Retrocause
Retrocause is a two-year program for founders building profitable, capital-efficient companies. It is the program that runs LEVERS OS, installing the operating system across two full cycles, with monthly group masterminds and quarterly 1:1 advisor sessions, so leaders know exactly which levers to pull and grow predictable revenue.
Founded by Amos Schwartzfarb, long-time Techstars Managing Director and author of the Levers book, Retrocause was built to be the anti-accelerator: a program optimized for revenue and profitability instead of the next fundraise.
LEVERS OS
LEVERS OS is an operating system built on six proven frameworks, drawn from the #1 Amazon bestselling book Levers by Amos Schwartzfarb: The NEW MVV → W3 (Why, Who, What) → The Map → Validating Assumptions → KPIs That Matter → The Data-Driven Plan. Each framework builds on the one before. Run twice over two years, it replaces intuition-driven decisions with evidence-driven ones.
LEVERS OS has been tested across 1,000+ startups. It works at every stage from pre-revenue to $10M+ ARR.
Read more →The NEW MVV
The first framework in LEVERS OS, and a new approach to Mission, Vision, and Behavior-Led Values: qualitative and quantitative, built to be used in everyday decisions instead of framed on a wall. It gives the whole company one fixed point to steer by, so growth never means drifting from why you started.
Read more →W3 (Why, Who, What)
W3 is the framework to figure out your true ideal client profile (ICP), and the second framework in LEVERS OS. It forces ruthless clarity on three questions: Why does your business exist? Who specifically do you serve? What do you actually offer them? When W3 is clear, every downstream business decision becomes a simple test.
Read more →The Map (Revenue Formula)
The third framework in LEVERS OS. The Map is your revenue model: how your business actually makes money. It decomposes revenue into 3–5 mathematical variables a specific person on your team can measurably influence. It's not just a sales function; it's the math equation that describes your business and the shared map every leader follows.
Example: for e-commerce, Revenue = Traffic × Conversion Rate × Average Order Value × Purchase Frequency. For SaaS, Revenue = Leads × Trial Rate × Trial-to-Paid × Contract Value.
Read more →Validating Assumptions
The fourth framework in LEVERS OS. A series of clearly defined micro-experiments, constrained, measured, and tied to the Map, that tell leaders what to focus on now and what comes next. Surface the assumptions your business depends on, score them by risk and confidence, and validate the high-risk, low-confidence ones first before betting cash on them.
Read more →KPIs That Matter
The fifth framework in LEVERS OS. Not vanity metrics. The specific numbers tied to the assumptions you most need to validate, and to the Map, that predict whether your business is growing. A good KPI dashboard has 2 leading indicators for every 1 lagging indicator.
Read more →The Data-Driven Plan
The sixth framework in LEVERS OS. Your financial model, but you don't need to be a CFO to build it or run it. A living decision-making engine driven by your real Map and your real KPIs. Used weekly to compare actuals to projections and pressure-test every major decision before it's made.
Read more →Capital-efficient growth
Capital-efficient growth means building a business that generates more revenue per dollar spent, minimizing dependency on outside funding. It's a discipline that forces clarity, prioritization, and better decisions, not a constraint on ambition.
Capital efficiency is the opposite of the growth-at-all-costs playbook. It optimizes for profitability and longevity over burn-for-market-share.
Default alive
A company is default alive when it will reach profitability on its current trajectory without needing additional funding. Coined by Paul Graham, it's the mode Retrocause helps founders achieve through the LEVERS operating system.
Program
The Retrocause Program is a two-year program that installs the LEVERS operating system. Leaders complete all six frameworks in Month 1, then spend the next 23 months refining through monthly cohort masterminds and quarterly 1:1 advisor sessions until predictable revenue is simply how they operate. Results come fast. Two years make them permanent.
Read more →Group mastermind
A monthly gathering of founders inside the Retrocause Program to review metrics, discuss progress, and hold each other accountable. The structured format makes it sharper than a peer group and more sustainable than a one-off workshop.
Vanity metric
A metric that goes up-and-to-the-right but has little correlation with revenue, profitability, or long-term business health. Examples: total signups, website traffic, social followers. In LEVERS, vanity metrics are replaced with actionable metrics tied directly to the Map.