How to Spark Growth Through the Power of Candor & Customer Focus

Author

Benjamin Friedman
June 10, 2025

Morning beehiivcommunity!

This newsletter turns experience into lessons you can apply to your startup. As a growth partner for visionary founders, we help sharpen leadership skills and unlock growth potential.

Candor Isn't Just Nice—It's a Business Imperative

“Candor is the key to collaborating effectively. Lack of candor leads to dysfunctional environments.” – Edwin Catmull

While it may be a personal goal, candor also brings real business value. Through honest, clear communication, we can become better leaders and encourage growth.

Furthermore, candor builds strong relationships. Without it, stakeholders and customers will quickly spot the disconnect between words and actions. In companies, candor creates an environment of trust, creativity, and motivation—all of which drive excellence.

This post begins with two personal examples that explain how candor improves efficiency, performance, and the giving and receiving of feedback. It also explores candor from an introvert's perspective.

Withum: Advisory, Tax, and Audit Services [Partner]

Withum is a forward-thinking, technology-driven advisory and accounting firm committed to helping our clients be more profitable, efficient, and productive in today's complex business environment.

We provide the industry expertise and innovative solutions you need to Be in a Position of StrengthSM. Get to know us at www.withum.com.

Withum is sponsoring our upcoming event, The CEO-CFO Alliance: Growth, Challenge, and Collaboration, on June 17, 6–8 PM, in NYC's Flatiron District.

Expert Tips for Startups
Quick, valuable insights from accomplished founders

From Vision to Validation: Big Missions Start With One Real Human

After a decade of building startups, one lesson stands above all:

Before you help millions, solve a meaningful problem for one person.

Many founders have inspiring ideas, polished pitch decks, and grand visions, but when asked, "Whose life have you changed?" they can't name a single person by name. 

"Start With One" offers a straightforward yet powerful framework that has become the foundation of how I teach entrepreneurship and guide early-stage teams toward meaningful feedback.

Daniel Ahmadizadeh leads Growth at Crustdata, powering 200+ AI agentic platforms with people and company data. Daniel has led two Y Combinator-backed startups, teaches entrepreneurship at Columbia and Stanford, and mentored hundreds of founders.

Startup Lean Coffee

​Since 2019, Startup Lean Coffee has grown into a vibrant community of nearly 1,000 founders, employees, experts, advisors, and investors.

We help each other grow through sharing startup experiences, challenges, and opportunities. Following the Lean Coffee format, our dynamic meetings let participants vote on discussion topics to create the agenda.

Our conversations span fundraising, social equity, the solopreneur vs. co-founder journey, business development, outsourcing, and much more. These gatherings offer invaluable opportunities to connect, brainstorm, network, and collaborate.

You can follow Startup Lean Coffee and join a future event HERE.

How We Can Help

Over 90% of startups fail. Build Scale Grow helps founders beat these odds by efficiently scaling businesses and aligning vision, resources, and efforts.

We partner with founders to build and manage teams, systems, and functions, such as Customer Success and Revenue Operations, that drive rapid growth.

Book a free 30-minute call HERE to see how we can help.