I recently went one-on-one with Mark Abbott, founder and CEO of Ninety
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
Mark: I’ve been building, investing in, and advising companies for more than 40 years. Most of the lessons that stayed with me came from being wrong about what I thought would work. The idea behind Ninety, a business operating system software to help businesses run on the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS®), began to take shape around 2005. By then, I had invested in more than 100 companies and sat on dozens of boards. I kept watching leadership teams wrestle with many of the same problems: They weren’t fully aligned on where they were headed, accountability wasn’t clear enough, and the systems supporting their companies couldn’t keep up with their increasing levels of complexity.
In 2012, I joined the EOS community to serve as an implementer. EOS is a practical business management framework created by Gino Wickman to help companies align their vision, gain traction, and build healthy teams. Rather than rushing to build software, I wanted to understand the system, the community, and the people using it from the inside. I worked with leadership teams, built relationships, and spent several years listening and learning. That experience ultimately shaped Ninety and gave us a much deeper understanding of the people we wanted to serve. That patience came with a cost. I shared the software vision pretty openly, and another company got to market before we did. I learned that while relationships and openness can create immense value, as founders, we need to be more thoughtful about what we share, with whom, and when. Later, EOS Worldwide decided to pursue its own software strategy, which forced us to prepare for the possibility of losing an important partnership. Instead of panicking, we chose to focus on what we could control: improving the Ninety platform, staying focused on our stakeholders, and remaining true to our principles. Doing so allowed us to reestablish our partnership and continue to build enduring business solutions.
Some of the hardest lessons came after Ninety raised outside capital and grew quickly. We hired experienced executives from larger companies and assumed their playbooks would translate. What I underestimated was how much a company’s stage of development matters. Good leaders can still be the wrong fit for what the business needs at a particular moment. I also learned that delegation doesn’t eliminate accountability. During one difficult period, I allowed decisions to move forward that didn’t reflect how I believed the company should operate. That forced me to become much more deliberate about matching leaders to the company’s stage, clarifying who owns which decisions, and addressing cultural issues earlier.
Adam: How did you come up with your business idea and know it was worth pursuing? What advice do you have for others on how to come up with and test business ideas?
Mark: The idea for Ninety came to me back in 2005 after seeing so many companies repeat the same problems over and over. A few years later, one of the companies I was involved with started using EOS, which led me to read Gino Wickman’s book, Traction. I remember thinking, “This is essentially the book I wanted to write.” What Gino hadn’t built was the software, so in 2012, I pitched him on the idea. EOS Worldwide had tried software before and decided it wasn’t in their DNA. Rather than immediately racing off to build something, I joined the community.
We started building Ninety in 2016 and got our first customer in 2017. We began with the tools leadership teams needed most, then continued to improve the product based on how customers used it. My advice is to start with a problem you understand deeply, get close to the people experiencing it, and test the smallest version of your idea that creates meaningful value. Compliments are nice, but behavior is validation.
Adam: What are the key steps you have taken to grow your business? What advice do you have for others on how to take their businesses to the next level?
Mark: One of the biggest lessons from growing Ninety is that growth itself creates new problems. Prior to even beginning our fundraising series, we were organically funding ourselves until the dilution math worked heavily in our favor. When we eventually hit $100M in value, we decided to take on outside funding. That patience allowed us to preserve majority ownership even through our Series A and B rounds. But after raising the Series A from Insight Partners, we moved fast and quickly ran into the hidden costs of scaling. We had hired rapidly, bringing on senior executives who arrived with their own preconceived ideas and playbooks, conflicting paces, and differing backgrounds. Navigating that shift created real corporate friction, but it taught me firsthand the crucial importance of hiring specifically for the stage of development you’re currently in, rather than chasing senior-level title experience.
That whole experience reshaped how we grow, build, and scale today. We focus first on building the underlying team structure, adopting systems that support workflows, and adjusting based on results. My advice to founders is to think long-term, but build for the stage you’re in. What a company needs at 10 people is different from what it needs at 50 or 200. I believe in creating an agreements-based workplace grounded in shared commitments, human development, and long-term value creation. Growth takes patience. Stay close to the customer, strengthen the systems that keep the business running, and make decisions today that keep the bigger vision possible tomorrow.
Adam: What are your best sales and marketing tips?
Mark: My best sales and marketing advice starts with a simple idea: Understand your target audience as soon as possible. The rest will fall into place if you put in the work. Start by embedding yourself in the community you hope to serve. My experience in the EOS community gave us more than market knowledge. We earned trust, developed a shared language, and gained a much clearer understanding of the problems worth solving.
Our early paid marketing was remarkably modest. For a period of time, we spent around $500 a month on Facebook ads targeting companies already familiar with EOS. The combination of targeted advertising, relationships with implementers and entrepreneurial peer groups, and word of mouth helped us find the right people without trying to reach everyone. This decision to target self-implementing EOS companies, as well as work the coaching channels, got Ninety to our first 1,000 customers without a real, established marketing budget. It goes to show that you don’t need flashy spending to strike gold within your customer base. If there’s a need for your product, and you put in the work, the right people will find you.
Adam: What are the most important trends in technology that leaders should be aware of and understand? What should they understand about them?
Mark: AI is obviously the technology getting the most attention, but I think the more useful question is what AI means for work. Founders shouldn’t focus on which tools to use. They need to ask, “What can we do now that we couldn’t before, and how does that affect our customers, our people, and the way we run the company?” AI is getting better at connecting information, identifying patterns, and helping leaders reach clearer next steps faster. That’s a big part of why we built Ask Maz inside Ninety. The goal is to use existing business data to help leaders understand what’s happening in the business, ask better questions, and make stronger decisions. Some work can be automated or improved with technology. Other work still requires judgment, creativity, empathy, and accountability. AI can support the thinking, but people still own the call. My advice is not to chase every new capability. Start with a real problem your teams have, test where AI can help, and learn from there.
Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
Mark: In my experience, effective leadership starts with clarity. Leaders need to know where the company is going, why it’s essential, and what the team needs to do next. Knowing where the company is heading is as important as building trust through honesty and making difficult decisions that support the company’s long-term health. It doesn’t always mean making everyone happy. Strong leaders also know themselves. They understand their strengths, blind spots, and how they respond under pressure. That self-awareness becomes more important as their decisions affect more people. Resilience is part of the job, too. Leaders make decisions with incomplete information, and some of those decisions won’t work out. The best leaders face reality, learn from what happened, and adjust without protecting their egos. Ultimately, leadership is about helping people do meaningful work together. The best leaders provide clarity, take responsibility, learn quickly, and keep growing to meet the company’s next needs.
Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading, and managing teams?
Mark: Think of the team as a system rather than a collection of impressive résumés. A strong team needs the right people, clear roles, shared standards, useful feedback loops, and a healthy operating rhythm. Even capable people can struggle when those pieces aren’t in place. When I’m building a team, I look for people who can do the work, genuinely want the responsibility, fit the company’s values, and deeply care about what’s best for the company in the long term. Experience is important, but so is how someone thinks, learns, communicates, and responds when things don’t go as planned. Look for someone whose experience and instincts fit the complexity your company is facing right now, while also possessing the traits to help prepare it for what comes next.
Responsibilities for every position and employee must be clear. People should know what they own, what success looks like, and how their work connects to the company’s vision. And you’ve got to maintain your established system by continuously reviewing priorities, tracking the right numbers, addressing issues early, and giving direct feedback. A leader doesn’t need to have every answer. Their job is to build the right team and create the conditions where people can take ownership, solve problems, and perform without constant intervention.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders?
Mark: First, get clear on what you’re trying to build and why it carries weight. People can handle hard work when they understand the vision, the priorities, and what success actually looks like. Second, stay close to reality. Keep an ear to the ground and listen to the market. The more responsibility you have, the easier it is to become separated from the facts. Third, take full responsibility for the system you lead. You can delegate authority, but you can’t delegate accountability. When something isn’t working, start by asking what you could have made clearer, addressed sooner, or structured differently. Then fix it. Those three ideas apply whether you’re building a company, leading an institution, or serving a community.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
Mark: “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.” It’s cliché, but I’ve learned it’s incredibly true. Rushing usually creates more work later. Taking the time to understand the issue, make a thoughtful decision, and communicate it clearly often helps everyone move faster in the end. That advice has shaped how I lead, especially during difficult moments. Deliberate doesn’t mean hesitant. It means moving with enough clarity that people can act with confidence.
Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share?
Mark: As the company moves through different stages of development, the work changes, the complexity increases, and the people around you may need to change too. That includes the founder. One of the hardest parts of leadership is recognizing when the company has outgrown the way you’ve been operating. There will come a time when your business needs can’t be met by the small, intimate team that eats lunch together every week. You will need to expand and enhance your workforce, and sometimes it means leaving practices or people behind. It may be uncomfortable, but growing pains are a part of success. It’s important that you recognize that company growth isn’t always linear. It’s your responsibility to know how fast your company is moving.
