The library · 24 frameworks
Mental models for founders
24 decision-making frameworks, organized into 6 goals so you can browse by the problem in front of you. Free, plain-English explainers and printable double-sided worksheets. No hype, no signup.
Take the assessment →Decide under uncertainty
5 modelsMake the call when you don't have all the information yet.
Bias for Action
Amazon Leadership Principles, rooted in military doctrine
Bias for Action means defaulting to motion on 70% information instead of waiting for 90%.
Use when When you catch yourself researching instead of testing.
Worksheet →OODA Loop
Colonel John Boyd, U.S. Air Force strategist
The OODA Loop - Observe, Orient, Decide, Act - is a rapid decision cycle that helps founders outpace competitors by moving faster, not blinder.
Use when When speed is your advantage but you notice yourself acting without observing.
Worksheet →Pre-Mortem
Gary Klein, cognitive psychologist
A Pre-Mortem makes you assume your launch already failed, then work backward to find the blind spots confidence hides.
Use when Before committing resources to a plan you feel confident about.
Worksheet →Regret Minimization Framework
Jeff Bezos
The Regret Minimization Framework helps founders break decision ties by projecting to age 80 and choosing the path they would regret skipping.
Use when When analysis has produced two equally valid options and you're stuck choosing.
Worksheet →Second-Order Thinking
Howard Marks, The Most Important Thing (2011)
Second-Order Thinking pushes past the obvious move to its downstream consequences.
Use when When a decision looks obviously correct.
Worksheet →Reason from first principles
3 modelsBreak a problem down to what's actually true, then rebuild from there.
First Principles Thinking
Aristotle, popularized by Elon Musk
First Principles Thinking strips a problem down to its foundational truths and rebuilds from scratch.
Use when When inherited processes feel heavy but nobody questions them.
Worksheet →Inversion
Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, popularized by Charlie Munger
Inversion flips your hardest founder problems.
Use when When you're stuck optimizing a plan and can't see the path forward.
Worksheet →Steel Manning
Philosophy and rhetoric tradition
Steel Manning means building the strongest version of the other side's case before you respond.
Use when When you feel certain you're right and the other person is wrong.
Worksheet →Prioritize and focus your time
4 modelsDecide what to work on, and what to ignore.
Eisenhower Matrix
Dwight D. Eisenhower, formalized by Stephen Covey
The Eisenhower Matrix sorts work by urgent vs important so founders stop fighting fires and start building the work that drives future revenue.
Use when When your day is full of fires and you feel busy but not productive.
Worksheet →Pareto Principle
Vilfredo Pareto, observed 1896; popularized by Joseph Juran
The Pareto Principle says 80% of outcomes come from 20% of inputs.
Use when When your task list has forty items and you feel paralyzed.
Worksheet →Rocks, Pebbles, Sand
Stephen Covey, First Things First (1994)
Rocks, Pebbles, Sand helps founders schedule the big work first so small requests never crowd it out.
Use when When you're saying yes to every request because each one seems small.
Worksheet →Timeboxing
Agile methodology, formalized by James Martin (RAD, 1991)
Timeboxing means giving a task a fixed block of time and shipping whatever exists at the buzzer.
Use when When you notice yourself refining something past the point of meaningful return.
Worksheet →Build the right thing
3 modelsAim at the outcome before you write a line of code.
Minimum Viable Product
Eric Ries, The Lean Startup (2011)
A Minimum Viable Product is the smallest version that delivers value and generates learning.
Use when When you've been polishing for weeks and nobody outside your team has touched the product.
Worksheet →Wardley Mapping
Simon Wardley (2005)
Wardley Mapping plots your value chain by evolution stage so you know what to build, buy, or outsource - and where real advantage actually lives.
Use when When you need to decide what to build vs.
Worksheet →Working Backwards
Amazon, popularized by Jeff Bezos
Working Backwards is Amazon's method for starting from the customer outcome and reverse-engineering the build.
Use when When you have ten ideas competing for attention and none are shipping.
Worksheet →Think in systems
4 modelsSpot the bottlenecks, leverage points, and loops others miss.
Comparative Advantage
David Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy (1817)
Comparative Advantage shows founders why to do what you're relatively best at and delegate the rest, even tasks you'd do better, so total output rises.
Use when When you're doing everything yourself because you can do it all well.
Worksheet →Flywheel Effect
Jim Collins, Good to Great (2001)
The Flywheel Effect explains how consistent effort compounds into self-reinforcing momentum.
Use when When you're tempted to chase a new channel because the current one feels slow.
Worksheet →Leverage Points
Donella Meadows, Thinking in Systems (1999)
Leverage Points are the spots in a system where a small change cascades into outsized results.
Use when When you want maximum impact with minimum coordination.
Worksheet →Theory of Constraints
Eliyahu Goldratt, The Goal (1984)
Theory of Constraints says every system has one bottleneck that caps output.
Use when When progress feels slow despite effort everywhere.
Worksheet →Lead and influence people
5 modelsGet the best from your cofounders, your team, and your customers.
Delegation Poker
Jurgen Appelo, Management 3.0 (2011)
Delegation Poker is a 7-level scale from Tell to Delegate that makes handoffs explicit, so you stop pulling work back.
Use when When you want to delegate but keep pulling work back because the result isn't what you expected.
Worksheet →Dunbar's Number
Robin Dunbar, anthropologist (1992)
Dunbar's Number says you can hold about 150 stable relationships, with tighter circles of 5, 15, and 50.
Use when When you feel stretched thin across too many relationships and guilty about dropping any.
Worksheet →Radical Candor
Kim Scott, Radical Candor (2017)
Radical Candor means caring personally and challenging directly at once.
Use when When someone on your team is underperforming and you're avoiding the conversation because you don't want to hurt them.
Worksheet →Reciprocity
Robert Cialdini, Influence (1984)
Reciprocity is the mental model behind giving before you ask.
Use when When you want something from someone and your instinct is to ask directly.
Worksheet →Sandler Pain Funnel
David Sandler, Sandler Selling System (1967)
The Sandler Pain Funnel is a sequence of questions that moves a prospect from a surface problem to the felt cost of inaction.
Use when When a prospect says they have a problem but shows no urgency.
Worksheet →Where to start
Find which models fit how you operate.
24 frameworks is too many to apply at once. Take the free Reckon assessment to find your founder archetype and the handful built for how you actually decide.
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