Business Athletes: Blaine Bolus

Hello and welcome to Business Athletes everyone 👋 

Each week, we’ll explore the athlete-like habits behind a different business leader. In less than 5-minutes, we aim to provide you with practical tactics that you can quickly apply in your day-to-day.⚡️

In the latest edition of Business Athletes, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Blaine Bolus, co-founder of Castmagic, a startup that helps people turn long-form audio into evergreen content with AI, which Blaine and his team bootstrapped from $0 revenue to almost $2M ARR in a year.

Blaine is also the co-host of the DTC Pod, a leading podcast around commerce, consumer and creator businesses.

A seasoned entrepreneur based in Miami, Blaine previously co-founded CX startup Omnipanel (backed by CRV), and Seated (backed by Greycroft, Craft Ventures, Insight & Capital One).

His approach to business is deeply influenced by his athletic mindset, particularly his dedication to running, which he parallels closely with his entrepreneurial ventures. Blaine is not just about building businesses; he's about cultivating a lifestyle that supports sustained peak performance, much like a dedicated athlete focused on their sport. 

Read time: 4 minutes 12 seconds

Routines That Shape Performance

Mental & Physical Warm-Up

Every morning, my day starts with a run. This isn’t just about staying physically fit; it’s about clearing my mind and sharpening my mental focus. 

When you're running a startup, your entire day is spent sitting at a desk, making hundreds of decisions. So there’s a big difference between being sharp and not being sharp. I find that when I don't exercise in the morning, my mind drifts away quickly. Running sets the tone of my day and ensures that I stay proactive rather than reactive. 

Getting The Right Systems In Place

Preparation is always key for high-stakes situations like investor pitches or critical content creation for my podcast. However, I steer clear from over-preparing to maintain authenticity and flexibility.

I host two different podcasts, so I make sure I have a really solid workflow in place - making sure that all scheduling is set up and done in advance. That way we're capturing content, repurposing it, and having everything in place to make publication and promotion as efficient as possible.

Deep Into The Game

Strategic Time-Blocking

I reserve my mornings for deep work and avoid scheduling any meetings before noon. This allows me uninterrupted time to tackle the most demanding tasks at a time when my mind is at its sharpest. 

I follow the same principle when organizing my weeks from a top-down perspective. I work best when my weeks aren't disrupted. So, if I have to travel somewhere for a week, I try my best to travel on Saturdays, that way I have the entire week blocked at the place, and know exactly what's coming up. I can then plan my week better and execute efficiently. 

Getting In the Zone

My work day is all about context switching. Switching between product, to partnerships, to content and podcasting, helps me work longer and more productively.

Leadership Lessons From The Field

Talent Over Pedigree

I think the biggest lesson is that there is amazing talent out there, all across the globe, and with the right opportunity in front of them, and the right coaching behind them, they can really be set up for success. 

For example, in our first startup, one of our best employees was this woman who worked at a Chipotle before joining us. Not at Chipotle’s headquarters, but at a Chipotle store. She demonstrated amazing capabilities and managed to transition from Chipotle to a customer success role at our company and completely crushed it.

So, in terms of coachability, what I look for are traits that someone can learn and assume responsibility for their work. That’s how we approach team-building at Castmagic. We're headquartered and operate out of the USA, but we have a globally distributed team. We’ve got developers all over the world working with us. Talent doesn’t have to have gone to Harvard to be extremely capable. You just need to have the right work ethic and take advantage of the right opportunities. 

Execution…On The Best Idea…Wins

I'm a big believer that the greatest results come from the simplest ideas that we can apply. Many people say that ideas don’t really matter and that it’s all about execution. But the way I see it is that if you’re executing on the wrong idea, you’re not getting anywhere compared to the person who's executing on the right idea, with the right strategy. 

So it’s a bit of both. To get those best ideas, we need to be consistent in working towards them, and then, present to acknowledge them. Sometimes those big ideas only come after months of working on a business. 

It’s just like running. If you stop running, you're going to get out of shape, and it’ll get harder to run. It's the same thing with startups - the more you do, the more ideas you get, and then the more you can execute on the best of those ideas.

Post-Game Rest

Foundations For High-Performance

I have a disciplined approach to rest, which I believe is crucial for maintaining the stamina needed to run startups.

Sleep is sacred in my routine, much like recovery is paramount for any athlete. I prioritize getting 7.5 to 8 hours of sleep each night and abstain from alcohol during weekdays to ensure that I am mentally and physically at my best.

The Business Athlete Mindset

Consistency Beats Talent Any Day

I think all good things come from consistency and compounding.

Sure, you can work in sprints, but I believe that if you’re giving your business attention every day, and being a disciplined and consistent manager day in and day out, you’ll inevitably see those compounding effects. 

It’s just like running or working out. There’s also the other side of the coin - where if you stop being consistent for a while, it gets harder and harder to get back to it. So, it’s all about showing up on a day-to-day basis.