Founder's Framework

Tune in to hear Ninety founder, Mark Abbott, talk with other company leaders and entrepreneurs about key business-building frameworks and concepts. You'll learn strategies for overcoming obstacles, making informed decisions, and reaching your ambitious goals.

Founder's Framework is a business podcast hosted by Ninety.io, with 65 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Ninety.io hosts Founder's Framework, a business show with 65 episodes published.

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  Episode #65

  Caring Takes Real Courage — feat. Marcel Schwantes (EP. 65)

  Sep 21, 20261h 9m

  Marcel Schwantes learned what bad leadership costs the hard way: a command-and-control workplace left him collapsed on his bathroom floor, paralyzed from the waist down, and facing six months of recovery. The servant leader he worked for next became the model for everything that followed, from his coaching practice to his Inc. column and his podcast. Mark Abbott and Marcel dig into what Mark calls high care versus high performance, and Marcel makes the case that one actually produces the other when caring leaders set clear expectations and hold people accountable. They get into the country club leader who can't deliver results, why caring leaders need the courage to have hard conversations early, and the CEO who answered damning exit interview data by demanding the names of everyone who left. Mark shares why he prefers psychological courage to psychological safety, and how Ninety's "succeed or escalate" principle keeps problems from sinking the ship. They close on what love actually means at work: patience, kindness, humility, advocacy, and trustworthiness, backed by action that produces results. Key topics Surviving a toxic workplace, and the servant leader who changed Marcel's career High care versus high performance, and why one leads to the other Relationships and results: why the smallest word on Marcel's slide matters most Leadership courage and the hard conversations most managers avoid Why narcissists rise to the top, and how a high care, high performance culture stops them Love in action: patience, kindness, humility, advocacy, and trustworthiness About Marcel Schwantes Marcel Schwantes is a leadership coach, speaker, and writer who spent 20 to 25 years in corporate HR, organizational development, and talent management before starting his own practice in 2013. Inc. Magazine brought him on as a columnist, and in 2018 he launched his podcast, originally called Love in Action and now The Marcel Podcast, which has passed 300 episodes with guests including Ken Blanchard, Amy Edmondson, and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. His work, including his book Humane Leadership, is built on a human-centered model of servant leadership and five principles: patience, kindness, humility, advocacy, and trustworthiness. Follow Marcel on LinkedIn Mentioned in this episode "Humane Leadership: Lead with Radical Love, Be a Kick-Ass Boss" by Marcel Schwantes "Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (And How to Fix It)" by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic "Good to Great" by Jim Collins "Built to Last" by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell W. Edwards Deming's work on management and quality, and Amy Edmondson's research on psychological safety Mark on The Marcel Podcast: How Great Leaders Build Cultures That Scale Connect Mark Abbott on LinkedIn Cole Abbott on LinkedIn Ninety's EOS Newsletter Subscribe for more founder-first conversations every other week. → Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter → Subscribe to Ninety’s EOS Newsletter → Try Ninety free for 30 days !

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  Episode #64

  The Math of Trust — feat. Kris Snyder (EP. 64)

  Aug 14, 20261h 12m

  Ten years in, Mark Abbott sits down with Ninety co-founder Kris Snyder to talk honestly about what they built, what they would do differently, and what still is not solved. They get into why Ninety reached roughly $40M in ARR without a single salesperson, an idea Kris carried over from his first job out of college at McMaster-Carr, and why they eventually conceded that the "we don't sell, we serve" era had to end. Kris walks through the Math of Trust, the three-part model the two of them developed around 2020 that treats character as binary, competency as a score, and connection as a percentage, and shares what happened when a leadership team rated a colleague's character at zero. They also cover the Five Stages of Development, why nearly the entire EOS world is stuck in stage three, and why leadership development almost never happens by osmosis. The most candid stretch is about what they got wrong: going fully remote across 36 states, holding onto fractional leaders long past their usefulness, and the trap of covering for a direct report instead of replacing them. Key topics: * The Math of Trust: character times competency times connection, and why a zero on character ends the equation * Reaching $40M ARR with no sales team, and knowing when that model has run out * The Five Stages of Development, and why most EOS companies are stuck at stage three * Why leadership development rarely happens on its own, and what to do about it * The difference between coaching, mentoring, and judging, and why leaders conflate all three * Going fully remote as the "non-gift" of the pandemic About Kris Snyder: Kris Snyder is a co-founder of Ninety and an EOS implementer who has been building companies since the dot com era. His first job out of college was at McMaster-Carr, the multi-billion dollar, century-old distributor that famously operates without any salespeople, an experience that directly shaped Ninety's early go-to-market approach. He spent 13 years in Entrepreneurs' Organization, including board service running its mentorship program, and he made his first investment in Ninety in December 2019, following it with a six-figure check in the opening weeks of the pandemic. → Follow Kris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krissnyder/ Mentioned in this episode: - "The Creative Act: A Way of Being" by Rick Rubin: https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Act-Way-Being/dp/0593652886 - "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" by Patrick Lencioni: https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756 - "You Can Negotiate Anything" by Herb Cohen, who ran negotiation training at Mark's early bank: https://www.amazon.com/You-Negotiate-Anything-Herb-Cohen/dp/0806541229 - Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Jane Loevinger's stages of ego development, referenced as the intellectual roots of Ninety's Five Stages framework Resources: → Subscribe to Mark's Founder's Framework Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3JiAaXT → Subscribe to Ninety's EOS Newsletter: https://www.ninety.io/impact-moments → Try Ninety free: https://www.ninety.io/?utm_source=you… Connect: → Follow Mark on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/MarkAbbott → Follow Cole on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/ColeAbbott → Follow Kris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krissnyder/ Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction 01:58 - AI as agency, and what Claude changes about hard problems 06:26 - Are we solving complexity, or creating it? 07:58 - Ideas are worthless without someone who owns them 10:22 - Humans are at the edge of creativity 11:02 - Creativity as a process, and Rick Rubin's "The Creative Act" 13:15 - McMaster-Carr and the origin of "we don't sell, we serve" 16:02 - Why Ninety never had incentive plans 20:34 - COVID as a gift, and the EOS Worldwide breakthrough 23:20 - Writing a six-figure check in the first weeks of the pandemic 23:58 - From Maslow to the Five Stages of Development 28:07 - Why most of the EOS world is stuck at stage three 35:25 - Leadership development does not happen by osmosis 37:42 - Finding a mentor, and what mentorship actually requires 41:03 - Coaching versus judging 45:55 - The Math of Trust 53:42 - What a genuinely healthy team looks like 55:24 - The CEO who fired his COO the next day 56:18 - Ego, empathy, and covering for people you should replace 1:01:42 - The "non-gift" of a fully remote team 1:05:28 - Fractional leadership, and holding on too long 1:09:01 - What each of them is most proud of Subscribe for more founder-first conversations every other week. → Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter → Subscribe to Ninety’s EOS Newsletter → Try Ninety free for 30 days !

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  Episode #63

  Family Business, Built to Last — feat. Sara Stern

  Jul 13, 20261h 5m

  Most people meet a family business with a raised eyebrow, assuming nepotism, dysfunction, and the kind of dinner-table drama that makes for good television. Mark Abbott sits down with family business expert Sara Stern to make the opposite case: family businesses are among the most enduring and value-creating institutions on the planet, and the very thing critics mock is often the reason they last. Sara walks through the three-circle model of family, business, and ownership, the underrated role of the "chief emotional officer" who protects a family's traditions, and why holding relatives to the same standard is an act of love rather than favoritism. Mark connects it to his own work on rituals, artifacts, and the long game, including a simple framework for the four kinds of conversations every leader has and why mixing them up is where things break down. It adds up to a wide-ranging talk about culture, leadership, and playing a hundred-year game in a world obsessed with the next quarter. Key topics: Why family businesses endure, and why the stigma gets it backwards The three-circle model and the "chief emotional officer" Rituals, traditions, and artifacts as the real fabric of culture Holding family members to the same standard as everyone else The four types of conversations: coaching, managing, training, and social Playing the long game: 100-year thinking and legacy About Sara Stern: Sara Stern is a family business expert and EOS Implementer who has built her career helping family enterprises thrive. Before becoming an implementer she spent roughly a decade with a family business institute, and she is known in the EOS community as the person who champions family businesses rather than groaning about them. Find her at sarahbstern.com and on LinkedIn . Mentioned in this episode: The Three Circle Model of the Family Business System (Tagiuri & Davis, Harvard, 1978): johndavis.com Elliott Jaques, time span of discretion, from "Requisite Organization": Amazon The Drama Triangle (victim, persecutor, rescuer) and The Empowerment Dynamic (creator, challenger, coach), from "The Power of TED*" by David Emerald: Amazon Radio Flyer (a multi-generational family business example) LVMH and Warren Buffett (durable, enduring-asset examples) Connect: Follow Mark on LinkedIn Follow Sara on LinkedIn Sara's website: sarahbstern.com Subscribe for more founder-first conversations every other week. → Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter → Subscribe to Ninety’s EOS Newsletter → Try Ninety free for 30 days !

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  Episode #61

  Building Ninety: 10 Years Through the Eyes of Our First FTE — feat. Christine Watts

  Jun 12, 20261h 3m

  Ninety almost didn't get to build the software that now runs thousands of companies. Mark Abbott marks the company's 10-year anniversary with Christine Watts, Ninety's first full-time employee, tracing the journey from a $500-a-month marketing budget and two college-age engineers to a platform used by roughly 4,000 organizations. They get honest about the years when every feature and every blog post needed EOS Worldwide's approval, the "beautiful mess" of bringing technology into a world that resisted it, and the ultimatum that pushed Ninety to build its own Plan B. Christine explains how customer experience became the company's north star without anyone ever formally deciding it, why COVID turned into the unexpected tipping point behind nearly 200% growth, and what a decade of constant role changes taught her about ambiguity, humility, and herself. In this episode: The early years: product-market fit inside the EOS implementer community with almost no marketing Building product under EOS Worldwide's approval, and the tension that came with it COVID 2020 as the tipping point that finally proved the product Customer experience as a core value no one ever formally decided on The "Plan B" ultimatum and navigating the license fight without burning bridges What 10 years and constant role changes taught Christine about leadership and ambiguity About Christine Watts: Christine Watts is Ninety's first full-time employee, joining in January 2017. Over nearly a decade she has led marketing, client success, and product, served as chief of staff, and now serves as Ninety's Head of Professional Services. Connect with Christine on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wattschristine/ Mentioned in this episode: "Traction" by Gino Wickman "The Discipline of Market Leaders" by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema Try Ninety free: https://www.ninety.io/ Subscribe for more founder-first conversations every other week. → Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter → Subscribe to Ninety’s EOS Newsletter → Try Ninety free for 30 days !

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  Episode #60

  Why Leadership Is Never Aligned — feat. David Meyer

  May 29, 20261h 1mS0

  <p>Every leadership team thinks they're aligned. David Meyer, founder of Spoke Marketing, has run alignment exercises with over a hundred companies across 17 years, and not once have two leaders written the same answer when asked their company's single most important message. That discovery led David to develop what he calls "thresholds of change": the inflection points where a company's old story stops matching reality, whether driven by new technology, shifting buyer behavior, leadership transitions, or market disruption. In this conversation, Mark and David unpack why alignment breaks down, why emotion (not logic) is the true driver of change, and...

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