Damn Near Automatic brings experienced founders together to find what's limiting growth, make better decisions, and build stronger businesses. You bring your ambition and the company you're building. You'll sit with founders who've solved what you're solving, and leave with a clearer view of what's in the way.
Led by Darrell Vesterfelt and Corey Wilks, Psy.D. Applications are reviewed personally.
You're past the stage of wondering whether anyone will pay for what you make. You have customers, revenue, and evidence that something works. Now you're looking at a bigger possibility for the business: more growth, more profit, more reach, or a company that's equipped to handle what comes next.
Three things tell us whether this room is right for you.
You have a real business with customers and a product or service the market has already validated.
You're actively working toward a bigger opportunity, however you define it.
You can bring a hard decision into a room and let other capable founders challenge your assumptions.
Traction, trajectory, and how you show up in a room matter more than revenue or category.
Early on, much of the work is proving that the business can exist. Later, the questions become more consequential. Is the offer still right for the market? Is growth repeatable and profitable? Can the team deliver what you sell? Are your decisions helping the company move or slowing it down?
You can work harder at a part of the business that is already strong and never change the result. What matters is knowing which condition needs attention now.
The next stage rarely asks you to solve every problem. It asks you to recognize the one that matters most.
A business's potential is shaped by the capacity of its founder and the conditions that founder creates. We call this Build the Conditions: a way to see the whole business, understand how its parts affect one another, and focus on the constraint that matters now.
How to read it: the three outer conditions are where a business either grows or stalls. Founder Capacity sits at the center because it multiplies all three. The arrows run both ways, and the ring turns clockwise: progress in one condition creates pressure, and possibility, in the next.
Your judgment, identity, leadership, decision-making, self-awareness, and willingness to have difficult conversations influence every part of the company. Founder Capacity sits at the center of the system because it shapes how the other conditions develop.
Create something people want. Understand the customer, sharpen positioning, design the offer, set pricing, and make sure the business model fits the opportunity.
Build predictable, profitable demand. Develop marketing, sales, distribution, retention, and the economics that help a good business grow.
Develop the capacity to deliver and scale. Strengthen hiring, financial clarity, delegation, team design, operating systems, and the processes that support growth.
Find what's holding you back right now.
Increase your founder capacity and the supporting conditions around it.
More growth. More impact. A bigger future.
These conditions influence each other. Stronger demand exposes weak delivery. Better infrastructure makes a new growth strategy possible. A founder's leadership moves both. The work keeps going, because every gain in one condition changes what the next one needs.
There are plenty of ways to learn another business tactic. The harder work is deciding what your company needs right now. Inside DNA, founders bring real questions into the room, examine them with people who know what building a company requires, and leave with decisions they can act on.
Use Build the Conditions to see the relationships between Founder Capacity, Product-Market Fit, Growth Strategy, and Infrastructure.
Pressure-test the assumptions behind the problem. Is the real issue demand, positioning, execution, leadership, or something else?
Make the decision, run the experiment, build the capability, and return with what happened. The room helps you keep moving.
Most founders guess at their constraint. In DNA, you test the guess before you spend a quarter chasing it.
When a decision matters, the people you're able to think with matter too. DNA brings together founders with different businesses and complementary experience, all serious about building what's next.
Twice each month, bring a real business question into a practical conversation. Get perspective and work toward a clearer next move.
Build relationships with a small set of founders who know what you're working toward and will follow up.
Learn from experienced operators, then connect what you learn to the decisions in your own company.
Each month Darrell and Corey teach the work directly: the growth strategy behind a decision, and the leadership it takes to carry it out.
Once a year the room meets in person. A few days with the people you've been building alongside, working on the year ahead together.
Your seat at the Growth Intensive is included: two days in Minneapolis, hosted by Darrell and Corey. A $2,500 value.
Once each membership year, bring one founder you respect to the Growth Intensive as your guest, at no charge to them. Their seat is a $2,500 value, and it's a way to share one of the conversations you value with someone whose thinking you respect.
Advance guest registration and participation guidelines apply. See the FAQ.
Feeling like you're not good enough, doing it all yourself, avoiding hard conversations, and taking less risk as revenue grows. How each one shows up, and how to get unstuck.
Why going narrow felt too small and changed everything. Target a clear transition, design a magical first experience, and build a product that grows itself.
The 15-minute internal stand-up for getting unstuck, and how leaders build a team where people say the scary thing out loud.
Darrell has spent nearly two decades building and growing businesses, including leading growth at Kit. Today he coaches founders and brings a practical operator's perspective to business strategy, leadership, and the decisions that shape growth.
Corey brings the psychology of how founders think and operate: the patterns that influence judgment, the behaviors that emerge under pressure, and what it takes to change how we lead. Together, their perspectives help members examine both the business and the person shaping it.
Growth follows decisions, and decisions sharpen when capable people examine them with you. These are the shifts members work toward.
Stop treating every symptom as the priority. Get clearer about which condition is limiting progress.
Bring consequential questions into a room of people who understand what's at stake.
Strengthen the systems, leadership, offers, and growth strategy your next stage requires.
Develop relationships that extend beyond a single session and give you perspective as the business evolves.
Founding annual price for applications received by October 31, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. Central. New standard annual membership price: $4,999 beginning November 1.
If you submit your application by October 31, are accepted, and complete enrollment within the timeframe provided, you'll receive a private 60-minute session with Darrell Vesterfelt, to book within 90 days of enrollment.
Bring the ambition you're working toward and the decision or constraint you'd most like to examine. We'll look at what's happening in your business and where to focus next.
Applying by October 31 also locks the founding rate of $3,500 a year, at renewal as well. On November 1 the standard annual price becomes $4,999.
Founding offer closes in
Applications close October 31 at 11:59 p.m. Central.
The application deadline applies to submission, not approval or payment. Applications are personally reviewed, including those submitted on October 31. Eligible applicants receive complete enrollment terms if approved. Founding members renew at $3,500 a year for as long as the membership stays active.
Take about ten minutes to tell us about your business, what's working, and what you want to build next. Applications must arrive by 11:59 p.m. Central on October 31 to qualify for the founding offer.
Darrell or Corey personally reviews each application, normally within a few business days. You can apply on October 31 and receive a decision afterward without losing eligibility for October terms.
We'll send enrollment details, the membership agreement, and a payment link. Enrollment is due within five business days of acceptance. After enrollment, we'll help you get into the room and arrange your private session if you're eligible.
We read every application. We're looking for founders with real traction, meaningful ambition, and the willingness to contribute to a room built around thoughtful business growth. Be specific. The more we understand your company and what you want to build, the better we can assess whether DNA is a good fit.
Applications received by 11:59 p.m. Central on October 31 are considered for the founding offer, even if reviewed after the deadline.
Thank you for sharing what you're building. We review applications personally and will respond by email. If you applied by the October 31 deadline, your eligibility for the founding offer is preserved while we review it.
Bring your business, your ambition, and the questions that matter. Build the conditions for growth alongside founders who will take your work as seriously as you do.
Apply for MembershipFounding application deadline: October 31, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. Central.