Nate helps brands create value and durability.
Nate Schmiedehaus is an entrepreneur and strategic systems thinker who helps startups, like Thursday Boots and BuzzFeed, and sometimes Fortune 500 companies including GE and Starbucks, understand their businesses, markets, products, and employees better, borrowing tools from the sciences, history, math, and philosophy. He helps leaders answer questions like, "How would Buffett go about vetting this project?" and "How would Von Neumann or Darwin build a more durable product or transformative team?"". He runs, plays MIDI piano (like the one below), and takes photos. He previously created Homesick Candles. Based in Austin, TX with Murp.
From The Blog
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The Profit Problem: A Better Long-Term Mental Model
I: Introduction Any classically trained business school student who has survived one semester of finance liturgy can complete the analytical catechism: “Two companies with identical financial histories — same revenues, margins, CAC, inventory returns, debt ratios, growth rates, the whole dog and pony show — will look [______] in ten years.” (The answer is: “The […]Read article → -
Some Great Business Ideas Nobody Should Use
I have 1,841 notes in my iPhone, dating back to my freshman year of high school, when the iPhone was introduced. About 95% are incomprehensible nothings related to what I was doing that week and about 5% are business ideas, some bad (shoes so comfortable The Dude would wear them), some good, some good but […]Read article → -
The Right Way to Think About Startups, or Why I Turned Down a Co-Founder Position
I. The Unexpected Proposition A tiny career miracle happened recently—not the sort that arrives with celestial trumpets and angelic choirs, but the kind that sneaks into your professional life with the casual nonchalance of finding twenty dollars in last winter’s coat pocket, simultaneously delivering financial relief and questions about your organizational competence. A few days […]Read article →