How To Apply Signals That Scale And Avoid Noises That Stagnate Founders And Their Firms In 2026
Every Scale-stage founder in Collective 54 is likely doing some version of the same thing right now.
Reviewing 2025. Refining a plan for 2026. Deciding what to double down on — and what to stop.
That feels responsible. It’s also where many founders quietly lose a year.
Not because they lack intelligence or effort. Because they fail to separate signal from noise at the exact moment it matters.
I’m writing this as a Scale-stage founder who just completed his first year of the scaling phase and had to confront that reality.









