Saintly CEO: Small Crosses. The Path to Sanctifying Your Work.
Plus, a Book Recommendation To Help You Find Out If People Want Your Product
Thank God it’s Monday!
We get to serve God today. Just like every day!
Welcome back to Saintly CEO. Every Monday, while you sip your coffee, get some tactical advice to run your business fully in union with your Catholic faith.
Today you’ll find…
IN TODAY’S ISSUE
Upcoming Events in Nashville & Wausau, WI
Feature Content: Small Crosses
Heavenly Hustlers: 8 Folks to Know
Highlight: A Book Rec to Help You Find Product-Market Fit
[read time: ~5 min | word count 1,146]
News / Updates
We launched a NEW free newsletter. If you’re a Catholic investor and want to get deal flow of Catholic-owned businesses that are raising, sign up today.
If you’re a builder seeking funding, submit your deck today.Our next Nashville meetup is happening on the 28th of April. Register here.
Don’t forget about the last Saturday of the month CF meetup in Wausau, WI - sign up here.
If you’d like to host a meetup for Catholic business owners in your area, please reach out, and we’ll help you organize and promote it. admin@catholicfounders.com
And finally, remember, if you know a Catholic who wants to start a business, send them my way. We are looking to invest heavily in helping Catholics refine their ideas, launch their businesses, and get to their first million in revenue.
Join the Catholic Founders Guild Today
If you’re a Catholic, looking to launch and grow your business, Catholic Founders is made for you.
The Catholic Founders Guild is a place to learn from others, share resources, and build together.
We’re all on a mission to understand how God is calling us to be His hands in the world. We were born to carry out His will.
Join today for $100 a year or $10 a month.
Curious? --> “What is the Catholic Founders Guild”
Small Crosses
Going to keep it ultra-short this week.
Running a business is hard. Sometimes, the hardest part is when things become repetitive and monotonous. Sending out DMs, doing the admin work, and doing the sales calls.
Whenever you encounter that feeling, here is a tip for you.
View each task you have to do as a small cross. You can choose to willingly pick up that cross and sanctify your work. Regardless if you’re doing a client visit, doing cold calls, or replying to customer requests. Each of these small things is a small cross to pick up willingly.
Personally, I’ve found this framing helpful because it is no longer about ‘powering through’ so that I can pay the bills and keep the business growing. It’s about sanctifying my work. About walking alongside Jesus as He carries The Cross to Calvary.
It’s no longer about you. Do it for Jesus!
PS: Shout out to Rob Hays for this visualization that he shared at our Dallas dinner.
God Bless & Happy Building
~Silas Mähner
Hire Catholic Offshore Talent
We help you find vetted Catholic offshore talent to help your business grow.
$500 upon hire and $500 if you’re still happy in 30 days.
Email us your needs -> hire in days -> admin@catholicfounders.com
Heavenly Hustlers
These are other Catholic business owners. Nominate one (including yourself).
🧑⚖️ Cyrus Johnson is an independent business lawyer helping investors on the buy side as well as helping founders on the receiving end. He’s also got some really interesting AI projects in the legal space. Based in the Dallas area.
💨 Blaise Carney is building Fumus Et Ratio. A club to help Catholic grow in friendship and virtue as well as discuss edifying topics, while smoking premium cigars. Based in Ave Maria, Florida.
🚧 Tom Becher is the owner of Vitruvius Construction. They have a special focus on residential remodels, making homes beautiful. Given that he’s also involved in Thomas Aquinas College, I bet he’s pretty awesome. Based out of the Santa Paula area.
👣 Mike Meaney is the Co-Founder of One Small Step, a mental health platform to connect with peers when professionals are offline. Menlo Park-based.
💰 Joshua Elkington is the founder of investment firm Axial. They focus on partnering with early-stage life sciences founders and inventors. He’s based in the SF Bay Area.
👨💻 Jin Kuan and Leon Schwarzer are building Bicameral. A tech platform that helps developers build the right tech that has not already been stated as conflicting in some random memo or forgotten Slack message. It helps developers embrace the social nature of the act. Jin is SF-based and Leon is NYC-Based.
🥷 Vincent Casey is building something in stealth so I can’t tell you much about it, or I might have to… you know what. He’s also based in the SF area.
🙋♂️ Nominate a Heavenly Hustler (including yourself) - It takes 1 min.
Thank you to Catholic Owned for helping us find some of these folks each week. Get listed today!
Get in front of 100s of Catholic Business Owners
Become a sponsor today --> Admin@CatholicFounders.com
Highlight: Figure Out If People Want Your Product Before You Build It
For this week’s highlight, we’re going to talk about a book. The Mom Test, by Rob Fitzpatrick.
This book is for anyone trying to figure out what product to sell and who to sell it to.
Entrepreneurs who are trying to do something novel have to be aware that there may not be a market for that thing. When you start a lawn mowing or window cleaning business, you know it can work because there are dozens of them in even a small city. But with a new product, it may not actually be something the market wants. Or if it is, it may not look exactly like you envision it.
This is when you need to do product market fit testing. ie: talk to a LOT of customers in a specific type of way, to find out what problem they have, and if you can make a product that will solve said problem.
Notice how the problem is what matters. Not the idea or invention. Ideas and inventions are only as valuable as the problem they solve and for how many people they solve said problem.
So, if you’re embarking on your entrepreneurial journey, read this book so that you can learn how to speak with your potential customers and figure out if there is demand for it, without spending a ton of money.
Here is a huge list of various resources that we have complied overtime: The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide.
Feel free to bookmark it as we’ll continue to update it. And if you have suggestions on what to add, ping us (even if you want to promote your own stuff).
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