Does your strategy fit on a Post-It?
Founders often feel off-track because the world shifts fast and their own motivations shift with it, while their strategy stays frozen in last year’s (or even last month’s) version of reality.
But what if strategy were simple and agile, something you could revisit often and adjust without stress?
That question sits at the heart of my conversation with Dorit Roest. She sees that many founders risk losing their drive when misalignment between personal and business goals drains their motivation. Because success without impact feels empty. And she offers a recipe to realign your goals with what is happening in your company and the world around you, Post-Its included.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube, or scroll down for the lessons from the episode.
3 Lessons From This Conversation
Dorit argues that we need a new definition of what a successful company or what successful entrepreneurship looks like. Strategy should be more agile and more aligned with the impact founders want to make with their businesses.
Entrepreneurship carries a moral obligation
Founders build the systems that shape our future. That power comes with responsibility. Dorit argues that entrepreneurship is one of the few places where change can move fast and with intention. When founders zoom out and consider their role in the world, their strategy gains depth and direction. Purpose becomes a design choice rather than an afterthought.
Misalignment drains motivation
When founders drift from the reason they started, their energy drops long before their metrics do. The work becomes heavier, decisions slower, and momentum harder to recover. Misalignment creates a quiet leak in motivation that compounds over time. Staying close to your why is not a luxury. It is fuel.
Investor and founder incentives must align
It is tempting to absorb an investor’s priorities as your own. It feels efficient, even strategic. But when the incentives diverge, the founder risks bending the company into a shape that no longer fits. The cost is subtle at first. Eventually it becomes a loss of purpose or even a loss of the company. Healthy strategy requires clarity on who you are building for and why that matters.
These lessons matter because strategy is not only about goals and staying aligned with your purpose requires courage, because thinking bigger than your circumstances is often the first strategic decision you make.
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- 3 Lessons From This Conversation
- Highlights and timestamps
- 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
- Practical Takeaways for Founders and Allies
- The Quote From The Episode
- 3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
- A Question for You 🤔
- Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
- Listen to Episode 131 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
- Other ways to amplify the voices of Women Disrupting Tech
- About Dorit Roest
- About Strategy Sprint Company
- Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
- What I Want To Leave You With
Highlights and timestamps
| Time | Highlight |
|---|---|
| 02:20 | Dorit Roest’s Entrepreneurial Journey |
| 05:24 | The Role of Entrepreneurship in Solving Global Issues |
| 08:16 | Aligning Personal and Business Goals |
| 11:13 | The Importance of Agility in Strategy |
| 14:09 | Simplifying Strategy for Modern Businesses |
| 17:16 | Zooming Out: Understanding the Bigger Picture |
| 20:24 | Addressing Global Challenges as Entrepreneurs |
| 23:14 | Mapping Opportunities and Threats |
| 26:14 | The Battery Check: Assessing Personal and Business Energy |
| 29:09 | Prioritizing Time, Money, and Energy |
| 32:02 | Lessons from the Past Year |
| 43:33 | Navigating Maternity Leave and Business Growth |
| 46:05 | The Unique Challenges of Women Entrepreneurs |
| 48:09 | Innovative Leadership and Team Management |
| 50:47 | Encouraging Ambition and Risk-Taking |
| 52:18 | Visualization Techniques for Goal Setting |
| 58:40 | Aligning Personal and Professional Goals |
| 1:03:11 | The Importance of Alignment in Success |
| 1:07:13 | Simplifying Goals and Accountability |
| 1:12:20 | Building Supportive Networks for Female Founders |
3 Magic Moments In The Episode
What if you had 10 times as much courage? That question opens a part of the conversation that shifts how founders see themselves and what they allow themselves to build and grow without limitations.
Thinking big
Dorit contrasts European modesty with the American instinct to applaud ambition. Her message is simple: dreamers move faster when people around them say yes instead of should you really do that. Founders need circles that lift them up, not rein them in.
The visualization
At about 50 minutes into our conversation, Dorit guides a visualization of your ideal day in 2030. It is a practical way to bypass limitations and reconnect with the life you are actually trying to create. It brought me back to the spark behind Project Ally and why the long-term vision matters more than any single feature or milestone.
The maternity leave moment
Dorit describes the quiet peak of realizing her company kept running during her maternity leave. It was proof that the systems she built could hold, and that leadership does not mean being indispensable. For founders, it is a reminder that sustainable companies require trust, not constant presence.
These moments matter because they show how courage, clarity, and systems create momentum.
💬 What was your favorite moment from the episode? Let me know in the comments.
Or scroll down for practical tips that will fuel your own journey as a founder or ally.
Practical Takeaways for Founders and Allies
A good strategy starts with zooming out. When you understand what is happening in the world and how it touches your domain, opportunities become clearer and threats feel manageable instead of overwhelming.
Zooming out gives you the right focus.
Dorit teaches founders to look at global shifts, then bring the lens back to their own business. Keep it simple. Ask what is happening, why it matters, and where you can play a role. Eight minutes is enough to spot blind spots and name risks without getting lost in them.
The battery check helps you focus on what matters.
Time, money, and energy shape every decision. The battery check shows which of the three needs attention next year. Choosing one priority creates a natural compass for what to say yes to and what to postpone.
Keep goals simple to ensure alignment and momentum.
If your objective and key results cannot fit on a post-it, they are too complex. Simple goals are easier to track, easier to communicate, and easier to adjust as reality changes. Complexity kills momentum. Clarity fuels it.
Founders often overcomplicate strategy when what they need is a rhythm that helps them choose, focus, and act. These takeaways help them avoid exactly that.
💬 Know a founder who should hear this? Use the share button below to tell them.
Or scroll down to discover an inspiring quote and learn about my own takeaways.
The Quote From The Episode
Strategy without context becomes hollow. And Dorit puts words to a discomfort many founders feel but rarely name out loud:
“Success that is only based on what you think is important to your company, without taking into account the role that you play in the world, is doomed to be empty.”
Dorit Roest, CEO and co-founder of Strategy Sprint Company
3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
Alignment matters more than speed. When founders lose sight of why they started, their drive fades even if the company looks healthy from the outside. This conversation made me look differently at what fuels momentum and what quietly drains it.
Purpose vs money
Dorit shared her experience that during the battery check, many women choose money because they are underpaid or undervalued. But money is often a stand-in for worth. What if purpose is the real unlock? For many women founders, shifting attention from compensation to contribution might create more confidence, more clarity, and eventually more revenue.
The Pregnancy Gap
Dorit’s honesty about pregnancy and entrepreneurship hit hard. The reality that women fall “behind ten to zero” during fertility treatments, pregnancy, or maternity leave is not a mindset issue. It is a systemic one. It reshapes how I think what genuine support for women founders must look like.
Community is not a nice-to-have.
While talking about fundcoach.ai, Dorit reminded me that nothing fuels you like talking to a woman who has already walked through what you are facing. It helped me shift how I look at community as a strategic asset for my own company. Courage, clarity, and momentum grow faster in the company of people who understand your ambitions.
These reflections matter because alignment is not a feeling. It is a discipline. And the clearer you are about your reality, your purpose, and your constraints, the easier it becomes to build something that lasts.
💬 What changed your thinking? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
A Question for You 🤔
💬 When you could 10x your courage, what would your company look like?
👇 Share your thoughts in the comments. Let’s keep this conversation going and make dealing with stress easier for everyone.
Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
Next week, I’m joined by Yoana Leushin and Tiffany Aude from Impowr to see how we can stop the drop to the top for women in tech. When rising the career ladder, many women get stuck in the middle of their careers. And our conversation is about why that is and how we can solve it.
Here, you hear Yoana reveal one of the main causes for the lack of women at the top: the promotion paradox.
Want to hear the rest? When you’re subscribed, you’ll find it in your mailbox around the same time next week. So stay tuned for more Women Disrupting Tech.
And until the next episode, as always, keep being awesome.
Dirkjan
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Listen to Episode 131 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
Why Your Strategy Should Fit on a Post-It with Dorit Roest | Ep. 131 – Women Disrupting Tech
Other ways to amplify the voices of Women Disrupting Tech
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About Dorit Roest
Dorit Roest is an entrepreneur, strategist, speaker and founder of Strategy Sprint Company. She built her first startup, TIM — the first influencer-marketing platform in the Netherlands. She helped Techleap and the Dutch Government build ScaleNL — an accelerator-and-ecosystem program that helped dozens of Dutch tech startups scale to the US market, before starting The Strategy Sprint Company.
With Strategy Sprint Company, she uses that breadth of experience to help founders and teams find clarity, direction and impact. She combines startup-hardened discipline with big-picture thinking, always centering people and purpose. Her background as a founder, strategist and international ecosystem builder gives her a sharp yet human lens into the challenges that entrepreneurs face. Her approach to strategy is reflected throughout our conversation, where she shows how clarity and alignment unlock momentum for founders.
You can connect with Dorit on LinkedIn and via her website.
About Strategy Sprint Company
Strategy Sprint Company is a strategy agency, academy and facilitator network founded by Dorit Roest. The company is built on a unique method — the Strategy Sprint — designed to help entrepreneurs, teams and organisations quickly get clarity and direction without over-complexity.
With formats ranging from one-on-one sessions to team and group workshops, Strategy Sprint Company uses a “pressure-cooker” model to transform scattered ideas, doubts or noise into a clear roadmap. The promise: in a few focused hours you arrive at a sharpened strategic foundation, a ranked set of priorities, and a concrete plan for short- and long-term execution.
In 2023 Strategy Sprint Company launched an Academy to train and certify facilitators — scaling the method beyond the founder’s own practice. The aim is to make Strategy Sprint a go-to ritual for entrepreneurs, similar to a periodic check-up, that helps them stay aligned with both their internal purpose and external reality.
If your strategy feels noisy, scattered, or stuck, their Sprint formats offer a fast way to find direction again. To learn more, check out their website and use their brand-new booking tool. Of course, you can also follow the company on LinkedIn.
Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
The fall is loaded with great events, and I’ve found some cool ones. Below is one event you definitely want to check out. For a full overview of all events, including links to buy tickets, please check the events page.
Featured Event: That’s What She Said
Looking for an event to start your new year off right? Well, Impowr and Boom Chicago have got your back. They’re starting on 14 January with an event where networking meets comedy. You can get your early-bird ticket (a €10 discount until 30 November) on the Boom Chicago website.
This is the last week you can get that early bird, and the last time I spoke with the ladies of Impowr, they had sold 70 tickets already.
Diverse Leaders in Tech Events
If you like being in the know about what is happening in the DEI space, Diverse Leaders in Tech is the place to be.
Every last Thursday of the month, they have monthly in-person meetups for tech people, HR leaders and supporters of diversity to exchange insights, tackle challenges, and take action. It’s a vibrant, safe space where diversity is celebrated.
You can register for events on the DLiT website. Did I mention that joining your first event is free?
Equals Events
Equals is on a mission to shape a society where women and men stand on equal footing. At their home base in Amsterdam, they regularly organize events, but you can organize yours there too. You can find the events on Luma.
What I Want To Leave You With
What stayed with me after this conversation was Andrea’s calm clarity. She knows stress will always show up, but she refuses to let it run her life. She listens to her own rhythm and leads from there.
And the way she names it is disarming. Women should not be expected to lead the way men lead. Founders should not treat self-care as something they must earn. Stress can be a guide instead of a burden.
Andrea told me that recording the episode was the highlight of her week. It reminded me why these conversations matter. They give us a different way to build, one that lasts.
Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
Women Disrupting Tech | The Podcast 