Doing More With Less, with Ben Munoz

In 2006, Ben Munoz suffered a rare form of stroke called arteriovenous malformation (AVM). Unable to find the support he was looking for on the internet during his lengthy recovery, he created a patient community AVMSurvivors.org in late 2007 to find others like him.

It rapidly became apparent that “community is the best medicine.” Ben soon co-founded BensFriends.org, with the sole focus of creating and operating safe, compassionate communities for people who need them (including patients and their families & friends).

Among the things we discuss is how the organization’s culture is built around running lean and efficient. A core tenet is always considering how to do more with less–how to maximize impact for the patients in their support communities.

Some of these approaches include:

• Asking for favors.
• Reading how-to books and doing it ourselves.
• Finding overseas talent and figuring out how to work across time zones.
• Avoiding sunk cost fallacy on failing projects.
• Remembering it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.
• Providing a mission that people can get behind.

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