Flow State for Startup Founders: The Complete Deep Work Playbook

Jörn Menninger
Oct 9, 2025
41 min read

Updated: Apr 8

'Emotional Branding for Startups – The Invisible Growth Engine' on a dark blue tech-patterned background.

What Is This About?

The complete deep work playbook for startup founders covers everything from environment design and time blocking to AI-assisted workflows and recovery protocols. This comprehensive guide helps founders protect their most valuable asset — uninterrupted thinking time.

Introduction

This complete deep work playbook for startup founders goes beyond productivity tips to present a structured system for achieving and sustaining flow state. Covering the neuroscience of focus, environmental design, schedule architecture, and recovery protocols, the guide provides founders with actionable frameworks for protecting their most valuable cognitive resource — the ability to think deeply about hard problems without interruption.

Executive Summary

Sustained flow state requires understanding the neuroscience of focus — specifically the dopamine-norepinephrine cycle that governs attention and the recovery requirements that most productivity systems ignore. The playbook covers four pillars: environmental design, schedule architecture, digital hygiene, and active recovery protocols. Founders who implement the complete system report 2-3 additional hours of high-quality cognitive work per day. The key insight is that flow state is a trainable skill with diminishing barriers rather than a rare psychological event.

Discover Steven Puri’s flow rituals, body doubling, and focus tactics for startup founders to build deep work cultures and ship faster.

Discover Steven Puri’s flow rituals, body doubling, and focus tactics for startup founders to build deep work cultures and ship faster. Startuprad.io brings you independent coverage of the key developments shaping the startup and venture capital landscape across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

This founder interview is part of our ongoing coverage of Scaleup Founder Interviews from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Key Takeaways

Atomic Answer

🚀 Management Summary

How do startup founders actually get into flow state in a world of Slack pings, Zoom calls, and endless context switching?

This guide breaks down the Flow State Playbook for Startup Founders, inspired by our conversation with Steven Puri — Hollywood veteran turned startup founder. We explore how to design for deep work using body doubling, the coffee-shop effect, chronotype time blocking, and demo-first rituals.

📚 Table of Contents

The Flow State Imperative
The Coffee-Shop Effect: Ambient Accountability
Body Doubling for Founders
The 22-Minute Context Switching Tax
Chronotype Time Blocking
Demo-First Rituals & Outcome-Based Leadership
🧠 Unique Value Blocks
📡 AI-Search Supreme Layer
🧭 Internal & External Links
📆 Author Box & Closing

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🧭 The Flow State Imperative

Startup founders need deliberate environments to enter and sustain flow, not just discipline.

For founders, focus is the ultimate leverage. Flow states are where the highest-value work happens — complex problem solving, strategy, product breakthroughs. But as Steven Puri notes, founders often confuse availability with impact.

In today’s remote-first world, leaders must architect their calendars, rituals, and environments to trigger flow deliberately. This article dives into the 5 pillars of Puri’s flow methodology, designed to work for founders, teams, and operators alike.

☕ 1. The Coffee-Shop Effect: Ambient Accountability

Ambient accountability boosts focus through presence without interaction.

What Is the Coffee-Shop Effect?

The “coffee-shop effect” refers to the social facilitation phenomenon — people work better when others are silently working around them. Puri explains how Sukha recreated this virtually: founders join silent co-working rooms where simply being present increases output.

Why It Works for Founders

It replaces isolation with communal momentum
Encourages longer deep work blocks without distraction
Simulates the hum of productive environments — no meetings required

👥 2. Body Doubling for Founders

Body doubling uses real-time presence to improve focus, especially for remote founders.

Tactical Deep Dive

Originally popular in ADHD communities, body doubling means working alongside someone (in person or via webcam) to create accountability. For founders, this can be transformative: you start a deep work session with others watching, so you’re less likely to context switch or procrastinate.

Puri emphasizes that this isn’t about chatting — it’s about shared silence and energy. Sukha’s platform allows founders to create or join silent “focus rooms,” turning accountability into a productivity multiplier.

Pro Tip: Start with 25-minute silent sessions with cameras on. End with a 1-minute share of what you shipped. This simple ritual creates psychological commitment.

⏱ 3. The 22-Minute Context Switching Tax

It takes 15–23 minutes to recover flow after a single interruption.

Why It Matters

Founders often pride themselves on “multitasking,” but neuroscience shows this is just rapid task switching — and every switch carries a heavy cognitive toll. Puri cites research showing it takes ~22 minutes to re-enter flow after an interruption.

How to Counter It

Timer-based sprints: commit to uninterrupted blocks (e.g. 45 minutes)
Mute notifications: Slack, email, calendars — everything off
Structured breaks: schedule interruption zones after deep work

🌅 4. Chronotype Time Blocking

Align deep work with your brain’s natural peaks for maximum output.

What It Is

Chronotypes describe whether you’re a morning maker or night strategist. Instead of forcing productivity at arbitrary times, Puri recommends founders schedule their hardest work when their brain is at its best.

Morning people: do strategy, writing, and creative work early.
Night owls: block late evenings for design, vision, or code.
Protect these blocks like meetings with your future self.

Tactical Application

Run a 2-week chronotype log to find peak focus hours
Batch similar tasks into blocks (e.g., all writing in one morning slot)
Communicate your “deep work blocks” to your team

🧪 5. Demo-First Rituals & Outcome-Based Leadership

Demo-first standups and outcome-based leadership shift teams from presence to impact.

Demo-First Rituals

Borrowing from Pixar’s story rooms, Steven implemented “demo-first” standups: every meeting starts with a demo, not a status update. This drives:

Tangible progress over talk
Teamwide clarity on what’s shipping
Reduced ego (best idea wins)

Outcome-Based Leadership

Instead of measuring time, measure effect. This cultural shift:

Rewards creative problem solving
Reduces performative busyness
Enables remote autonomy with high trust

✅ Key Takeaways

Flow isn’t accidental — it’s architected
Body doubling is a founder-friendly productivity hack
Context switching silently kills deep work — timers fix it
Chronotype-based scheduling beats generic calendars
Demo-first rituals foster impact over presence

💬 Founder Quote Box

“We don’t rely on willpower — we design for flow.”— Steven Puri, Co-founder & CEO, Sukha

Commentary: This sums up the modern founder mindset. Rituals and environments outperform brute discipline.

🌍 Market Lens

Why now?

Remote work has fragmented attention.
AI tools have increased cognitive load, not reduced it.
Founders are under pressure to ship more with fewer resources.

Flow state design is becoming a strategic advantage, not a luxury.

🛠 Pro Tip

📝 Create a “Flow Ritual Checklist”:

Join a body doubling room
Start a 45-min timer
Play flow music
Close Slack & email
Announce your task in chat for accountability

Repeat daily → compounding focus gains.

📊 Stat Spotlight

💡 15–23 minutes: Average time to recover flow after interruption.Source: Gloria Mark, UC Irvine — The Cost of Interrupted Work.

🧵 Further Reading

External Links

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Automated Transcript

1 Foreign. 2 Your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German 3 startup scene with news interviews and 4 live events. 5 If you're a founder or engineer fighting distractions, 6 here's the challenge most productivity hacks 7 create Flow Stephen Puri, the VFX 8 producer behind Oscar winning Independence Day and former 9 Fox Greenworks executive Turd Shuka 10 founder, has shipped under Hollywood level 11 pressure. Today we'll unpack his Flow State 12 playbook from the coffee shop effect to remote team 13 rituals so he can do deep work and 14 be2 time your meaningful 15 output today on 16 startup rated IO Stephen Puri. He helped deliver the visual 17 magic on Independence Day. Braveheart, True Lies, 18 Godzilla Dentur then moved 19 upstairs as a studio executive at Fox and DreamWorks. Along 20 the way he co founded Centropolis FX with his friend 21 Roland Emerysch, later selling the company and produced in the

22 Transformers universe with Transformers Prime. He's 23 a founder again building 24 Flow State platform for remote workers, developers and 25 creators. We'll explore what Hollywood war rooms taught 26 him about focus and what his startup failures told 27 him about resilience and how to design teams for deep work in 28 an AI driven distraction heavy world. 29 That is a nutshell. That's a big sentence. 30 Yes, but. But you know, in Germany we love big sentences 31 and compound bounds. Yeah. 32 Let's talk a little about origins. You told me both of your parents 33 were engineers. You started in CG and 34 Metroland Emirates through vfx. What 35 was the first this is bigger than me moment on 36 Independence Day? Oh, I think 37 there were a lot of this is bigger than me moments. I was 38 very fortunate to meet Roland and Dean, his co

39 producer and co writer, after I had worked 40 on about 13 movies. How 41 that happened is you mentioned my parents were both engineers at IBM. 42 So when your mother is a great ice skater, you probably learned to ice skate 43 when you were little. So. So I learned how to code. I was in Los 44 Angeles at the University of Southern California when computers 45 became powerful enough to handle film. So I 46 worked on the digital effects for True Lies with Jim 47 Cameron seven with David Fincher. I did 48 Braveheart and Mortal Blood with Mel Gibson, did a bunch of movies and met 49 Roland and Dean after they'd done Stargate. And 50 I remember coming over to chat with them and they were building in one of 51 the hangars at Howard Hughes old aircraft factory which 52 was been abandoned, but it was a very cheap place to have huge stages. Right.

53 They had under construction the 54 alien fighter craft that Jeff Goldblum would later 55 be inside and install the virus to help save the world. 56 And it was pretty great having a conversation with them about 57 doing the movie Together when you're standing next to this massive 58 starship being created, that was one of many moments 59 that was hard movie to do, but a great one to do. 60 Every day. What did leadership under pressure look 61 like across Braveheart? True Life's Godzilla, and which 62 habit from those sets still lives in your 63 founder routine? Okay, so in 64 many ways, I view leadership as 65 a way to create an environment for a team to do great things. 66 I don't view leadership as, oh, I'm here to be 67 the great one. I think, for example, in the entertainment world, Bob Iger

68 is a great example of a leader where he has amazing people running 69 the divisions he's navigated, very complex acquisitions, but 70 he doesn't make it about him. In contrast to someone like 71 Elon Musk, who's very full of himself. So 72 going back to working with people who are very talented, 73 Mel, Jim, Cameron Fincher, Spielberg, I work with 74 Woody Allen, Jim Jarmusch. The thing that was important was 75 we have a team here and if everyone has something 76 inside them that is great to express, how do you create the conditions where 77 they're going to be great, they're going to get that out. And that's a very 78 strong theme of my life. I've worked with incredibly 79 productive, creative, talented people. And it's 80 about, if we all have something great inside, how do you 81 make sure you don't die with it still inside you? That's how

82 I view leadership. 83 We had quite an extensive conversation before that, and you said 84 the studio sequel Treadmill felt at one point meaningless 85 to you, pushing you towards a startup. What 86 snapped and why? So what you're 87 referencing is when I had sold 88 that company with Roland and Dean, and I was in my late twenties, 89 and as one thinks in their late twenties that they're smarter than they are, they're 90 more successful, they're better looking than they are. Right. So I had that moment of 91 like, oh, wow, I sold a company and I had some money in my pocket. 92 My girlfriend was a flight attendant for Air France, and we traveled for a year 93 or two and just sort of experienced the world. And I thought, 94 when we come back, I want to make 95 movies. I don't want to make a portion of someone else's movie.

96 So I worked my way up the ladder to be, as you said, 97 an executive vice president for Kurtzman Mercy at DreamWorks, Vice President 98 at Fox doing Die Hard, Wolverine and things like that. And I wanted to 99 be like a studio chairman. So when I got to 100 Fox, what was interesting is 101 I came to understand for the first time that my job, which Was 102 from the outside, rather prestigious. 103 I'm responsible for delivering the next Die Hard movie, the next Wolverine movie, 104 a bunch of movies on the slate. It's really just a chair. 105 The studio will live beyond my tenure there. It was around before 106 I was there. I'm the guy in the chair for these couple of years, 107 and someone will come after me. And the studio is going to make these movies 108 regardless of who is there, because people will just see a movie

109 because it says Die Hard on the poster. And my 110 boss, who was the chairman of Fox Films Entertainment, who was a 111 smart guy, if not a nice guy, a smart guy, he was very 112 pragmatic. He said, you know, it doesn't actually matter how good this movie is, 113 how good the script is. We can financially model it based 114 upon the previous four movies. So as long as we make it cheaply, 115 we know we won't lose money. And, Yorin, that 116 is not an extremely inspiring way to lead a 117 team. It's like, hey, would you go kill yourself to make 118 this thing? By the way, we know the script sucks, but as long as it 119 gets shot, when Bruce has some time to shoot the movie, we'll release it and 120 it'll be fine. And that for me, was the breaking point where I was like,

121 am I going to wake up, be 40, 50 years old doing die hard 122 nine in the retirement home? Because people will go see it even 123 if there's no idea. I couldn't see spending 124 more time there. I think there's a real value misalignment at Fox. 125 If you do Die Hard 9, it has to play in a retirement 126 home. Pretty much, yeah. And obviously now 127 Bruce is not making his movies anymore, and I hope he and his family are 128 well. But at the time, he was still quite 129 vibrant. And the movie got made because he had a 130 window of time in his schedule. It was not made because this is the 131 most amazing idea. The best script ever, the best director ever. It was 132 more, just get something ready and shoot in April 133 and we'll find a country in Eastern Europe where we can shoot it cheaply.

134 Not inspiring. Good to have a. It pays well 135 and it's a fun job to have, but. But someday you're like, 136 I'm going to wake up sitting around talking about how I did these bad 137 movies. Not a great way to spend your life. 138 For everybody who's interested, we do have a founder's world. And then we 139 also talk about his talker's moment and how Stephen 140 rebuilt his identity as a founder. The full story, of course, 141 inside our Founders vault. 142 I was wondering because you've been in 143 corporate. I have been two. Even though completely different 144 capacities and industries. What specific 145 anti patterns did you learn there that 146 now shape Shuka product bets. 147 Okay. An anti pattern. And this might fall 148 into category of values also, which is, 149 I think you, 150 all of us right now are looking at how do we measure work.

151 And in the tug of war between working at 152 home, working remotely, working hybrid, working in office, 153 there's a lot of fear. Right? 154 I think the fundamental thing that we should focus 155 on is not, well, where did you do this work? 156 Were you here under the fluorescent lights with me where I could watch you? 157 Were you at home? Were you at a beach or at a park? I don't 158 know where you are, not what time of day you did it. Like, if you're 159 not here at 2am Joran, you're not working hard, you're not part of the team. 160 If you're not sleeping under your desk, you're not doing meaningful work. I 161 don't think those are important. I think work should be measured by the effect 162 of what you do, not where or when you do it. So if you walk

163 in the staff meeting tomorrow and you say, guys, actually yesterday I had some 164 time to think. This is what I was considering. 165 And everyone in the meeting looks over and goes, oh, my God, we should do 166 that now. That changes the trajectory 167 of our company. And then you say, well, you know what? I actually 168 just thought of that. Walking my dog. Who cares? 169 I would much rather you said I was walking my dog and I had this 170 revolutionary idea than I was here all day. I was here 14 171 hours yesterday. And I have some mediocre things to share. You 172 know, Stephen, between you and me and something like 50 173 to 100,000 people listening to this interview, can I tell you a secret? 174 Yes. I have the best ideas when smoking a cigar. 175 Okay. I'm glad it's our little secret. No one

176 tell anyone what you just heard. 177 Yeah. Awesome. Why do you think that is? Hold on, I want 178 to ask you a question. Why do you think that is? That's pretty simple. 179 That's like a moment I do get 180 completely for myself. I sit there on our covered 181 porch, on the balcony where there's another balcony on 182 top. But I have awesome neighbors. They don't mind me going 183 out late at night smoking cigarette because they're already in bed. Thank you, 184 neighbors. I look out like it is peaceful world. 185 There's. There's a lot of green. I see some squirrels running around and 186 all that stuff. And I. I can really wind down my brain. I can 187 really relax. And it 188 takes some time to smoke, like a really good cigarette. So you 189 relax it for quite some time. May I tell you a story?

190 Sure. That's why you're here. So when I was 191 transitioning from being a student at USC 192 to the film world, which was not my original intention, I sort of fell into 193 it. I had gotten a job 194 working at a company that did trailers for movies, 195 largely for Warner Brothers and for Buena Vista, which is Disney. 196 So my job, when I was 20 years old at this company was 197 we would have contracts with the studios where they would send us rough cuts of 198 movies. Hey, next spring we have this romantic comedy with Steven and 199 Joran in it. Find a way to promote it. So I would assign 200 those incoming movies to writer producers. Hey, go take this home. 201 Watch it. They want it to feel fun or they want it to feel scary. 202 They want to feel right. So the company is owned by two

203 guys who are very well established in this field in Hollywood. They were very 204 respected as great guys to promote movies. So one of them 205 comes in my office one day, and he's 40 years old, 206 by the way, smoke cigars. So he comes to my office, and 207 he's the only person in my life who calls me Stevie. So he goes, 208 stevie, do you know Bart? 209 And I was like, there's the guy in the vault that delivers tapes. Yeah, I've 210 met him. Seems nice. Why? He's like, you ever 211 give Bart a trailer to ride? 212 I was like, are we talking about the guy who delivers coffee? The same. 213 Bart, the guy. Where are you going with this? He's like, 214 stevie, I have an instinct about him. 215 Jeff, you own the place. Let me give him something to work on, Right? So

216 I found, like, a Warner Brothers B title that had a month deadline. 217 So if after a week, he's like, I don't want to do this. I could 218 give it to a pro. Right? Jeff comes to my office two days 219 later. Stevie, how's Bart doing? Like, Jeff, I gave him this 220 thing two days ago. I'm not going to bug him. I'll check with him on 221 Monday. Okay. Okay, that's great. What else did you give him? 222 Jeff, he's never written a trailer in his life. I gave him one movie, 223 and Jeff said something that I've seen 224 proven true for 20 years in both film and tech. 225 Jeff said to me, stevie, let me explain to you how 226 creativity works. It's always about the 227 other thing. He said, if you give Bart one movie to work 228

on, he's going to stare at that with little beads of sweat coming down 229 his temples and he's going to write the most 230 obvious B version of a trailer. 231 He's like the part of your mind that does the huh, 232 what do chocolate and peanut butter taste like together? He's like, that's not the part 233 of your mind that you think you're thinking with. So you have to give 234 him something else to think about. 235 Not only have I seen him proven right so many times, but there is a 236 book about the neuroscience of this called the Net and the 237 butterfly by Olivia Fox Caban 238 and Judah Pollock. And it talks about the 239 executive mode and the default mode networks in the brain and 240 talks to a lot of inventors, talks to a lot of creative types and say,

241 how do you do this? And what's interesting is the default mode 242 network, which actually exists first when we were small, is 243 the one that just explores the world. It looks at a cell phone and thinks, 244 I wonder what that tastes like. Well, the executive mode network is more 245 like the adult in the room. I have to finish the slide 246 deck for tomorrow's presentation. Oh, the investor thing is coming up. I need to 247 do my homework tonight. So it's only when the 248 executive mode network is busy doing something the default mode network 249 can play and come up with those ideas. You go, oh, actually that's interesting. 250 So that is why people have ideas when they are sitting out, looking, 251 smoking a cigar, walking their dog, driving, 252 doing the dishes, showering. So many people come to me like, I have my best

253 ideas in the shower. My best ideas like washing dishes. And 254 that is why. I see. And 255 actually I also learned that when I became an entrepreneur, 256 I sent the adult in my brain a part time vacation. 257 Okay, let's talk about Transformers prime and later studio 258 roles. Put you in a massive cross functional team. 259 What's a communication ritual from that 260 world every startup should steal today. 261 Oh, okay. I would say probably the most 262 valuable thing that you see on show because Transformers prime is a 263 TV series that I helped set up. I helped staff 264 and create the organization for that. So that 265 is a 3D animated show based on the Transformers universe and all 266 that. So a very similar thing does exist 267 in the standup world, which is you do 268 have a morning standup

269 and that is something that in the animation world 270 you will have a practice that Pixar is famous for about, you know, the 271 Pixar movies, right from Toy Story to today, like they've done an 272 amazing job. They have a very collaborative process of saying, hey, let's 273 watch things together. Let's talk about the struggles we're having. I don't know why the 274 third act is not working here. It's a similar thing that I see in the 275 best startup, you know, best startups that have a standup that's 276 not just a. This is what I did yesterday. This is 277 what I'm doing today. This is where I'm blocked. You know, it's like that 278 becomes such a rote sort of a thing that's not actually that 279 inspiring as to say, hey, you know what? I want to show something. 280 I built this feature. What do you think? And take 10 seconds. Take

281 20 seconds. Go. Now, when you do this in our app, this 282 works this way. And it's an interesting way to engage 283 the team, to get collaborative ideas, to shoot down bad ideas 284 quickly. And you, as a leader, have to create an 285 environment where best idea wins, where there is no ego. 286 And I'll tell you another story. When I was at DreamWorks 287 and I had worked hard, and I got to the point where I was a 288 senior executive there with Alex and Bob, I remember the very first 289 meeting I had in Steven Spielberg's conference room, which, yes, 290 I'd worked hard to get there and had done many projects. But I'm just going 291 to tell you straight up, the first time I was sitting there and Steven's, it's 292 all Southwestern Adobe style. 293 And I looked around, I was like, oh, my God. My life has gotten to

294 the point where I'm having a story meeting with Steven Spielberg in his private conference 295 room. This is amazing. And the chairman of DreamWorks, Stacy Snyder 296 is there, and the president of DreamWorks, myself, two writers, 297 writing producers. And I saw something that I was 298 like, wow. And I'm going 299 to change the details, Jorn, just to be respectful of Stephen in the 300 process. Okay, I'm going to change the details a bit, but we're working on a 301 project that's like an Alien movie. And Steven has done 302 some big alien movie. He spent a lot of time thinking about aliens, right? 303 So he said something where it's like, oh, you know what? The alien should come 304 through the wall, and then we're going to discover its weakness. Is this 305 right? And everyone, of course, writes that down. Steven

306 Spielberg said, the alien comes to the wall. Weaknesses, right? And. And then 307 someone who I'm going to say is like, the coffee boy was coming through the 308 room and said, actually, I feel like we 309 just saw that last summer in this other movie. 310 And what if it were actually this thing that the alien 311 was weak, it was his weakness. And I 312 thought to myself, that Coffee Boy will never be seen alive 313 again. He just contradicted Steven Spielberg. This would be the 314 end of Jerry. He'll be in a dumpster out back. 315 And what was amazing is, without a 316 missed beat, Steven said, oh, yeah, that's good, we should 317 do that. And there was no feeling of, oh, 318 my God, someone contradicted Steven Spielberg. It was rather 319 Steven saying, I want this to be great more

320 than I want it to be mine. And I'll tell 321 you, I saw this with some of the best designers, some of the 322 best writers, directors. They 323 don't have a possessive relationship with ideas. It's 324 not like you're in, this is my idea. I must defend it to the death. 325 We'll do it this way. It is rather, I will defend greatness to the 326 death. And then you lose the 327 ego because you want the products to be great. Whether it is an 328 app, whether it is a movie, a TV series. 329 That process, if you can create that in your company, it comes from the 330 top. Because once they see the leader is fine with their ideas 331 being improved, then everyone goes, oh, well, it's okay. It's not an ego 332 thing. That sounds pretty good. Can I tell you another secret?

333 Oh, boy. Is this about cigars? It has done a lot of 334 very cool stuff. But when you first said Steven Spielberg, do you know what 335 first thing came to my mind? The animated series. He did 336 Pinky and the Brain. Pinky and the Brain. 337 Okay, you're going to laugh. That's funny. That was on your mind. You know what 338 was on my mind today when we were going to talk, when I was thinking, 339 oh, I wanted to talk to Jordan today, was I think you did a recent 340 episode where you were interviewing someone who was 341 working in the finance. I think she was in private equity or something, and she 342 made selling finance. And you said, you know, 343 you don't need five apps to tell you you're broke. 344 Remember this? Yes, I remember 345 listening to that in the car. I was going to the gym and I laughed

346 out lo. You know what? You're absolutely right. 347 Really cool. Let's talk a little bit about 348 Shuka, your 349 current company, your current startup. That's why you are here. As 350 an entrepreneur, you aim for the 351 coffee shop effect. I 352 assume it's not being over caffeinated. What does 353 the science and your user data say about 354 ambient accountability versus solo focus 355 playlists? Let me answer that, but then I'm going to 356 expand it a little bit, if that's okay with you. Okay, so 357 for those listening at home or playing in the car, what Joran is 358 alluding to is there is an effect that's known 359 colloquially as the coffee shop effect. 360 In research circles, it's often called social facilitation 361 theory, the Hawthorne effect, other things. And it's based on this 362 idea, which is there is a

363 productivity boost, a measurable boost if 364 you can see someone else working and, you know, 365 you can be seen working. And whether that is 366 the negative side of that is, well, it's surveillance. It's like, oh, 367 everyone can see me. I have to work. Or whether it is, hey, we're doing 368 this together. It's inspiring. You can debate that, but there 369 is a productivity boost you get from that. Now, I think what 370 Joran's getting at, because he wants to laugh a little bit at me, is when 371 I was a film executive, I had to read a lot of 372 scripts, a lot of books. You were continually getting 373 this flow of things coming at you from people who 374 want you to buy it, Right. Will your studio please buy my idea, 375 my pitch, my treatment, my. My video game rights, you know,

376 whatever. And that means you read a lot. And 377 I'm not a great writer, but 378 there is a coffee shop, a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf that 379 is across Sunset Boulevard from the Directors Guild of America. 380 And it is famously known as this writer's coffee shop. 381 And when you walk in There, all the MacBooks 382 are out with people writing on their laptops. And it's not 383 incredibly social. It is not like people are just running around talking to each 384 other all the time. But there's an energy in that room that's really interesting because 385 in one corner, you have that weird old guy writing 386 who's written, like, three studio movies this year. His quote is a million dollars 387 a script. But he still comes here in his 50s or 60s, because it's his 388 habit. He loves the energy of this room. Maybe he's been there for 20 years,

389 whereas there are other people who just got off the bus from Iowa, you know, 390 or from Wichita Falls, and they are 391 writing their first TV pilot. So 392 what's interesting about that coffee shop effect, and then I'm going to move on to 393 a broader point, is I would go 394 there to read. Even though I was not a writer, 395 I would go there to read because it was inspiring to me. On weekends when 396 I had, like, six hours, eight hours of reading to do, to be there among 397 so many people who are trying to do something with their lives, 398 all of them are trying to write something great. And that is something that, you 399 know, with Sukha, that we wanted to recreate where you have the ability, if you 400 want to participate in a group chat, to you Know, turn your

401 camera on, see other people. It's a very simple idea 402 of that African proverb, we go 403 together, we go further. You know, if you want to go fast, go alone. If 404 you want to go far, go together. Now let me 405 expand that a little bit, which is the why 406 of what I do. And actually the most important reason that I'm 407 sharing a lot this year is what I've learned about flow 408 states. Because we began talking today. And 409 for those of you listening, I appreciate your being here because this is really the 410 closest thing to my heart. I 411 believe that all of us have something great inside. And the question 412 that you're going to answer in this lifetime is, will you get it out or 413 not? And there are some very strong forces 414 in this world to make sure you do not the people who make

415 distractions, the trillion dollar companies that hire some of the 416 best behavioral psychologists, some of the best designers 417 from the best engineers, their business models to 418 steal your life. Because they don't want you to create that startup. They don't want 419 you to come with that new idea. They don't want you to even write that 420 book. They want to have your life so they can sell it. 421 So if you are out there listening and you have that thing inside you 422 like, I refuse to die with this idea 423 still inside me, then that tug of war 424 for your life you really have to look at. Because on one side you have 425 those trillion dollar ideas paying the biggest paychecks to the smartest people 426 tugging, and on the other side of that rope, 427 it's you alone. 428

So you need to have people around you and tools that help you 429 to actually become who you could be. Because you don't want to end up 430 that 80 year old guy or girl sitting on the sofa scrolling and double 431 tapping and telling people how you could have created that company, you had 432 that idea for the app, you could have written that book, because that's 433 miserable. And by the way, no one wants to be around that person. 434 They want to be around someone who tried. You may fail what you are 435 contemplating doing. You come here to listen to this podcast because you have 436 something you believe you can do. You may not succeed, 437 but if you try and fail, that is noble 438 and people can respect that. But giving your life away, 439 there's no nobility in that. So that is why I talk a lot

440 about flow states and how to block distractions and how to 441 get out the great thing inside you. And that's why I was really excited to 442 come on this podcast today. Because I think the 443 people listening here, they want to do Something with their lives, 444 and I love that. Back to you, Jorn. 445 I actually realized that I also used this effect of 446 being seen, because with a friend of mine, I'm doing like one 447 hour a week. We call it the hour of the Skunk, where 448 we just go online on a meeting, webcams on. 449 We both work on the things you really don't want to do, 450 like tax filings, 451 all the administrative trivia. You just have to. 452 Yeah, I love that in German. Die 453 stunde Distincties. And so have 454 you. I've not heard an episode where you talked about body doubling. Is that something

455 we should talk about now? No, no, 456 no, actually. Actually, I do it all myself. Like the owl of the 457 skunk. It's all me. Oh, it's just you. I thought you were on webcams together 458 with your friend. Yeah, exactly. So. So I'm there, he's 459 there, and we both work on different things, but we force each 460 other to do the stuff we don't want to do. You know, like the book. 461 Eat that frog. Exactly. That's the idea behind that. Eat the 462 frog. There you go. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So 463 the technique that Jorn is referencing is commonly known, and it's very popular 464 with neurodivergence, popular in ADHD circles, 465 of turning on your webcam, working with one or more people. 466 And it's not that you talk, it's not that you interact, but it's just a 467 way of having a sense of presence. There's someone else there, as I do

468 the thing that may be super annoying to do or I've been procrastinating 469 on, and you eat the frog. You do the thing that's hard. 470 You, I guess, spend an hour with the skunk. 471 Exactly. Sometimes I feel like that. 472 I think there's a lot of interesting stuff in here. 473 But let us move to next question. You shared that 22 474 minutes can be lost, regaining focus after interruptions. 475 How does Shukra reduce this, like, 476 context switch tax in practice? Oh, 477 good question. Okay, so, as you know, I love stories. Let me 478 tell you a story about how I discovered this. And then I'm going to go 479 into more of the neuroscience of it and how it can be applied. Right. So 480 I live in Austin, Texas. You know where this is very well, because you've lived

481 in Texas. I was flying to San Francisco, where 482 the next day I was going to meet with my team. And on the flight 483 I thought, I'm going to mock up. I'm going to go into Figma, mock up 484 this idea for a feature well, enough that I can Demonstrate it tomorrow, 485 and then actual designer can pick it up and finish it. 486 I got on the flight, and there's an Alaska nonstop 487 from Austin to San Francisco. We took off. They announced the WI 488 fi was out, and we landed about 15 minutes later. 489 And I thought, the engine has fallen off. Something bad has happened. We lost 490 hydraulic systems, and we're in Dallas. We didn't go anywhere. 491 I looked down at the little clock on my MacBook. Over 2 hours 492 and 40 minutes had gone by. I had no

493 concept. Time had moved. We were in San 494 Francisco, and my designs were done. And I was 495 actually quite proud of them. And 496 I thought to myself, I couldn't tell you if the drink cart came by. I 497 couldn't tell you the name of the guy in the seat next to me. I 498 had no concept of any of these distracting things around me, 499 but I had this great feeling of being in control of my life. That night. 500 I thought to myself, I'm going to get off the plane, grab a sandwich in 501 the hotel lobby, go up to my hotel room, and try and finish the designs. 502 In reality, I called a friend of mine and said, hey, I have a free 503 night in San Francisco. Do you want to have dinner? And that felt 504 amazing. To not be behind, but to start, be ahead.

505 And at the time, I did not know the term flow state. 506 Now, I'm sure there are many people listening who are flow 507 masters, and they know all about flow states. But for those who 508 don't, or maybe have heard it in passing, let me just do 30 seconds on 509 what a flow state is, that we're all on equal footing. Okay? 510 There was a Hungarian American psychologist, Mihai Csik 511 Nai, and he had a strong thesis. 512 His thesis was man high performers in these 513 different disciplines, inventors and athletes and 514 artists, they get into these 515 concentrated states where they do the things that make them famous, the things 516 that change the world. And they describe these states in very similar 517 ways. What is that state? How does it work? 518 So, like Prometheus from the mythology, he wanted to go

519 up to Mount Olympus, steal some fire, and bring it down to the rest of 520 us. So when he did his research, at the end of it, he wrote a 521 book, and the book is called Flow, and that is the 522 seminal work on this. It is from whence we get the term flow states. And 523 he said this was the most beautiful metaphor I could use 524 for what I found, which is, we are all on the river, 525 paddling to move ourselves forward. But if you align your 526 boat with the current, you go faster and you go 527 further, because it magnifies your efforts. And that's what these 528 people do. Now, in the intervening decades, 529 many smart people have expanded on his research and said, oh, this is the 530 thing. There is a way in which you could be more in control of your

531 day, more in control of your mind and your energy to do things. 532 Super helpful. If you are an entrepreneur, a solopreneur, 533 if you are working on things on the side, if you have knowledge, 534 work to do, like you may be a developer, you may be a designer, you 535 may be an author, and this is 536 what I am passionate about. Suka, which you referenced 537 and I appreciate you bringing that up. Suka is ultimately 538 a flow state app. I don't call it that all the time because not everyone 539 knows what a flow state is. We call it a Focus app. But what it 540 is is we looked at the research and Mihaly did an 541 amazing job saying, here's how you know you're in a flow state 542 and here are the techniques that these high performers use

543 to get into it. And we just said, what if there was a simple website 544 with a play button right in the middle that did most of this for you? 545 And I can go into what some of those things are because people can do 546 this. They don't need my app or anyone's app. If you're interested 547 in having control of your life, creating your startup better, 548 creating whatever it is you're working on for your team better. 549 Mihaly said flow states seem to be 550 characterized by loss of track of time, which I experienced. 551 Maybe you weren't. Have you've experienced a flow state, right? Yeah. 552 Yeah. Okay. So you lose track of time, distractions are blocked, you're 553 very focused on the task at hand. You do it at a very 554 high level. Your return of energy 555 from the task is much higher than things that drain you because

556 you can look at it and say, oh, I've done something of meaning. 557 And when he talked about what are the things that help you get into a 558 flow state and stay there, he said, number one, 559 everyone that he spoke to could get into flow state on a 560 task that he thought was meaningful. No one gets into a flow state like 561 paying their bills or returning stupid emails or 562 filing taxes, right? You don't get a flow state. When there was 563 a famous basketball player in this country, Michael Jordan, who 564 had this quote where he said, when I'm in the zone, it's only me and 565 the ball. And what he was saying, which zone is another word for 566 this flow state. He's saying, I can reduce my world down to 567 what is important and all that's important is I control this ball to go where

568 it needs to go. The stands are not important. The scoreboard's not important. The 569 defenders are actually not important. All that's important 570 is I move this ball where it needs to go. 571 And this is a guy who did stuff that 30 years later is 572 still in the highlight reels for the best basketball in the world. 573 And Picasso wrote about that too. He has a great quote about, I 574 was up all night and I forgot to pee. No 575 bio breaks and I didn't drink water. 576 But hey, look, I made some progress on Guernica. 577 So Mihaly said, what you're doing has to be meaningful. You 578 have to be challenged. You have to have skills that apply. It's not Michael Jordan 579 painting and it's not Picasso playing basketball. You have 580 to have some feedback. You have to know you're not

581 pouring energy into a black box with no idea if it's working. 582 Picasso has to be able to stand back and say, this huge canvas 583 that I'm creating. Am I starting to realize this vision I have in my head 584 of what is the horror of war or Michael Jordan looking at the 585 scoreboard and saying, okay, I'm going to win this game. This is what I 586 wanted. So as this applies to Suka, what I 587 built is I just said, without downloading an app, 588 without doing a lot of things, how can we take what Mihaly wrote 589 and make that available? Just a simple play button in the center of the screen. 590 So music helps people 591 get into flow and stay in flow. You brought up Jorn how a lot of 592 research is 15 to 23 minutes to get into

593 a flow state. You don't just sit down, say, I'm in flow, and you're deeply 594 in flow. It takes a few minutes, like music playing, 595 focusing. If you get interrupted, it's another 596 15 to 23 minutes to get back to that state. Right. 597 So there are a number of components. We can talk about them and I'm happy 598 to do so, but I've been talking for a long time now. I want to 599 give it back to you. But that is really what I think is the secret 600 sauce of our episode is how can you harness 601 a flow state to do the things that propel your life and your team's 602 life forward? 603 Two add ons to that. What really helps me is at 604 one point listening to a lot of those 605 background music on a commonly used

606 video app that is like working jazz, relaxing jazz, 607 something like this. I have almost. I'm almost constantly wearing 608 headphones for that simple reason. Because I have like two very 609 loud boys just behind this wall. And so I really 610 need to do that. And a second piece that I found 611 really helps me focus is interaction. 612 And actually I also do realize that that this 613 now maybe for a month or two, works 614 for me with AI, with large language 615 models, because I assign them roles. I assign them 616 not, not really personalities. Like they don't have like funny 617 voices or something, but they do have a purpose. And then you can 618 work with them like in a, in an, 619 in an idealized team. Because I found some research. 620 If you not only set up, for example,

621 let's say ChatGPT is the most used one. If you not only set 622 up ChatGPT and give it a prompt, but if you really set up a 623 personality, something that helps you towards your goal 624 and then have a group of different people who have different angles, 625 those virtual people, then you can get a much, much better 626 result. And that's what I'm doing. And that also newly 627 helps me get into flow. That is so interesting. 628 Number one, my hat is off to you that you are that thoughtful about 629 your flow practice. That's awesome. 630 And that is interesting to me what you said about 631 having that interaction that specifically keeps, you know, gets 632 you there and keeps you there, helps you doing your best work. 633 It's actually something I'm going to talk about with my partner later today because we've

634 been working on our, you know, essentially GPT, your, your 635 assistant in Suga and 636 I would love to think more about that. That's a great idea. Okay, what should 637 we talk about next? Well, when we're done with the interview, 638 I can show you some insights. 639 You talked about Michael Jordan and Picasso. I'm very sure 640 they are not the reference customer. And if they. In case of 641 Michael Jordan, if he's using flow, he's 642 not stating it outright, but what's your biggest validated 643 use case so far? Like developers, designers, 644 writers, solos, any surprising activation 645 metrics that predict. Okay, 646 I'm going to tell you a couple things that I found interesting because in running, 647 you know, this for years now and talking to a lot of members, 648 I know that our biggest cohorts are knowledge workers, right? Which are

649 often developers, designers, writers, you know, like 650 people who have multiple hours a day 651 of sitting on a laptop and doing something and if 652 the desire is to do it better, to do it faster, 653 that is where flow states are very helpful because you stay in the thing. You 654 don't context switch going between things. You don't 655 try and multitask, which is not really a thing it's just monotasking with 656 context switching. And there are a couple practices 657 that I have seen validated by a number of people. This is not 658 just theory number one is time blocking 659 and time blocking as it relates to your chronotype. 660 So chronotype, for those who don't know, is the concept that 661 there are times of day when you're more adept at doing 662 certain kinds of things. And I'll give you a film example because

663 it's a fun way of illustrating this and memorable, which is Ron Bass 664 was a huge screenwriter in Hollywood, wrote My Best Friend's 665 Wedding and Rain man and all these, like, movie star movies, Right. 666 He famously would not talk to his family in the morning. 667 He's like, I'm not the dad who's going to say, who wants pancakes? You know, 668 did you do your homework? Who needs a ride to school? He's like, 669 I can't talk to you because when I talk 670 to you, I lose the ability to hear my character's voices. 671 And that's when I get paid a million, $2 million a script to do. So 672 what he would do is he knew his chronotype and he said, I'll get up 673 at 4 or 5 in the morning. So I have four hours to write 674 and I'm going to get up, not say hello to his wife, go to his

675 office and write. Now, he knew that his chronotype was such. He was very 676 good with collaborative work. In the afternoon, after lunch is when he was 677 good, meeting with other writers, meeting with producers and studio executives 678 and talking about story, talking about. About things like that. So that was 679 the first brush I had with someone who was very aware of their chronotype 680 and harnessed that. Why do I bring this up? 681 Because you can figure out your chronotype very easily. You don't need an 682 app. You don't need to pay anyone. If you have a pencil and a 683 piece of paper and you can use a computer if you want, but I'm just 684 saying, it is this rudimentary, right? 685 Create a simple list for each day, 686 morning and afternoon, and just roughly say what you did and do it for

687 five days. Oh, Monday morning from 8 to 11, I worked on 688 blog posts and put down how you felt. Tuesday 689 afternoon, I was working on coding from two to five. How'd you feel 690 when you look at that after five days or do it for two weeks, you 691 will start to see your patterns. Man. When 692 I write creative stuff in the morning, I have a clarity. 693 Then in the afternoon, I try and do it and I always feel blocked. Or 694 I feel like it's stupid. I have to rewrite it. Oh, when I write my 695 code late at night, because I think all code should be written in the middle 696 of the night, I get a lot done, but I end up refactoring it the 697 next day. I should pay attention to that. And then you start to develop

698 a sense of when you should be doing certain things. So if you are a 699 solopreneur, if you're doing a side hustle or you're working from home, 700 you may want to have a meeting with yourself that you put in your 701 calendar. When you say, Hey, 2 to 4pm 702 Is my sweet spot for this, or 8 to 10 in the morning 703 is my sweet spot for this. Block it in your calendar so no one schedules 704 team meetings with you. Zooms. If they slack, you know, 705 they know you're busy. And use that time for that thing 706 because you'd be amazed if you know you're good from like 7 707 to 9am at this thing. You can get in that time done what other people 708 do in seven to 11. And you have to respect that. You have to 709

treat the time as sacred. Was her little jingle. 710 That's just my smartwatch. I have two 711 pieces to add to that. One of them is actually when you talked 712 about seeing or hearing the characters talking, 713 what came to mind was when I was in London, I was in the house 714 of Charles Dickens, and he actually had a mirror in 715 front, a big mirror in his writing room. And he got in front of it 716 and acted like his characters. And then at one point, he knew 717 how this would play out. And then he got back to writing. And that's incredibly 718 cool. Second piece is. I already knew for quite 719 decades that I'm a night person. I'm a night owl. I do my 720 best work between, let's say, 8:00pm, 20 721 and 2:00am the next morning. Yeah, 722

that. That's my best time. But I do have some 723 blockers. That's time for best. Time for what, though? Because that's 724 time for creative work. Yeah, it's. It's not for tax 725 filing, but it's for, like working 726 on the business, not in the business. Doing some preparation, 727 having some new ideas, what to do. And basically that's the best 728 time for me to do creative work. That's awesome. You know that I 729 do have blocks in my calendar. 730 I'm not a philosopher, so I just call them get you done. 731 Fair enough. But I'll tell you a funny story. So there's a guy 732 that I've seen body doubling in Suka 733 about The last year or two, usually in the evenings or on weekends. 734 And this spring he posted in the group 735 chat, where you can share things you're working on and people can ask you, oh,

736 I finished my website, here's a link, right? So it's a nice collaborative thing. He 737 posted in there, he finished his dissertation 738 and people asked him like, hey, congratulations, that's awesome. He said, well, you know 739 what? I'm actually a high school assistant vice 740 principal in Missouri. And what I've 741 been doing is using Suka because at night I have maybe 90 minutes of 742 focus time in between family dinner and school 743 responsibilities and all that. So I have to use it really well. So at night 744 I have this 90 minute block and in that I've been studying for my 745 PhD in engineering. And then on weekends I do the same thing. He 746 said, so I have to be very efficient with the little bit of 747 time I have when I'm not with my kids, I'm not at work. And so

748 he said, but don't get excited because I only turned 749 in the dissertation. I still have to defend it in front of the panel, like 750 two weeks from Monday or something. So that weekend, coming up 751 to the Monday, there are a number of people in the group chat. They're like, 752 hey, Roy, good luck, man. You have this. We're excited to hear how it 753 goes. And on Monday, he was absent, he 754 didn't say anything. And people started asking like, hey, has anyone heard from Roy? 755 How did it go with his defense of his PhD thing? 756 And Tuesday morning he dropped into the group chat 757 and he said, you may now call me Dr. King. 758 And people went crazy. 759 And it validated something. You began this episode by talking about this, 760 but I had to learn this. It validated the power of

761 community. When we started 762 doing suka, even under an earlier name and developing this whole stuff, it 763 was a single player game. It was here, here are your tools. 764 There's beautiful music, there are timers, there's a smart assistant. 765 We'll block your phone, we'll block your website. They're all the tools sitting there. But 766 it was alone. And I, as the founder, knew all these members, 767 almost like a hub, and spoke sort of model, but they didn't know each other. 768 And I had an idea. Should people be able 769 to see each other, talk to each other? So I talked to a 770 couple members. I was like, is this a good idea or is this the most 771 distracting thing ever? Is this going to be terrible? Right? And one 772 woman said this to me. She said, listen, Steven, I can go to the

773 Nike store. I can buy a pair of shoes. They will sell me 774 a left shoe and a right shoe. I put them on my feet, I run. 775 It works. But there are a hundred 776 million people around the world in the Nike run club because 777 when you run together, you run further, you run faster, 778 you're more accountable. The days that you 779 feel bad and your friends come by and pick you off the sofa and you 780 go running, you feel great. Are amazing. And the days when one of your 781 friends needs you to be there and support them and give them energy, they feel 782 even better. She's like, you should do it. It is one of my favorite things 783 because now we do have experiences, like what I was saying with Roy King, 784 where you're part of a group of people

785 who are trying to do something great and there's an energy. Whether it's the 786 coffee shop on Sunset Boulevard, whether it's 787 a run club, there's something powerful about when you're around people 788 like you that are all trying to do something great. It lifts all 789 of you up. I 790 see. For our audience, I was wondering 791 what breaks your focus most 792 like Slack pings, meetings, social media, comment. 793 We'll compile a cheat sheet down here. Steven, 794 actually, we would be now going into the ad break, 795 but we've been talking so long. How do you think 796 we call this episode one and then instantly start recording 797 episode two? Fantastic. Let's do it. 798 Awesome, guys. Hope to have you back pretty soon. And 799 actually, for you and me, it will be just a few seconds. For the people

800 out there, it will be a few days until the next episode comes out. 801 See you soon. Talk to you soon. 802 That's all, folks. Find more news, streams, 803 events and 804 interviews@www.startuprad.IO. 805 remember, sharing is caring.

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