%20with%20(R)_edited.png)
%20with%20(R)_edited.jpg)
You're Building Your Company Like Bad Lasagna
- Steve Walsh
- Jun 24
- 2 min read
Over the weekend, I spent the better part of an afternoon making homemade lasagna.
Not the frozen kind.
Not the "open a jar of sauce and call it a day" kind.
The real thing.
The gravy started with sautéed sweet onions and olive oil. Then came the tomatoes, tomato paste, Italian spices, a splash of red wine, and several hours of simmering.
The sausage had to be browned.
The spinach had to be cooked down.
The ricotta and cottage cheese mixture had to be prepared.
Then came the assembly.
Layer by layer.
Noodles.
Gravy.
Sausage.
Cheese.
Repeat.
As I was putting it together, I realized something.
Most founders are building their companies like bad lasagna.
They spend all their time searching for the one ingredient that will solve everything.
The perfect investor.
The perfect co-founder.
The perfect hire.
The perfect product feature.
The perfect growth hack.
The perfect pitch deck.
As if success is hiding in a single ingredient they just haven't found yet.
After more than 6,000 conversations with founders and nearly 70 startup investments, I can tell you that's rarely how it works.
Great companies aren't built on one ingredient.
They're built by assembling a lot of good ingredients in the right order.
A founder with vision.
A product that solves a real problem.
Customers who actually care.
A team that can execute.
A compelling story.
Capital when it's needed.
Relentless persistence.
None of those ingredients are enough by themselves.
Together, they become something entirely different.
I see this mistake all the time during fundraising.
A founder will tell me:
"If I could just get in front of the right investor, everything would change."
Maybe.
But investors are just one ingredient.
If the traction isn't there, if the story isn't clear, if the market timing is off, or if the team can't execute, adding an investor doesn't magically fix the recipe.
The same is true for almost every part of building a company.
Founders often overestimate the importance of one missing ingredient and underestimate the importance of how all the ingredients work together.
The best founders I've worked with don't spend their lives searching for silver bullets.
They focus on building.
They improve the product.
They talk to customers.
They recruit great people.
They refine their story.
They create momentum.
They keep adding layers.
Over time, those layers compound.
And eventually, what looked like a collection of ordinary ingredients becomes something special.
Just like lasagna.
The next time you find yourself thinking, "If I could just get X, everything would fall into place," take a step back.
Ask yourself a different question:
Do I actually need a better ingredient?
Or do I need to do a better job assembling the ones I already have?
Until next time—keep building.
Cheers,
Steve Walsh
Hands On Angel
Comments