I run Vantra, a team of eight people with more than fifteen active brands, while finishing Digital Business at Universidad Austral. When I tell people, the usual reaction is "I don't know how you do it". The honest answer: with systems, and even so, sometimes not as well as it looks from the outside.
The real chaos of founding young
Founding a company at this age has a trap: nobody taught you how to lead, so you learn by leading. In Vantra's first months I was the bottleneck for everything. Every proposal went through me, I reviewed every deliverable, every client wanted to talk to me. I worked more hours than anyone and the company moved slower than it should have.
The turning point was understanding something uncomfortable: the problem wasn't the workload, it was me. I was running the company the way a freelancer manages gigs. And a company doesn't scale like that.
The systems that hold me up
What keeps me in order isn't discipline, it's structure. I trust a good system far more than my willpower:
- Blocks, not lists. My week is built from blocks of work type: deep build days, compressed meeting blocks, fixed windows for university. A task list without blocks is wishful thinking.
- Everything in writing. If a decision, a process or an agreement with a client isn't written down, it doesn't exist. This isn't bureaucracy: it's what lets someone else pick it up without asking me.
- Weekly review. Once a week I look at the company from above: numbers, clients, team, and my own list of "things I'm avoiding". That last column is the most important one.
- The second-time rule. The first time something gets done, it's done by hand. The second time, it gets documented or automated. I don't wait for the tenth.
What I delegate
Everything that has a process: daily campaign operations, development, implementations, day-to-day management of most accounts. If it's documented and has an owner, it doesn't need me. Letting go of each of those things was hard, and each one was a liberation.
What I don't delegate
Three things, and they're non-negotiable:
- The vision. Where Vantra is going is my call. That can't be outsourced.
- The initial diagnosis. The first look at a new client's business is mine, because that's where everything that follows gets defined.
- The standard. What counts as "good enough" to ship with Vantra's stamp is still my call. The day that gets delegated badly, the company is worth less.
The hard part
Two confessions. The first: I procrastinate. Like anyone. The difference is that I stopped fighting it with motivation and started designing systems that don't depend on my best version. The blocks, the weekly review and the second-time rule exist precisely for my worst version.
The second: perfect balance doesn't exist. There are weeks when university pays the price, and weeks when the company does. I learned to consciously decide which of the two loses this week, instead of pretending neither ever loses. Choosing the cost is very different from suffering it.
If you're building something while studying or working, my only real advice is this: don't look for more willpower. Build yourself a system that works when you don't have any.
This is the "behind Vantra" part I like to share. If you want the other part, building systems for your business, let's talk.