THE MANIFESTO a fixable problem
A short letter on why the open internet quietly forgot the most useful structure for ambitious people — and what we intend to do about it. Filed by the founder, in plain English, on a quiet morning in Detroit.
The quiet shape of failure. You ship your first thing. It works. You ship a second. It works better. You join a Discord, then three. You read the newsletter. You go to the conference. And then, six years in, you look up and realize that for all the noise, you have not actually leveled up since year two.
Audience ≠ peers. The internet promised to connect us to our peers. It connected us to an audience. The two are not the same. An audience watches. Peers compare notes, raise the standard, and refuse to let you slip.
The wager. Growth Groups is the wager — narrow, slightly old-fashioned — that the most useful structure for serious builders is one the open internet forgot. Not a course. Not a community. Not a Discord with twelve thousand members and a busy #general channel. A small, long-running, private cohort. Twelve people. One year. Mutual accountability. Real receipts.
Why twelve. Twelve is not a marketing number. Twelve is the largest group in which every person can know every other person's work, every project's quarter-by-quarter progress, every promise made and kept or missed. Above twelve, you are running a community. Twelve and below, you are running a company of peers.
The format. Each cohort meets weekly. The format is fixed and unsentimental — Roll & Receipts → The Stuck Hour → The Standard → The Promise. Each member brings one decision they are stuck on, one number they intend to move, and one thing they shipped. We watch the work. We respond honestly. We adjourn.
The composition. We are biased toward three kinds of people, in roughly equal numbers — founders running their own products with their own money; operators who carry P&L responsibility for a meaningful business; and artists running a serious paid practice. Equal parts. The cross-pollination is the offering.
Who this is not for. Spectators. People in the planning phase of their first thing. Serial cohort-collectors. Anyone whose theory of growth requires someone else to grant them permission. The petition surfaces this quickly — for us and for you.
The selection. The first stage opens June 2026. Twelve seats. Names of accepted members listed only on this site, only after the cohort closes. Subsequent stages will be announced when, and only when, the previous one has finished its year and reported what happened.
The close. If this is the structure you have been waiting for, you already know it. Place your petition →
One fixed hour. Four segments. Zero filler.
| HR | Segment | What is asked of each member |
|---|---|---|
| i. | Roll & Receipts | One thing you shipped this week. One number that moved. No filler. No apologies for the absence of either. |
| ii. | The Stuck Hour | Each member places one decision on the table. The room responds. The decision-maker decides. |
| iii. | The Standard | One member's recent work is reviewed in detail by the rest. Rotates weekly. The standard is honest. |
| iv. | The Promise | Each member states one thing they will ship by the next meeting, on the record. |
Five short transmissions. Seven minutes.
A petition is not an application. It is a brief, written declaration that you intend to ship something serious in the next twelve months and want twelve serious people to hold you to it.
File petition →