How Toxic Employees Kill Culture, Chick-fil-A & Leadership | Ep. 24 | Start It or Scrap It Podcast

Start It or Scrap It

Welcome back to Start It or Scrap It! In Episode 24, we get brutally honest about the ugly side of entrepreneurship—how to protect your company culture, avoid early leadership mistakes, and why most startup websites completely miss the mark. Plus, we tackle what a startup CEO should actually be doing every day and how customer service (not product) builds brand loyalty.
Whether you’re pre-MVP or managing a 10-person team, this episode is for the business owners in the trenches.
⏱ Timestamps
00:00 – Intro & Weather banter
01:11 – Amazon Fresh, Chick-fil-A & building intentional culture
06:15 – Why one bad hire will destroy your business
10:16 – $0.26 that built a brand loyalist
13:00 – Customers don’t leave companies, they leave cultures
19:40 – Firing customers vs. protecting your team
23:00 – What should a startup CEO do every single day
26:30 – Selling before MVP: non-negotiables for startup founders
30:00 – PayPal Mafia, the power of networking, and social capital
37:00 – Don’t quit your day job (yet): the real emotional toll of startups
44:00 – Why most first businesses fail (and how it made us better)
54:00 – Revenue hides your bad habits—until it doesn’t
1:00:00 – The AI gold rush & historical cycles of innovation
1:07:00 – Messaging mistakes on startup websites
1:15:00 – Sales is service: why features don’t sell, but problems do
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