouTube)
6. Milanote for quick visualization (super simple)
7. Adobe Creative Cloud, for photoshop, lightroom and premiere pro
8. KIT, for my newsletter and automations
9. Carrd for landing pages
10. ChatGPT (sure)

I use these tools daily.

I know this looks like a lot. If you want to start with a leaner version for you and your business, I would recommend this, in this order:

1. Kortex (as writing, knowledge management, etc.)
2. Readwise Reader as a book, article or email reader. (video with text works as well)
3. Grammarly is a tool that helps you write correctly.
4. KIT for running your newsletter and gathering email addresses. (also have Stripe integrated)
5. ChatGPT (free version often enough or use kAI in Kortex)

You only need to pay for Readwise Reader or Grammarly if you are starting; everything else is free for the beginning.

3) Strategic Entropy.

A problem that many businesses, entrepreneurs, and people wanting to start a business are facing.

They start with one idea.

A month later, another idea.

Another idea, and so on.

They never stick long enough to see real results.

Many people study for 4 years or even longer, don't earn any money during this time, and wonder why their business isn't running smoothly after a few months.

There is a good example from my current business (not my startup). For example, my YouTube channel hasn't grown much lately because I've been "shifting" niches.

Once I talk about ADHD, then I talk about software and second brains and later about Bali and lifestyle.

This would work as a personal brand, but not at the beginning of any business.

You start with one key focus, and later it becomes wider and expands. Your product becomes well known for solving a significant problem until it reaches a point where growth is necessary to scale, whether in terms of reach or income.

The biggest issue I've faced, and still do to some extent, is niching down in the beginning. I'm not someone who focuses on just one thing, because nothing in this world is disconnected from a bigger whole.

Every little cell, atom or microbe is connected to something.

The entire universe is an ecosystem, perfectly created.

But you need to start small, "niche down" to go broad after.

• When starting or improving your business, think what is the one problem you want to solve.
• What is the current key mission?
• What do you want to be known for?

I don't want to be known as the guy with ADHD, like many people have ADHD.

I prefer chaos to clarity.

Pick one key pain point you want to solve, one big anchor point, and then build a world around it.

Next on my YouTube, I'll focus on taking the topic of chaos to clarity, and I won't do anything else until I achieve my next goal.

4) Emotional Entropy.

It is your mind slowly declining due to stress, anxiety, or boredom. Both lead to emotional entropy. This is extremely common around the world right now and the most significant threat currently, because we now have the biggest mental health crisis.

Most people nowadays:

• Don't know what they want.
• Don't know where to go.
• And a few don't even know to which gender they belong…

The thing is, your mind is finite; each choice depletes willpower and focus. This is "Baumeister's ego-depletion model".

An example is how many microdecisions most people are making daily, reducing our cognitive load, and creating decision fatigue:

Decision Fatigue: Making many decisions in a row leads to worse decisions over time, e.g., judges granting parole less often later in the day (Danziger et al., 2011).

The model is not yet proven or universally accepted, but the concept of decision fatigue is present.

Most things in psychology are, anyway, mental concepts, which try to explain people's own minds and consciousness. The mind is bound to its own beliefs. If you think you have ADHD, depression or mental health issues, etc., you have it or the symptoms become stronger. Yes, there are cognitive differences, but is that not how free will works? Is this not the beauty that every human is different? Is this not how nature looks as well?

An endless variety of different and multi-dimensional paths.

Takeaways for emotional entropy:

• Active rest and recovery can restore focus and willpower.
• Structuring environments to minimize temptations reduces self-control demands.
• Building habits automates behaviour, conserving mental energy.

Most problems are solved in the subconscious when the creative mechanism is triggered. However, most people, particularly entrepreneurs, rarely take time to rest or engage in active mental wandering. They are always "busy," but this very "busyness" diminishes cognitive performance and fails to activate the creative mechanism, ultimately leading to emotional entropy.

Consider shower thoughts; most people likely get their best ideas in the shower, as their minds are detached from the problem, allowing the creative mechanism to kick in and lead to breakthrough ideas.

1. Think about the problem, read about the problem and write about the problem.
2. Then you detach entirely from it, go on a walk, take a shower, and go for a run. Do something active with your body, so your mind can wander.
3. Your creative mechanism (Book: Psycho-Cybernetics) is activating, and is going to solve the problem in the subconscious, giving you the "Jimmy Neutron Effect": The lightning spark of an idea. Which is solving your problem, without actively being in front of a desk.

Hope this was helpful, and thank you for reading.

Jeff

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