Dan Barker (Founder, Klasma) — 'The books you read and the mentors you learn from help you build the muscles you’ll need to do the right thing before doing the right thing gets hard'

Dan Barker — founder of Klasma, a vacation-home co-ownership startup — describes an inner critic telling him a small startup doesn't warrant this material, then names two decisions from the past week where the book shaped what he did: holding customer outcomes first while balancing early investors with his real estate development team, and pressing his legal counsel on compliance as customer protection.

“Then last week, I found myself thinking about the book as I guided our real estate development team on the importance of keeping customer outcomes #1, even when balancing the interests of early investors. This morning, I thought about it again during a meeting with legal counsel as I shared my view on how important compliance is to protecting customers in the work we do. For anyone starting to build something new, your inner critic will often tell you things that aren’t true. The books you read and the mentors you learn from help you build the muscles you’ll need to do the right thing before doing the right thing gets hard.” — Dan Barker on LinkedIn