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Some founders run businesses. Other founders ride them.

If your revenue chart looks like a heart monitor—big spikes, flat lines between, no way to predict when the next one's coming—you're not running it. You're strapped in.

This founder had been strapped in for three years when he called me. Fourteen launches in and couldn't see his next quarter.

He thought I was going to help him flatten the rollercoaster. Normally I can.

This time, I couldn’t.

Picture his revenue chart:

Six launches a year, six spikes in revenue. Between them: a flat line. The founder has been staring at it for three years trying to figure out how to jolt the business back to life.

His business runs on someone else's calendar. Six times a year, a buying window opens — set by an outside body he doesn't control. Six times a year, it closes. People buy when their window is on the horizon. Not before. Not after.

You can't manufacture demand the calendar doesn't allow. You can't run a Black Friday on a clock you don't own. The demand is real, finite, and timed by a hand that isn't his.

In 10+ years of operating, this is the only time I've told a founder:

"You're right. You can't fix this."

Normally when a founder tells me a variable is "out of their control," I push back. Pricing isn't out of your control. Conversion isn't out of your control. Hiring isn't out of your control. Most of what founders treat as fixed is actually flexible if you sequence the work right.

But this one was genuinely fixed. The shape of the chart was the market's signature on his business, not his to redraw.

Founders try anyway. They spend years trying to smooth the shape. Running more launches, pushing harder on the team, hiring faster, or diversifying prematurely.

They pour energy into the unmovable variable because pushing feels like control, and accepting it feels like surrender.

It isn't. Accepting it is the first honest move you can make.

Because once you stop trying to flatten the rollercoaster, you can finally see what you should do with it.

There are exactly two things you can do with a rollercoaster you can't flatten.

That's the strategy, and everything else is execution.

This founder had already maxed out the volume side. Cohort size was capped by the size of the market in any given testing window, and you can't manufacture demand that doesn't exist.

People were capped. But the revenue per person wasn't capped. Lifetime value wasn't capped.

So that's where the team's energy went.

Premium tiers. 1:1 coaching. Post-program services. A whole upgrade engine got built and staffed and measured. His launch manager—who'd been demoralized chasing an unwinnable benchmark of "beat the last launch"—got a new mandate and new comp tied to a number he could actually move.

The most recent launch came in at $275K, the biggest in company history. Net margin: $245K. With ad spend cut 40% from the prior year, earnings per lead nearly doubled.

Roughly same size cohort. Slightly larger revenue spike. Massive profit spike.

“Growth at all costs” would have killed this company. Now, it’s more profitable than ever with less stress. That’s what you want (I hope).

The founder had shelved an old product idea—a lower-touch program for people two years out from their certification.

The obvious move: pull it off the shelf and see if it works. Get people into the ecosystem before they need the main program. Build trust. Then convert them to the premium offer when their testing window arrives.

First real run made $10K in revenue. Asynchronous, no live component, run entirely in the gaps between the main launches.

That $10K isn't going to change his life. But it's the first revenue this business generated between the spikes. That’s a floor where there used to be a flat line.

The rollercoaster is still rollercoastering. They couldn’t change the shape. But the spikes are bigger, and there's a baseline underneath.

I call this the Launch Rollercoaster — and most founders are riding one whether they've named it or not.

Maybe your launch schedule isn't fixed. But something in your market is.

Every founder is working around a variable they can't control. The shape changes by business model, but the instinct to fight it doesn't.

You can't change that fixed variable. But you can change everything around it.

Same pattern shows up everywhere. The enterprise founder can't shorten a 6-month buying committee — but stack the pipeline right and a deal closes every month instead of every six. E-comm? Christmas isn't moving, but a subscription product can pay you in March. Consultants? Your hours are capped. Your IP isn't.

Same rollercoaster. Same move: make the spikes bigger, set a floor underneath.

The rollercoaster isn't the problem.

Trying to flatten it is.

What's the fixed variable in your business that you've been trying to move?

—Chris Piper

Know a founder on the rollercoaster who needs a barf bag and a hug? Do ‘em a solid and send them this email.

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Your best people will internalize failure faster than even the lowest of performers. People need 1) clarity in their role 2) clear KPIs to achieve 3) resources to achieve them 4) aligned incentives. We rebuilt his comp around three numbers he could actually move: an annual revenue target, a per-cohort floor, and a year-over-year LTV uplift. He hit all three. Earned $4K more than the old structure would have paid. And the team stopped flinching every time a launch ran behind. If your comp plan is built around a number outside someone's control, you're not motivating them. You're punishing them for the calendar.