Beginning Balance

<p>Following up on Mark's admission that he dreads collaboration, whether it's with peers or employees, Jesse discusses one way the leadership team at YNAB has fostered collaboration. They call it the strategic council...

<p>In today's episode Mark explains what makes the perfect diet coke, and Jesse opens his inbox and reads some comments and questions from Beginning Balance listeners, including tips for improving business leadership...

<p>Jesse kicks off the episode talking about one of his new endeavours, Ultraspeaking, an effort to double down on one of his biggest strengths: public speaking. This leads to a conversation about embracing your...

<p>Mark and Jesse are back after a short break with a discussion about slippery slopes... real and imagined. Jesse delivers an epic rant on the uselessness of economists, while Mark talks about his hesistance applying...

<p>Mark and Jesse discuss their most recent read, Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire by Andrew Wilkinson, a one-time barista and co-founder of Tiny, a holding company that buys and holds businesses for the...

<p>Good gardens require good soil, and good soil takes compost and plenty of time. Jesse shares his experiences composting soil for his garden, and how it applies to business. Like compost, good business ideas take time...

<p>The algorithm has come to rule media, and it is a voracious beast. It consumes as much content as people can create, as often as they can create. The ones who rise to the top seem to be those who create the most...

<p>Jesse shares one of his recent experiments, inspired by a guest on the Art of Manliness podcast. The challenge was to delete the apps on your phone, especially the ones you feel a "pull" from -- a pull to open it and...

<p>On previous epsidoes, Mark and Jesse have discussed the importance of scarcity, and how limitations drive creativity. Mark even goes so far as to argue creativity can't exist without limitations! YNAB, then, is a...

<p>Mark and Jesse discuss YNAB's recent price increase, and the psychology of customers around pricing. You can't make everyone happy, whether you justify the price increase by citing your own increased costs or by...

<p>Mark and Jesse reminisce about the early days of YNAB, and a conversation over lunch in which Mark gave Jesse (what he thought was) sage advice -- to raise prices. Genius right? Jesse recounts how they raised prices...

<p>After a conversation about using ChatGPT to organize the weekly recipe calendar for the Mecham household, Mark and Jesse talk about the concept of letting go of control in a business. Mark posits an idea: you can...

<p>Mark and Jesse discuss the role of customer service in a business, and how the alignment of customer expecations with the business owner's strengths (or working genius, if you like) is crucial to customer...

<p>Mark and Jesse discuss Patrick Lencioni's The 6 Types of Working Genius, a book exploring various personality types and the kinds of work most suitable to each. It's more than a personality test however! Lencioni's...

<p>In today's episode, Jesse discusses his net worth tracker, a basic spreadsheet in which he records the balances of his investments and other assets quarterly. For Jesse, net worth is the scorecard of personal finance...