S2 Ep 11 | 3 Founder Mistakes That Slow Business Growth and How to Fix Them Before They Cost You with Dave Bulloch

Founder Mistakes That Slow Business Growth: Dave Bulloch on the 3 Behaviors Every Owner Must Change

Tune in to our latest episode as Dave Bulloch returns for Part 2 of his business life cycle series, this time focused on what happens after a business starts to grow. While Episode 1 covered what founders need to get right before launching, this conversation goes deeper into the behavioral patterns that quietly stall momentum once the business is already moving.

The 3 Founder Mistakes Dave Names Directly

Dave identifies three specific behaviors that come up in nearly every growing business he works with. First, founders become bottlenecks, approving every invoice, controlling every decision, and doing low-value work that keeps them from the things only they can do. Second, founders hoard information, sharing so little with their teams that people cannot do their jobs well, contribute ideas, or understand how their work connects to the bigger picture. Third, founders promote their most trusted people into leadership roles without ever assessing whether those people can actually lead.

The Fix Is Simpler Than Founders Think

Dave’s advice is not complicated. Delegate decisions to the people closest to the customer. Share enough about the direction of the business that your team can contribute. And before you give anyone a title, assess whether they are actually built for leadership. Strategic planning does not have to be a formal multi-day event. It is simply knowing where you are going, sharing that with the right people, and revisiting it often enough to stay on track.

Show Notes:

Episode Summary

In Part 2 of his business life cycle series, Dave Bulloch joins host Mark to break down the three behavioral patterns that consistently stall growing businesses. Dave has seen these mistakes at organizations doing $5 million and at organizations doing $200 million. The industry does not matter. The behaviors do. This episode gives founders an honest, experience-backed look at what is quietly holding their business back and what to do about it.

What You’ll Learn

• Why founders become bottlenecks and how to get visibility without being the one who approves everything
• When to hire a financial professional and what the clearest indicator of that need looks like
• Why information hoarding slows teams down and how town halls change the dynamic
• What to share with your team and what to protect, using the Coca-Cola recipe analogy
• Why promoting your best individual contributor into leadership often backfires
• How to reward loyalty and tenure without giving someone a title they are not built for
• What strategic planning actually is and why founders stop doing it as they grow
• How to score your business plan honestly and what a 5 out of 10 tells you

The 3 Founder Mistakes Dave Names in This Episode

• 1. Becoming the bottleneck in decisions and low-value work
• 2. Hoarding information instead of sharing context and direction
• 3. Promoting trusted individual contributors into leadership roles without assessing fit

Key Moments

• 00:01:05 — What founders need to get right early as preventative maintenance
• 00:02:29 — Mistake 1: The founder becomes the bottleneck
• 00:03:07 — The invoice stamp story: a $4.5M business heading to $12M
• 00:06:03 — Trust but verify: how to delegate without losing control
• 00:09:03 — When to bring in a financial professional
• 00:12:47 — Mistake 2: Hoarding information from your team
• 00:14:00 — Dave asks for financials at a $200M company and gets told to wait for approval
• 00:19:05 — Town halls and the employee who stood up with unfiltered feedback
• 00:20:44 — The Coca-Cola analogy: what to share and what to protect
• 00:24:54 — Mistake 3: Promoting the wrong people into leadership
• 00:28:50 — The “Mark who runs 8 departments” problem and how it unwinds
• 00:32:05 — What strategic planning actually is and why it does not have to be intimidating
• 00:35:25 — Scoring the plan: why a 5 out of 10 in year one is normal

About Dave Bulloch

Dave Bulloch is a seasoned executive, fractional leader, and former CEO with decades of experience across multiple industries and business sizes. He has worked in private equity, led operational turnarounds in organizations up to 400 employees, and currently works as a fractional executive helping growing businesses navigate succession planning, people strategy, and leadership development. This is Part 2 of a multi-episode series on the business life cycle.

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