What’s up?!
Here’s the truth nobody says out loud at founder dinners: most small businesses don’t have a growth problem. They have a drift problem. The business slowly, quietly starts running the founder instead of the other way around. Decisions pile up. Energy bleeds into urgency. The vision gets buried under the operations of the business.
Levers exists to change that.
Every week, I’ll give you one lever — one operational shift — that puts you back in the driver’s seat. No hustle gospel. No 47-page PDFs. Just clean systems that create calm, predictability, and the space to work on the most important things in the business.
If that’s what you’ve been looking for, look no further. I got you, fam.
👀 Who Is Levers OS For?
Levers OS is written specifically for:
- 🏗️ Early-stage founders (1-10 employees): You built something real, and now you’re drowning in the daily ops of keeping it alive. You wear every hat, you’re the bottleneck in your own business, and the ceiling gets closer to your head every day. Levers gives you the operational frameworks to remove yourself from the chaos without losing control, so you can evolve from management to leadership.
- 📈 Growth-stage CEOs ($1M-$10M revenue): You’ve got traction, but the cracks are starting to show. Things that “worked fine” when it was just you and a few others are now breaking down at scale. Levers is a weekly check-in on the systems, rhythms, and visibility tools you need to run a more predictable, less reactive business.
- 🔄 Operators and second-in-commands: You’re the one who’s helping make the machine run — the COO, the ops lead, the right hand. Levers gives you a shared language and framework library you can bring back to your CEO, your team, and your planning cycles to build something that works without all the heroics.
Now, here’s how we can help…
The Biggest Problems In Operating A Business Today
Chances are you found this newsletter because one of these (likely more) is already costing you — in time, in margin, in sleep, or in the kind of Sunday dread that shouldn’t exist.
(I know these problems inside and out because I’ve lived every single one of them. Levers is my way of solidifying what I already know and evolving into what I don’t, right alongside you).
- Problem #1: Founder bottlenecks — Every decision routes through the founder. Nothing moves without their sign-off. The team is capable, but you’re somehow still the ceiling (assuming you’ve hired well, but that’s a topic for another time).
- Problem #2: The drift — You had a clear vision once. But somewhere between Q1 and now, the business stopped serving the vision and started consuming it. You’re reactive instead of intentional, and you can’t quite explain when that shift happened.
- Problem #3: No operating rhythm — Without a consistent meeting cadence, scorecard, or accountability structure, the business runs on vibes and urgency. Priorities reset every Monday. The same issues show up quarter after quarter.
- Problem #4: Invisible performance — You have a vague sense of how the business is doing, but you couldn’t pull up a number right now that tells you whether you’re on track. You’re flying blind.
- Problem #5: Process debt — Everything lives in someone’s head. When that person’s on vacation, things break. When they leave, institutional knowledge walks out the door with them.
- Problem #6: Energy misalignment — You spend most of your day on $20/hour tasks because those tasks never had systems built around them, and they never got delegated. Your highest-leverage work — strategy, relationships, vision — keeps getting pushed to “when things calm down.”
- Problem #7: Scaling chaos instead of systems — You hired people to solve problems, but you didn’t build the systems for them to operate in. So instead of more capacity, you got more coordination overhead.
- Problem #8: Undefined accountability — Tasks get assigned, but nobody’s really “on it.” Rocks get dropped. Follow-through is inconsistent. And you’re not sure if the problem is the people or the structure.
- Problem #9: Strategy-execution gap — You can articulate the vision. You struggle to translate it into the weekly actions that actually move the business toward it.
- Problem #10: Founder loneliness at the top — There’s nobody in the business you can fully think out loud with. The decisions are yours alone, and the weight accumulates.
Now, let’s talk about what to do about it.
⚙️ Levers OS: Weekly frameworks, tools, and systems for founders who want calmer, more predictable growth.
The business proposition here is simple: one lever, every week. Something operational. Something specific. Something you can actually implement.
The Weekly Lever
Each issue is built around a single operational lever — one framework, one system, one shift in how you run the business. Not a vague idea. Something you can actually apply. By the end of each issue, you’ll know exactly what the lever is, why it matters, and how to pull it in your business this week.
The Drift Diagnostic
Every few issues, I’ll give you a structured audit — a small set of questions or a quick diagnostic tool designed to help you identify where you’ve drifted. Where the business is running you instead of the other way around. These diagnostics are the kind of things most consultants charge a lot of moolah to facilitate. You’ll get them free, in your inbox, and you can run them in under 30 minutes.
Operator Frameworks (Simplified)
There are powerful operational frameworks out there — EOS, OKRs, the One Page Plan, various rhythm systems — but most of them are packaged for enterprise audiences or require a certified implementer to make sense of them. I translate these into plain language for founder-stage businesses. No jargon. No certification required. Just the core principle, applied to a business that’s figuring things out in real time.
Real-World Operator Stories
I’ve sat in the operator seat in multiple industries — from production operations to creator platforms to consulting. I’ll share what’s worked, what broke, and what I’d do differently. Not as theory. As field notes.
👋 Who’s This Dustin Guy, Anyway?
Who am I? Fair question.
I’m Dustin Hart — and my entire career has been about building the operating infrastructures inside of companies and teams that allow good businesses to stop running on chaos and start running on clarity.
I’ve spent years in different executive seats building and scaling from scratch. I’ve built proven meeting cadences, accountability structures, scorecards, hiring systems, and the kind of operational rhythms that let founders breathe and finally take a well-deserved vacation.
More recently, I’ve been working inside of Kit (formerly ConvertKit) — one of the leading creator marketing platforms in the world — on the Creator Growth team where I work directly with our largest customers on the systems and strategies that drive sustainable growth. Here’s what I know: The founders who grow calmly are the ones with better systems, not bigger hustle.
I’m also a husband, a two-time girl dad, and someone whose faith shapes the way I think about leadership. Servant leadership isn’t a buzzword around here — it’s the whole dang framework.
Levers OS is the newsletter I wish I’d had when I was first figuring all this stuff out.
Bottom Line
If your company feels busier than it feels effective…
If growth feels harder than it should…
If you suspect there’s a simpler way to make the machine run…
You’re in the right place.
Pull the right lever.
Let’s build something that works.
