Create hope. Define reality.

It happens every week now. Something nudges this post from Andy Dunn about the four words behind his CEO job description to the forefront of my mind, and before I know it, I’m saying them out loud again:

1. Create hope.
2. Define reality.

They are deceptively simple in isolation but uniquely challenging in tandem.

Staying firmly grounded between these two extremes requires the ability to see the world as it clearly is today and project how it could be tomorrow with time, energy, and money. The job is to hold both truths simultaneously, each in equal weight and measure, separate but intertwined.

But that’s not all. The CEO also has to act on that understanding and lead the team to make good on our promise. We must correctly identify a massive market gap, articulate a compelling offering, and operationalise a profitable, repeatable, and scalable effort to address it.

That’s what my team and I do best.

And if we’re lucky, we’ll get the backing of some brilliant people to go after it for real.

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On that note, I couldn’t be more excited about the people (investors, rights holders, partners, and more) assembling around Sawtooth, and I’m always keen to meet more.

We have been watching streaming music fray at the edges, with dissatisfaction and distrust spreading among independent artists, labels, fans, and industry icons alike and across the competitive landscape. That’s the reality.

What’s next won’t look like what came before. It’s time for something entirely new, unexpectedly different, and vastly better for music lovers and music makers. That’s the hope.

lmk if you want in