Decisions, Not Delays: How Andrew Safnauer Helps Founders Build Faster

After decades of building and scaling businesses across wildly different industries, Andrew Safnauer discovered his true zone of genius: helping founders make bold, confident decisions in moments of uncertainty. His journey—from media exec burnout to e-commerce founder to cross-industry consultant—is a masterclass in reinvention. In this Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur Spotlight, Andrew reveals how embracing discomfort, listening deeply, and playing his own game unlocked not just momentum for his clients, but clarity in his own calling. Whether he’s navigating swimwear logistics or luxury vehicle networks, Andrew’s story is a powerful reminder that you don’t have to specialize to be exceptional.

Hi, Andrew Safnauer! Thanks for joining us today. Tell us about your business. Who do you serve, how do you serve them, and what's the impact that your business and work makes?

My business card says 'consultant' but I tell people 'I help leaders make more confident decisions.' I work with founders and leadership teams who are stuck—they can see where they want to go, but they keep opening the drawer of how to get there, seeing the mess of options, and closing it without choosing. Meanwhile, every week of indecision is costing them momentum, market position, and team morale.

I serve them by bringing 30 years of cross-industry pattern recognition—I've built, scaled, and exited businesses in media, e-commerce, automotive, and manufacturing. That means when a founder is facing a decision about product strategy, I can show them how a similar challenge was solved in a completely different industry. Most consultants go deep in one vertical. I go wide across six, and that's where the breakthroughs happen.

The impact shows up in two ways: First, the immediate unlock—clients finally make the decision they've been avoiding for months, and suddenly they have momentum again. Second, the long-term capability building—they learn how to make better decisions faster without me. That's the real win. I'm not trying to create dependency; I'm trying to create confident, decisive leaders who know how to climb their own walls.

Tell us about the moment you finally felt like you went from wantrepreneur to entrepreneur.

Honestly? Even though I had a thriving 20-year studio business that was generating consistent six figures, the shift happened when I launched DryFins.

With the studio, I was playing to my strengths—I knew the industry, I had the network, I understood the craft. But with DryFins, everything was new and uncomfortable. I knew nothing about apparel manufacturing. Nothing. I remember being on calls with factories in China, frantically Googling terms like "MOQ" and "FOB" while trying to sound like I knew what I was doing.

But here's what changed: I stopped waiting for perfect information. Every wall that popped up—finding manufacturers, managing inventory, competing against PE-backed brands with millions in funding—I had to figure out how to climb it without a mentor, without a playbook, without certainty. Just decision after decision with incomplete information.

The moment it clicked wasn't when we hit a revenue milestone. It was when I held the first production sample in my hands and realized: I took an idea from the back of a napkin to an actual product that would be worn by thousands of people. That's when I knew I wasn't just running a business—I was building something from nothing. That's an entrepreneur.

Describe the moment or period in your life/career that motivated you to make the entrepreneurial leap.

I was running the production department for a large radio group—67 stations across the US. On paper, I was crushing it. Good salary, respected role, clear upward trajectory. But I was miserable.
The higher I climbed, the further I got from the work I actually loved. Meetings replaced making things. Politics replaced creativity. I was in my early 30s with a newborn daughter at home, and I realized something that terrified me: I couldn't be the dad or husband I wanted to be in that job. The stress was bleeding into everything.

The breaking point came on Christmas Eve. I was stuck at the office late—not because of my work, but because someone else missed their deadline and now it was my problem to fix. I remember sitting there, knowing my wife and baby girl were at home, and thinking: "This is it? This is what I'm choosing?"

I drove home that night and told my wife we needed to make a plan. Not someday. Now.
We mapped it out at the kitchen table—how much we needed to save, what debt we had to pay off, how long it would take to build my side hustle studio business to the point where I could jump. We gave ourselves a timeline and we hit it.

Here's the kicker: when I told the COO my plan, she nodded and said "sure, sure" like she was humoring me. A year later when I walked in and actually did it, she was genuinely shocked.

Turns out most people talk about leaving. Entrepreneurs build the plan and execute it.

Describe a tool, service, or software that has been a game-changer for your business. How does it contribute to your success?

I'm a big fan of AI tools—Claude specifically—for sharpening writing and clarifying thoughts. These tools make me faster and more effective. No question.

But here's the tool that doesn't get mentioned enough, and it's one everyone is born with: listening.

Active listening. Actually hearing what someone is saying instead of waiting for your turn to talk. Responding to what they said, not what you wish they'd said. Reflecting back what you heard to make sure you got it right.

It sounds basic, but it's shockingly rare. Most consultants show up with their frameworks and playbooks ready to deploy regardless of what the client actually needs. I show up and listen first. What are they really stuck on? What decision are they avoiding? What's the cost of not choosing?

Half the time, the breakthrough happens just because someone finally felt heard. They've been trying to explain the problem to their board, their team, their spouse—and nobody's really listening. When you create that space, when you show someone you're genuinely tracking with them, the real issues surface. And that's when you can actually help.

You can't consultant-speak your way into someone's trust. But you can listen your way into it. That's been more valuable to my business than any software I've ever used.

We know that success is very often a non-linear path. Tell us about a failure, pivot point, or lesson that changed your course or direction and helped to get you where you are today.

Even though I have a 20-year track record as an entrepreneur, the most important pivot point happened recently—and it didn't look like success at the time.

An old friend called me out of the blue. He'd just had a successful exit from a tech firm he founded, and he and a group of investors wanted to build an exotic vehicle wholesale platform. He wanted me to lead it.

I had automotive experience, but this was a completely different beast—luxury exotics, international dealer networks, multimillion-dollar inventory management. But I said yes. And in four months, we built it. Full leadership team, vendor relationships across Europe and the Middle East, operational infrastructure ready to handle 70+ vehicles on day one. It was ambitious and we executed.

Then investor circumstances changed, and we shut it down.

Here's what I learned: I wasn't devastated. I was energized. Because I'd just proven to myself that I could walk into any industry, with any challenge, and build something from scratch. The automotive expertise helped, sure—but what really mattered was my ability to spot patterns, make decisions without perfect information, and get over walls fast.

That clarity led to the real pivot: I'd been splitting my focus between consulting and pursuing executive roles, hedging my bets. Morpheus showed me what I'm actually built for—I'm a builder, not a manager. I thrive on 0-to-1, not 1-to-10. And that skill, that ability to stand up operations quickly across any industry, is exactly what founders need.

So I stopped hedging. I went all-in on consulting. Now when a founder says "I've never done this before," I can honestly say: "Neither had I. Here's how we figure it out together."

What unconventional strategy did you employ that significantly impacted your business?

I did the opposite of what every business book tells you to do: I refused to specialize.
Conventional consulting wisdom says pick a niche, go deep, become the expert in one vertical. I went wide instead. Media production, e-commerce apparel, automotive wholesale, youth sports franchises, creative services—I've built businesses across industries that have nothing to do with each other.

Most people see that as scattered. I see it as my competitive advantage.

Here's why it works: When a founder comes to me stuck on a strategic decision, I'm not limited to solutions from their industry. I can pull from six different playbooks.

A client struggling with inventory management for seasonal products? I've managed that in swimwear with completely different demand curves than anything in their space. A founder trying to build dealer networks? I just built one for exotic vehicles across three continents—the relationship dynamics are transferable even if the product isn't.

The breakthrough moments happen when I say: "Here's how we solved something similar in a completely different context." Suddenly they're not competing with everyone else in their industry using the same playbook. They're importing strategies nobody else thought to look for.

Most consultants know one mountain really well. I've climbed six different mountains. Turns out the walls all use similar handholds—you just have to recognize the pattern.

That cross-industry pattern recognition? That's the methodology. That's what clients hire me for. And it only works because I didn't specialize.

What’s something you wish you knew sooner that you’d give as advice for aspiring or newer entrepreneurs?

Play your own game. Make your own scoreboard.

Social media is full of people telling you they made a million, or ten million, and they're working from a beach in Bali with a Ferrari in the driveway. Good for them. But that doesn't need to be your definition of success.

I ran a creative studio for 20 years that consistently generated six figures annually. I never scaled it to a team of 50. I never raised funding. I never hit eight figures. But it gave me creative fulfillment, financial stability, and the freedom to be present for my family. By someone else's scoreboard, maybe that's "small." By mine? It was exactly right.

When I launched DryFins, we bootstrapped our way to seven figures and competed against PE-backed brands with millions in funding. We could have chased venture money, tried to scale faster, played their game. Instead, we stayed lean, stayed profitable, and exited on our terms after 11 years.

Here's what I wish I'd known sooner: You don't have to optimize for maximum scale or maximum revenue. You get to optimize for the life you actually want to live.

Build what you want to build. Craft the life you want to live. Measure success by your own standards, not someone else's highlight reel. That's how you sustain this for the long haul without burning out or resenting what you've built.

The best entrepreneurs aren't the ones chasing someone else's definition of winning. They're the ones who defined what winning means to them—and then built that.

Want to dive deeper into Andrew's work? Check out the links below!

• Connect with Andrew Safnauer on LinkedIn: Andrew Safnauer
• Find Andrew Safnauer on X: @longtrain