One Stack Thinking

5 min readNov 4, 2023

Being multi-disciplined means I can program, write a pitch deck, run a big event, create a massive spreadsheet, or manage a team of 100. It means I can do a lot of things but probably none perfectly.

Being in both the startup world and non-startup world, I have had the problem of creating ways I make money in separate disciplines in the past, which is not always the greatest way to do things in life. Many disciplines will spread you thin and it makes life difficult and ADHD-like for me.

This means I have at the same time made money as a web developer, salesperson, and writer. It means I have been involved in one company in the dating industry, one SEO company, one company in the startup industry, and another in real estate.

In the startup world this level of juggling, and I am a juggler, is necessary. But it is not always the best thing for us, though one startup, one focus is what I am referring to here.

And over and over I have had people I read and listen to say that the most successful people focus and focus hard. That has been a problem for me.

So I am trying to get there through a new method called “One Stack”. Even though I run startup pitch events and consult in the multi-disciplines, I long for a single thing I can sell… and now coming up I will be running a coworking space. But with some realignment, I am seeing a way to create one stack to work and sell through.

One stack for me means everything I do goes through one thing, one stack of papers or one website. Not easy, but I am finally seeing a path. That path can mean removing things I do, to get there, so it may take time.

Here is how it will work for me going forward.

I run startup pitch events.
I offer what I call startup marketing services. These are digital agency services but are highly related to startups. They can lead to third-party agencies and software dev companies.
I offer a variety of products and services in a “startup” coworking space.
I have a monthly “startup” book club and other startup services I offer.
I have a new “startup” that is related to AI Press releases/campaign releases that every one of our clients needs to be using.

So it is important for me to stack everything into one discipline so it can work.

There are many things I have done in my past and present. They need to all come to a slow end. I have obligations in them, but those will be slowly moving on.

I need to meet a person in the startup/venture industry and work with them from the middle of the stack. That’s the place where everybody needs to start with me. From there they can be upsold downsold or cross-sold. Either way, it is part of the same conversation.

Does this all make sense?

Now, I can’t stop every little non-stack thing in my life from getting into my life, but I am going to start trying.

These ultimate multi-tasking issues are habits formed in our early years, both in our youth and in our work lives. I actually enjoy working on many different things, but alas it’s not what I should be doing!

So let’s go back into my past and see where this craziness all started. In my childhood, I was obsessed with many things. I definitely was hyper as a kid and could not get enough of books, movies, and TV, experimenting with things both woods-related and electronic-related. I would make things and create things and I was born an inventor.

After college when I arrived at my first real job, at the phone company, Bell Atlantic Mobile (now Verizon Wireless), I was promoted to work on a dozen to 2 dozen projects daily. That is what they wanted from me, and I was good at it. I would start on one thing, and move to another. I had meetings all day long about different topics. I switched my job 8 times in 8 years before I left.

So what did Bell Atlantic teach me? It taught me to be a multi-faceted person, with multiple projects happening. That is not exactly what you always need in your work life. It may work in one kind of job, but in another job, it will not be diversified! Most jobs are very specialized. When you join a startup or create one, you need to focus on just that startup. When you get hired for specialization, you need to do that one thing. This is where I was trained in a way that is not very useful.

A couple of things I am promoting as of late. One is my next Startuppop pitch event which will be at The Green House Offices in Boca Raton on December 5th. This is still to be announced. Along with it will be a new startup coworking space announced. Please check on https://startuppop.com for more information which will be up and running by December 1st.

My AI team is getting close to releasing a Beta Version of a new AI press release/campaign system for your small business. We have about 50 Beta testers and it should be live soon. Once it is live, I will write about it here on Medium! I am looking for more Beta Testers!

Also…

One Stack Thinking

Written by Dan Gudema

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