From Sugar to Systems: Productized Focus for Founders

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WORK IN PROGRESS

Wes Botman, Ian Piepenbrock

23 episodes

1 week ago

WORK IN PROGRESS is a raw, unfiltered look at the grind of building and scaling in tech and services. Hosted by founders Ian Piepenbrock and Wes Botman, it’s for those in the trenches—still learning, still failing, still pushing. Each episode dives into the reality of running a business: the wins, the losses, and the lessons earned through hard work and constant experimentation. If you’re scaling, building, or just obsessed with the process, WORK IN PROGRESS delivers insights from founders in it, day in and day out.

Entrepreneurship

Business

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All content for WORK IN PROGRESS is the property of Wes Botman, Ian Piepenbrock and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

Entrepreneurship

Business

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From Sugar to Systems: Productized Focus for Founders - Episode 23

WORK IN PROGRESS

50 minutes 31 seconds

2 months ago

From Sugar to Systems: Productized Focus for Founders - Episode 23

Founders don’t burn out from work alone. They burn out from running on stress, guesswork, and broken systems.

Ian and Wes start with the Ray Peat diet, then pivot into the operating systems that keep startups sane: Brand Sprint, ICP-first messaging, and the tradeoffs between Framer and Webflow when you need to ship fast and stay scalable.

Highlights:

Ray Peat playbook: sugar, sleep, and founder energy management
Why adrenaline-driven grind kills judgment
Brand Sprint as the shortcut to clarity
Framer vs Webflow for early-stage speed vs long-term scale
Validation and prototyping before building
Productized focus and founder discipline

Chapters:

(0:00) The Ray Peat diet, sugar, and founder energy
(4:10) Stress vs sugar: energy for creative work
(9:15) What carnivore gets wrong about energy balance
(12:20) Resetting the Noco and 20 MINUTES workflow
(15:30) Productization and the pain of scaling
(17:20) The ELI5 stealth SaaS project
(21:40) The Brand Sprint: clarity through speed
(25:40) Why ICP definition fixes bad marketing
(28:20) Framer vs Webflow: how to decide
(33:30) Validation and prototyping before building
(40:05) Founder energy, pace, and systems
(46:20) Life balance, focus, and living outside the city
(49:50) Closing thoughts: productized freedom

The WORK IN PROGRESS podcast hosted by Ian Piepenbrock and Wes Botman, two founders who are scaling and refining their businesses every day.

Wes Botman is founder and CEO at ⁠⁠Eli5⁠⁠ (https://eli5.io), a software studio making complex ideas simple and accessible.

Ian Piepenbrock is CEO at ⁠⁠Noco⁠⁠ (https://noco.agency), an agency dedicated to helping B2B SaaS and tech companies grow through strategic web design and branding.

Watch/listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2cOqBRM...

Wes: ⁠⁠@wesbotman⁠⁠ (https://x.com/wesbotman)
Ian: ⁠⁠@lamswolprins (https://x.com/lamswolprins)