INSIGHT
📖 No Story, No Funding – Investors buy into you before your product. Nail the narrative, or risk losing the deal.

🚀 Make Meetings Count, Move the Big Rocks – Stop wasting time. Structure meetings around what actually drives results—and keep the momentum rolling.

💡 Big Impact, Tiny Budget – You don’t need a huge spend to make noise. Creative ideas, smart collabs, and savvy digital moves go a long way.

CHEAT CODE: STUDENT ATHLETES MAKE THE BEST HIRES



Hiring student athletes isn’t just smart—it’s a competitive advantage. Years of balancing demanding athletic schedules with academics means they’ve mastered time management, prioritization, and staying productive under pressure. They thrive in fast-paced environments and know how to get things done.

Beyond their discipline, student athletes are natural leaders and strong team players. Their experience on and off the field teaches them how to communicate clearly, collaborate effectively, and keep teams aligned toward a common goal. They bring energy, accountability, and a team-first mindset to any role.

Perhaps most impressively, student athletes are resilient. They’re used to setbacks, tough losses, and pushing through challenges—and they always bounce back. That grit and perseverance translates directly to the workplace, making them reliable, driven, and inspiring colleagues.

Want more on why we think student athletes are game changers? Follow along on Instagram.

🆘 Access the 49 other cheat codes every entrepreneur needs to know from Shoveling $H!T: A Love Story.

🚜 Have you made a hard pivot? Jump into the Founders Farm and share some stories.

KASS & MIKE'S FOUR FAVORITE FINDS

✨ Self-made billionaire and former Air Force pilot John Calamos says: hustle hard, have a mission—and money will follow.

💡 She earns $1M from Amazon alone—her top side hustle advice: start with a clear profitability plan, not just passion.

🔧 Millennials are buying and selling more businesses than any generation—love business, not just your company is the mindset fueling their entrepreneurial edge.

🔃 This e-commerce founder dodged Trump tariffs by ditching China and mastering the tariff loopholes.

AROUND THE FARM

🚜 The Latest Founders Farm Office Hours Were a Harvest of Insight. Thanks to everyone who joined our most recent Founders Farm session! For those who missed it, here’s an overview of what we discussed.

✅ AI as a Productivity Tool, Not a Replacement – We discussed how founders are leveraging AI to expedite processes (such as RFPs and outbound messaging), while emphasizing the importance of maintaining human connection, creativity, and oversight to ensure authenticity and value.

✅ Human Touch Still Matters – In an increasingly AI-saturated world, small, thoughtful gestures—such as handwritten notes—have been highlighted as ways to stand out and build deeper, lasting relationships in business and beyond.

✅ Build First, Then Scale – Many founders noted the value of starting small—whether with communities, tools, or ideas—and focusing on depth and authenticity before chasing growth.

👨‍🌾 Join the next Founders Farm session  

⏰ Tuesday, August 26th | 12:00–12:45 PM ET  

📍 Click here to add it to your calendar

Got a topic you’d like to discuss?  

Email: info@kassandmike.com

📚 Shoveling $h!t: A Love Story debuted on the New York Times & USA Today bestseller lists! We couldn't have done it without the support of this community—the purchases, the shares, showing up to events, writing reviews and more!

🎤 We sat down with the 1% of the 1% podcast to talk exits, founder mindset, and how to build companies people actually want to buy.

🎤 We joined Forbes for a candid interview on building companies, executing pivots, and more.

🎤 We joined Gary Vaynerchuk on The GaryVee Audio Experience for a raw, unfiltered conversation about the emotional highs and lows of entrepreneurship.

🎤 On Passion Struck, we opened up about the emotional reality of entrepreneurship—loneliness, identity loss, and the power of choosing love through it all.

FINALLY, WANNA GET INVOLVED?

📖 Get bulk copies for your team.

🤯 Share your thoughts on social: #FoundersFarm  

⏩ Forward this dispatch to 3 entrepreneurs who should be getting it!

Thanks for reading. And, never stop shoveling. An entrepreneur who loves to shovel is unstoppable!

Love,  

Kass & Mike