Welcome back to The COO Solution Podcast. In this episode, host Derek Fredrickson explores a question every founder eventually faces once growth alone no longer feels like enough: What do you want your business to stand for?
As businesses mature, revenue, profit, and milestones begin to lose their ability to provide lasting fulfillment. Founders often discover that what they are truly building extends far beyond financial success. It is about impact, purpose, and creating something that will continue to matter long after they step away.
Derek shares how legacy thinking shapes every strategic decision inside The COO Solution and explains why building for legacy is not a conversation reserved for retirement or succession planning. It is an operational discipline that influences hiring, culture, leadership, planning, and every decision a founder makes along the way.
If you have ever wondered what your business is ultimately building toward, this episode will help you shift your focus from chasing the next milestone to creating something that truly lasts.
In This Episode:
[00:13] When Revenue Stops Being Enough
Why founders eventually begin asking bigger questions about purpose and impact.
[02:36] Legacy Starts With Long-Term Thinking
How Derek uses a 10-year plan, 3-year picture, and 1-year target to guide every major decision.
[04:50] Why Founders Avoid the Legacy Conversation
The three reasons most business owners postpone thinking about what their business will ultimately stand for.
[08:01] What Building for Legacy Actually Looks Like
Why leading from purpose creates stronger businesses than leading from milestones alone.
[09:53] Building a North Star Plan
How long-term planning creates alignment across vision, strategy, and execution.
[10:44] Building a Business That Outlasts You
A client story illustrating how legacy thinking changes operational decisions and leadership priorities.
[12:54] Making Legacy Operational
How hiring, culture, investment decisions, and leadership all flow from a clearly defined why.
[13:49] Three Practical Steps to Begin Building for Legacy
Simple exercises every founder can complete this week to define what their business truly stands for.
Why This Matters
Many founders believe they are building a business.
Over time, they realize they are building something much bigger.
Every decision shapes the legacy their company will leave behind.
Businesses built around short-term growth often struggle to maintain clarity as they scale. Businesses built around purpose create stronger cultures, better leaders, clearer decision-making, and greater long-term value.
Legacy is not something you think about after success.
It is something you build into every decision from the very beginning.
This conversation will help you:
- Define what your business truly stands for beyond revenue
- Build a long-term vision that guides daily decisions
- Align strategy, culture, and leadership around your purpose
- Create a business that can outlast your direct involvement
- Lead with greater clarity, intention, and long-term impact
Action Steps for Listeners:
- Write your personal Legacy Statement for your business.
- Build a 10-year plan, 3-year picture, and 1-year target.
- Evaluate one important decision against your long-term purpose instead of short-term pressure.
- Identify where your daily decisions either reinforce or weaken your legacy.
- Ask whether the business you are building today reflects what you ultimately want to leave behind.
Resources & Links:
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Transcript:
00:49
Derek Fredrickson
At some point in the life of every serious founder, the revenue milestone stops feeling like enough. You hit the number, you celebrate. And then sometimes the very next morning perhaps, you wake up and think. Is this what I built all of this for? And that question is not a crisis. It is not being ungrateful and it is not burnout. It is the signal that you are ready for the most important conversation in your business and almost nobody is having it. What does this business actually stand for? What do you want to leave behind? And who does it become when it is no longer just about the next milestone?
01:35
Derek Fredrickson
Welcome back to the COO Solution podcast, the missing piece to scaling your business with ease and I am your host Derek Fredrickson. and today we are talking about Legacy what it means, why most founders avoid the conversation until it is almost too late. And what becomes possible when you finally lead your business from the why instead of just the what? Let’s get into it. Now I’m going to start with something quite personal, something I do not share often because it feels vulnerable to say it out loud as a business owner. So when I sit down to build my 10 year plan, my three year picture and my one year target for the COO Solution, the conversation I have is never just about revenue.
02:36
Derek Fredrickson
Yes, revenue matters, profit matters, growth matters. But the plan also includes impact, how many founders and CEOs we serve, what kind of COOs we want to be known as, and what does the COO Solution stand for in the market? And it includes something that founders rarely say out loud. The option to explore a sale or exit one day. Not because I want to leave, but because building something that could be sold is the same discipline as building something that can be passed on or scaled without me in it. It is the North Star question. What does this business need to become to be worth something to the market, to the people inside it, and to me personally that exercise the ten year plan.
03:36
Derek Fredrickson
Three year picture and one year target is not just a planning tool, it is a Legacy document. And it is exactly what we do with every client here at the COO Solution. I share this because I think founders need to see how seriously COOs think about their businesses. Not just quarter to quarter, not just headcount and revenue. But purpose, impact and what the business is actually building toward over the long arc. Now, the founders who think this way are no less ambitious than the ones who are purely focused on growth. They are more intentional. And that intentionality is what separates the businesses that endure from those that just plateau or collapse when the conditions change.
04:50
Derek Fredrickson
So why do most founders and CEOs avoid this conversation? If building for Legacy is clearly the right move, why does it take most business owners so long to get there? There are three reasons. Number one, Legacy feels like a conversation for later. We’ll get there one day. Most founders tell themselves they will think about legacy once the business is big enough, successful enough, once the revenue is there, once the team is stable, once the chaos settles down. But here is the truth. The chaos does not settle down on its own. The business does not organically evolve into something meaningful without intentional direction and decision. And if you wait until the business feels stable to ask what it stands for, you’ll be waiting for a moment that never quite arrives.
05:54
Derek Fredrickson
Legacy is not a reward for growth. It is the foundation of it. And so the founders who build with meaning from the beginning make better decisions, attract better people in their team, and build organizations that outlast the founders direct involvement. Reason 2 Legacy feels more abstract than revenue is concrete. You can measure it, you can track it, and you can celebrate it. Legacy feels softer, less tangible, harder to put a number in a spreadsheet. But that is a framing problem, not a reality problem. Legacy is actually one of the most operational concepts in business. A clear Legacy statement shapes hiring decisions. It determines what you say yes to and what you say no to. And it defines the kind of culture you build and the kind of clients you pursue.
06:53
Derek Fredrickson
And the why is clear, every what, who, how and when decision becomes sharper, less debated, more aligned. And the founders who say Legacy is too soft to measure are usually the ones whose teams are confused about the direction, whose culture feels inconsistent, and whose growth is producing perhaps more chaos than they expected. And reason 3 Legacy Forces founders to confront mortality of themselves and of their business. This one is the hardest to say out loud. Building for Legacy means acknowledging that you will not be at the helm forever, that the business will either outlast you or it will not. That succession, exit and transition are not distant hypotheticals but real questions that deserve real answers now. And most founders find that confrontation is uncomfortable, so they defer it. They stay focused on the next big milestone instead.
08:01
Derek Fredrickson
And in doing so, they build businesses that are operationally still dependent on them in ways that make every outcome, scale, succession, sale harder than it actually needs to be.
So what does it actually mean to build for Legacy? Not in theory, but in practice, in how you plan, how you decide and how you lead every day. Element number one, you lead from the why. Most founders spend enormous energy on the what, the who and the how and the when. What are we building, who is on the team, how do we execute, when do we get there, when do we get to the milestone and all of that. Yes, it does matter. But legacy, it begins when the founder leads every major decision from the why.
08:54
Derek Fredrickson
Why does this business exist, who does it serve and why does that even matter? What does it stand for that is worth standing for, even when it is expensive or inconvenient to do so? When the why is clear, and I mean really truly clear, not just written on a wall, but embedded in how decisions are actually getting made, everything else aligns around that. Hiring becomes easier because you know exactly what you are hiring for. Culture becomes more consistent because it has a clear source and the business starts to develop an identity that does not depend on the founder’s presence to hold it all together. Element two, you build a North Star plan. This is the practice I use inside the COO solution and with every client that we work with.
09:53
Derek Fredrickson
A ten year plan, a three year picture and a one year target. The ten year plan is visionary. It’s big picture. Where is the business in a decade? What does it look like? What has it built? What is its reputation? What options does the founder have to scale further to bring on partners to sell to, perhaps even pass it on? And then the three year picture is more directional. What does the business need to become in the next three years to be on track towards that 10 year vision? What does the team look like? What does the infrastructure look like? What has been built that did not exist three years ago? And then lastly, the one year target is more operational. What are we actually doing this year that moves us toward that three year picture?
10:44
Derek Fredrickson
What gets measured, what gets resourced, what gets deprioritized? This is not a static document. It gets revisited, revised and refined. But it is the North Star and without it, founders make good individual decisions that do not compound into anything meaningful, because there is no direction pulling them forward.
Element three is that you build a business that can outlast you. I’ll give you an example. I worked with a founder recently, a 30-year CEO with family in the business who came to us with a goal that really moved me. He wanted to scale the business in a way that was, yes, meaningful and impactful, but enough in a way that could be passed down to the next generation without the operational challenges and financial concerns that had weighed on him for decades.
11:42
Derek Fredrickson
He did not just want to grow, he wanted to really build something his family could be proud of and be a part of and actually sustain. And that goal changed everything about how we approached the work together. Not just the systems and the team structure, but the why behind every operational decision. We were not just building for the next quarter, we were building for the next chapter of the business. One that would exist without him at the center of it. The operational work is mostly the same. The team structure, accountability, rhythms, financial discipline and leadership development. But when it is anchored to a legacy goal rather than just a growth target, the founder shows up differently, the decisions land differently, and the business becomes something worth building. And then element four is you make legacy operational.
12:54
Derek Fredrickson
Legacy is not just a mission statement, right? It is not an off site conversation or a values poster in your company. It is an operational discipline that shows up in how you hire, how you lead, how you invest, and what you say no to. Every founder that we have worked with who has built something truly lasting shares one pattern. They have made their why a non-negotiable. Not just aspirational, non-negotiable. When a decision conflicts with the why, even if it looks good on paper, they pass. When a hire does not align with what the business stands for, even if the resume is quite impressive, they do not make it. and when a growth opportunity requires the business to become something it really does not want to be, they let it go.
13:49
Derek Fredrickson
And that discipline is what Legacy looks like in practice. Not the vision, the daily decisions that either honor it or erode it.
14:12
Derek Fredrickson
Now let’s make this practical. Three things you can do this week to start building for Legacy rather than just for growth. Step number one, Write down your Legacy statement. Not your mission statement, not your elevator pitch, your Legacy statement. So complete this sentence. When the business has done what I built it to do, it will have blank and then finish it honestly. What will it have created? Who will it have served and what will it stand for? What will it have made possible for your team, your clients, your family, your community? Write the first draft this week. Just get started.
15:02
Derek Fredrickson
It does not have to be perfect, it just has to be honest. And once you have it, read every major decision you are facing against it. Does this decision move toward the Legacy or away from it? Step number two: Build your North Star plan. Block a few hours this week. Not for operations, not for meetings, not for client work, but for planning. Write down where you want this business to be in 10 years, then work backward. What does the three years from now need to look like and what does this year need to produce to get there? You do not need a consultant or a retreat to do this..
15:56
Derek Fredrickson
You need a blank document, honest thinking and the courage and vulnerability to write down what you actually really want, not just what feels safe to say out loud. Step number three: Audit one current decision against your why look at the most perhaps significant decision sitting in front of you right now. Perhaps it’s a hire, a client, a partnership, a strategic direction, an investment. And ask yourself honestly, Am I making this decision from my why? Or from some short term pressure, fear of missing out or the need to hit a number? If the answer is part of that second scenario, slow down. The decisions that conflict with your why are the ones that cost you the most in the long run. Not just financially, but in the direction and the identity of the business that you are building.
17:01
Derek Fredrickson
Listen, the founders who build something that lasts are not the ones who grew the fastest. They are the ones who knew what they were building and why it mattered. And revenue is a measure of growth. Legacy is a measure of meaning. And the business that stands for something meaningful that has a clear why embedded in how decisions get made, how people get develop and how the culture actually lives day to day. That business does not just grow, it compounds in value, in impact and in the lives of the people inside it and around it. Listen. New Level, New devil. The Legacy questions will get harder and more complex as the business grows and what you stand for will be tested by the pressures and temptations that come with scale.
17:57
Derek Fredrickson
But the founders who answer this Legacy question early, before the crisis, before the exit conversation, before the succession plan becomes urgent. Those founders build businesses that are actually worth something, not just to the market but to themselves. And to want that, you have to be willing to lead from it. and if today’s episode gave you something to think about in regards to this topic of legacy, hit subscribe so you never miss a future episode.
And perhaps if you know a CEO or founder who is working hard but starting to wonder what is it all for, share this episode with them. It might be exactly the conversation that they need.
18:56
Derek Fredrickson
And maybe from this conversation you are wondering whether your business has the operational and leadership foundation it needs to build for the long term. You can take our free quiz at thecoosolution.com in just a few minutes. You’ll have a clearer picture of where to focus and what to do.
So let me ask you this. Are you working on your Legacy plan right now? Has this episode named something you have been thinking about but not saying out loud? Send me a DM on LinkedIn or reach out at the coosolution.com I would really like to hear from you and where you are in this journey. That is a wrap on today’s episode. I will see you next time on the COO Solution podcast.
