Business Athletes: AJ Glassberg

Hello and welcome to Business Athletes everyone 👋 Each week, we dive into the mindset, habits, and decision-making of a different founder.

In under 5 minutes, you’ll get sharp, practical insights into how they operate—helping founders refine their edge, investors spot true potential, and top talent connect with those building the future. ⚡️

This week, we sat down with AJ Glassberg, founder and Chief Product Officer of Novele, a company that created an entirely new segment is redefining ultra-distributed energy storage for dense urban environments.

Novele is redefining energy infrastructure to tackle urban decarbonisation with cutting-edge hardware and software solutions. Their flagship product, the EnergyBoard, is a scalable, safe and easy to install battery system, designed to optimise energy use in buildings, improving efficiency and reducing costs.

Here are some of my favourite takeaways from his long-term approach to building a deeply impactful product:

• Think in decades, not months: AJ approaches every venture as a 10-year project, minimum, forcing a deep commitment to the process.

• Control your inputs to control your outputs: He avoids social media and eliminates distractions to protect his mental energy for deep work.

• Precision is non-negotiable: Whether designing hardware or structuring his day, details matter, from pixels on a screen to the tactile snap of a product component.

• Persistence is everything: In hardware, setbacks are constant. Most people quit. AJ believes pushing through obstacles is the defining trait of those who succeed.

⚡️Hope you enjoy the read, and don’t forget to subscribe below so you don’t miss our exclusive startup memo on Novele coming out next week!

A Founder’s Ethos

I’ve always taken a long-term approach to everything I’ve built. Even if investors don’t want to hear it, I’ve never been the kind of founder to ask, How can we exit in 24 to 36 months? That’s never been my mindset. Every company I’ve started, I try to envision it as a scaled, decade-long project—at minimum. 

So over the past ten years, I’ve woken up thinking about the same global problems every single day. That kind of obsession can be taxing, so I’ve had to build routines and habits to protect my mental acuity. 

Pre-Game: Systems & Preparation

Protecting Your Energy

Every morning, I try to protect my mental energy. I don’t check my laptop or social media until I absolutely have to. No emails, no Teams (or Slack), no distractions.

Instead, I start my day with a clear routine. I wake up between 6:00 and 6:45 AM (mostly courtesy of my nine-month-old son ), and while feeding him, I read my current book or play New York Times games to wake up my brain. Once I get moving, I hit the gym between 8:00 and 9:00 AM—sometimes later if I have a free hour at 10. Exercise is non-negotiable, but I’ve learned to adapt my schedule based on what the day demands.

Morning Focus

I try to keep my work structured too, but let’s be real—distractions are everywhere. The way the world is right now, it’s easy to get derailed; a single push notification leads to a doom-scrolling spiral, and suddenly you’ve lost an hour. 

To avoid distractions, I’ve made major adjustments:

• No Instagram. I quit last year—it was liberating.

• Minimize push notifications. These are productivity killers.

• Minimal exposure to doom scrolling. I try not to get sucked into Threads or negative news cycles.

But I’m human. When I’m inspired, I can sit down and lock in for hours. My conversations with my team—whether about product, sales, or strategy—are sharp, efficient, and exciting. But when I’m not inspired, it’s brutal. Some days, I’ll text a friend and admit, ‘I haven’t gotten anything of substance done today, and it’s already 3 PM.’

Fueling a High-Performance Mindset

I recently quit drinking alcohol completely—not because it’s trendy, but because I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. Even a small amount started to affect the way I felt.

I also mostly cut out sugar and processed foods years ago; I haven’t had soda since middle school. What I put into my body directly affects how I think and perform, and I take that seriously. It’s mostly whole foods, seeds, and nuts, but of course, there are times when you have to indulge a little. After all, life needs to be fun, but never anything fake.

Gameplay: The Art of Deep Work, Precision & Design Thinking

Falling In Love With the Details

My real focus at Novele is on product and strategy, so I’m really excited and proud of the level of craftsmanship we put into our EnergyBoard, which is unlike anything else in the industry. 

The first version we are shipping now is already ahead of the competition, but the next iteration? We’re turning it up to eleven, obsessing over every detail—the snap of the connector, the tactile feel, and the pixel placement in the UI for the BoardOS controls. If you’re not sweating these details, you’re shipping unfinished work.

That craftsmanship obsession comes from my grandfather. He was a master woodworker, and from an early age, he taught me that every piece of a build matters, even the parts no one sees. 

He and I once built a stand for a 250-gallon fish tank, and the bracing underneath—completely hidden from view—was just as beautifully crafted as the exterior. 

That lesson stuck. It’s now a philosophy that runs through everything we design and build at Novele and generally how my mind works. We obsess over the smallest details. If you don’t care about the little things, you’re not building something great.

Lessons from the Field

Cultivating Your Community Outside of Work

I don’t have an executive coach. I’ve never had one. Instead, my closest friends—many of whom are successful founders themselves—act as my advisors. 

The biggest lesson I’d teach my son? Figure out who your closest advisors are who will tell you the truth, good or bad. These people will sometimes be friends for life.

Recruiting The Right People: Obsession Over Talent

At Novele, I don’t just look for talent—I look for people who think deeply and care about precision. If someone doesn’t care about the details, they don’t fit here. My role is largely about getting my team to think this way by default—to see that every small decision compounds into something great.

The Business Athlete Mindset

What Winning Means to AJ

A winning day isn’t about ‘closing a deal’. It’s when I see something I’ve worked on for years finally come to life.

That’s why I love hardware. When a new design prototype lands in the lab, and I can touch it, smell it, see the physical product. It’s tangible, that’s a high unlike any other.

Our big championship? A future where every single building in the world has a Novele EnergyBoard in it, helping drive sustainability and efficiency and creating a new paradigm shift in the built world.

Why Most People Quit—And Why AJ Won’t

I won’t sugarcoat it. Being a good founder means having a loose screw in your head. I’ve had so many bad days. 90% of the time it’s challenging. On top of that, hardware is brutal. It’s expensive, slow, and filled with regulations that make everything harder.

But persistence is everything. We believe we’re building something that matters. Something big, difficult, but important. I’ve had plenty of chances to quit, but I never do. It’s the founders who persist—who are willing to fight through the obstacles—win in the end. Most people give up. I don’t.

Closing Thoughts

AJ’s obsession with precision, discipline, and long-term vision sets him apart. Whether it’s in hardware development, personal habits, or leadership, he approaches everything with extreme focus.

His story is a masterclass in commitment, persistence, and thinking in decades, not quarters. If you’re building something that truly matters, this is the mindset that will keep you in the game and get you to that win.

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