Tarot for Starting a New Business: Unlock Success. New businesses thrive on clarity. Strategy decks, financial models, and user interviews bring a lot to the table, yet founders still face the quiet questions that data alone cannot answer. Why this market? What does my brand stand for? Where am I avoiding a tough conversation with myself or my team? Tarot can serve as a structured prompt for those deeper questions, helping you think more clearly, spot blind spots, and turn vague hunches into practical actions.
Skeptical? That’s healthy. Treat tarot like a creative decision tool and reflective practice. The imagery acts as a springboard for interpretation, much like mind-mapping or journaling does. You are not outsourcing decisions to cards. You’re using a time-tested set of symbols to surface what you already know, but may not be saying out loud.
Why entrepreneurs use tarot with real results
- It externalizes your thinking. Pulling cards and naming reactions reduces mental noise. You see thoughts on the table, not just in your head.
- It widens the frame. Imagery nudges you to consider variables you might miss: stakeholder reactions, values, risks, or timing.
- It builds founder self-awareness. Founders make or break early-stage companies. Your energy, beliefs, and habits ripple across everything.
- It helps with pattern recognition. Repetition of suits or themes can point to systemic issues like weak messaging or overbuilt features.
- It pairs well with data. Tarot prompts the questions. Metrics and experiments confirm or refute your next move.
One ten-minute session can reset a week. A more robust monthly spread can reset a quarter.
A grounded practice for busy builders
Make it simple and repeatable. The goal is clarity, not mystique.
- Daily one-card: What mindset supports today’s priority?
- Weekly three-card: What to start, what to stop, what to continue.
- Pre-launch risk check: What am I missing, what is the weak link, what strengthens the plan.
- Founder health pulse: Energy, focus, recovery.
Keep a notebook. Write the card, your first reactions, and one concrete action. Return later and mark what moved the needle.
A few norms keep it useful:
- No predictions of guaranteed outcomes. Treat readings as hypotheses to test.
- Avoid repeating pulls until you get a nicer answer. If a card stings, that’s the point.
- Pair insights with a metric or a date on the calendar.
Suits, numbers, and court cards through a business lens
Looking at suits with a founder’s eye brings structure to interpretations.
- Wands: Vision, creative drive, product direction, growth energy
- Cups: Customers, brand emotion, community, retention
- Swords: Analysis, conflict, contracts, risks, tough decisions
- Pentacles: Operations, pricing, cash flow, delivery, assets
Numbers hint at the stage of a process:
- Aces: Raw potential and fresh starts
- Twos: Choice and balance
- Threes: Collaboration and first signs of traction
- Fours: Stabilization or stagnation
- Fives: Friction and tests
- Sixes: Recovery and alignment
- Sevens: Strategy and bets
- Eights: Mastery and momentum
- Nines: Near completion, pressure
- Tens: Completion, handoff, or overload
Court cards feel like roles:
- Page: Student or intern energy, early research, first tests
- Knight: Action, growth sprints, go-to-market push
- Queen: Systems, culture, sustainability
- King: Ownership, policy, mature decisions
Major Arcana as strategic checkpoints
Majors often reflect pivotal business themes. Read them as turning points or big-picture levers:
- The Fool: Start with courage and smart constraints. Take the first real step.
- The Magician: Use what you have. Focus on existing assets and skills.
- The High Priestess: Private knowledge, stealth moves, deeper research.
- The Empress: Nurture the brand, design with care, deliver delight.
- The Emperor: Structure, legal setup, real authority.
- The Hierophant: Trusted advisors, industry norms, compliance.
- The Lovers: Clear choices, values-based positioning, partnerships.
- The Chariot: Drive and focus. Pick a lane, move fast, reduce distraction.
- Strength: Calm courage. Steady hiring, strong feedback culture.
- The Hermit: Quiet analysis, solo work, strategy reset.
- Wheel of Fortune: Timing and cycles. Market shifts and luck.
- Justice: Contracts, fairness, clean terms.
- The Hanged Man: Pause, reframe, trade-offs.
- Death: Necessary endings, product pivots, pruning.
- Temperance: Balance, integration, sustainable pace.
- The Devil: Bad contracts, attachment to vanity metrics or sunk costs.
- The Tower: Sudden change. Crisis as a reset.
- The Star: Hope with a plan, brand trust, long-term signal.
- The Moon: Uncertainty, rumors, complex stakeholders.
- The Sun: Clear wins, confidence, brand visibility.
- Judgment: Honest assessment, milestone review, calling.
- The World: Completion, scale, new market readiness.
A quick-reference table for founders
| Card or group | Business lens | Try this next |
|---|---|---|
| Ace of Wands | New idea, spark, pitch | Draft a 1-page value prop and test with 5 prospects |
| Two of Pentacles | Juggling priorities, cash/time balance | Timebox key tasks, drop one low-impact item |
| Three of Cups | Community, early fans, referrals | Ask top users to invite a friend with a thank-you perk |
| Four of Swords | Rest, plan, reset | Delay launch by 1 week for QA and messaging cleanup |
| Five of Swords | Win-lose dynamics, conflict | Address a brewing team issue in a structured 1:1 |
| Six of Wands | Public win, social proof | Publish customer results and testimonials |
| Seven of Cups | Idea overload, shiny object risk | Rank ideas by impact vs effort, pick one, schedule the rest |
| Eight of Pentacles | Craft, iteration, quality | Ship daily improvements and log them in release notes |
| Nine of Swords | Anxiety loop, founder stress | Write fears, run a premortem, choose one mitigation |
| Ten of Wands | Overload, hidden costs | Cut scope to MVP, delegate one cluster of tasks |
| Page of Swords | Research, questions, hypotheses | Draft 10 interview questions and book 3 calls |
| Knight of Wands | Momentum, outreach, growth push | Run a 14-day outbound sprint with a clear KPI |
| Queen of Pentacles | Sustainability, ops design | Tighten unit economics and vendor terms |
| King of Cups | Emotional leadership, culture | Set team norms for feedback and conflict resolution |
| The Chariot | Focused execution | Say no to 2 side projects for 30 days |
| Temperance | Balance, integration | Pair growth with retention work this sprint |
| The Devil | Traps and attachments | Audit commitments, renegotiate or exit a bad agreement |
| The Star | Vision with trust | Publish a roadmap and invite community feedback |
Spreads crafted for new businesses
Try one of these when you need structure.
- Lean Canvas spread in 9 cards Layout in a 3 by 3 grid that mirrors the popular business template.
- Problem: What pain truly matters?
- Customer segment: Who is this really for?
- Unique value: What promise lands?
- Solution: What does the first version actually do?
- Channels: Where do they already hang out?
- Revenue: What do they pay for and how?
- Cost structure: What must be true to sustain this?
- Key metrics: What signals progress?
- Unfair advantage: What is hard to copy?
Read row by row, then column by column. Circle any repeats by suit.
- MVP sanity check in 6 cards
- Must-have feature
- Hidden complexity
- Early adopter
- Risk if we ship now
- Small win available this week
- What to drop
- Decision triad for tough calls
- Facts I’m ignoring
- Fear I’m obeying
- Small experiment to try
- Go-to-market pulse in 5 cards
- Core message
- Ideal channel for next month
- Social proof to highlight
- Pricing friction
- Follow-up habit
- Founder health triangle
- Energy input
- Focus habit
- Recovery practice
Sample reading to see it in action
Prompt: Should we launch a pared-down beta to 50 users this month, or wait for two more features?
Cards: The Fool, Ace of Pentacles, Seven of Cups, Three of Pentacles, Nine of Swords, Temperance.
- The Fool points to a clean first step with real learning. Start small, safety line attached.
- Ace of Pentacles suggests tangible value is already in hand. The essentials likely work.
- Seven of Cups flags idea overload. Too many features blur the promise.
- Three of Pentacles calls for tight collaboration. Bring design, engineering, and support into one room and agree on scope.
- Nine of Swords names the anxiety loop. Write down the worst-case story, then test it with a tiny cohort.
- Temperance recommends balance. Ship a limited beta, protect quality, pace outreach.
Action plan: A 50-user invite-only beta with explicit feedback checkpoints. Define success as retention over 2 weeks, not feature breadth. Add one feature only if feedback converges on it.
Blending intuition with experiments and metrics
Treat each reading as a source of hypotheses. Translate symbols into testable steps.
- After a growth-themed spread: set a target for top-of-funnel leads, not just impressions.
- After a product-shaped spread: track activation rate and time to value.
- After a finance ops spread: monitor gross margin and payback period on acquisition.
- After a brand or community spread: measure referral rate and NPS from a small, curated cohort.
Add a simple rhythm:
- Capture three insights from the reading.
- Turn each into one experiment with a clear KPI.
- Set a review date in your calendar.
If results contradict the reading, that’s valuable data. Update your mental model and move.
Pricing, value, and the messy middle
Many founders get stuck between “premium brand” and “accessible entry point.” Tarot helps unpack the story you tell yourself about money.
- Pentacles heavy: Study costs, unit economics, and realistic pricing tiers.
- Cups heavy: Tell the value story with emotion. Why this matters to the user’s day.
- Swords heavy: Hard calls. Kill features that inflate costs without improving outcomes.
- Wands heavy: Avoid pricing by excitement. Validate willingness to pay before scaling spend.
Try a three-card pricing prompt:
- What value do we create in the first 5 minutes?
- What long-term outcome do we support?
- What proof eases the purchase decision?
Now map answers to a tiered plan that makes renewal the obvious choice, not a gamble.
Managing risk without stalling momentum
Risk never goes to zero. Tarot can help categorize it so you act with clarity.
- The Tower: Ask what breaks if traffic triples or a supplier fails. Build backups.
- Justice: Legal and contract review. Get terms in writing.
- The Moon: Unclear signals. Slow down decisions until information improves.
- Strength: Keep calm under pressure. Set weekly rituals for the team to voice concerns early.
A quick risk grid after a reading
- High impact, high likelihood: Mitigate now
- High impact, low likelihood: Insure or create a playbook
- Low impact, high likelihood: Automate or standardize
- Low impact, low likelihood: Monitor and move on
Team dynamics and hiring choices
Early hires define culture. Certain cards call for specific actions:
- Three of Pentacles: Hire for collaboration, not solo heroics. Look for portfolio pieces that show teamwork.
- Five of Wands: Healthy debate or chaotic misalignment? Clarify decision rights.
- Queen of Cups: Emotional intelligence on the leadership bench. Create norms for feedback and care.
- King of Swords: Clear policies and consistent standards. Useful when growth demands structure.
When a court card repeats across spreads, it can hint at a missing role. Page energy suggests junior support for research and customer touchpoints. Knight energy signals a need for a doer who moves fast. Queen energy points to systems and smooth operations. King energy indicates stronger ownership and decision clarity.
Handling timing and pacing
Forecasting exact timelines with cards is a bad bet. Planning cadence with them works well.
- Use suits as themes for sprints: Wands week for creative direction, Pentacles week for finance and ops, Swords week for decisions and cleanup, Cups week for community.
- Set a 90-day arc with three cards: month 1 focus, month 2 expansion, month 3 consolidation. Keep scope realistic and measurable.
- When majors cluster, expect real shifts. Protect open calendar space during those windows.
Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
- Confirmation bias: If the reading perfectly matches what you hoped, ask for the disconfirming view. Pull one card for “what am I not seeing.”
- Card chasing: Drawing again to get a friendlier card breaks the practice. Keep the first draw, even if it stings.
- Vague actions: Replace “work on marketing” with “email 20 prior contacts and track replies.”
- Over-attribution: Cards don’t replace legal, financial, or medical advice. Treat them as prompts, then consult the right experts.
- Overload: Long spreads every day create noise. Keep daily pulls short and save longer spreads for weekly or monthly reviews.
Branding, storytelling, and customer emotion
Customers buy feelings first, justification second. Cups and Majors can help articulate the emotional arc of your brand.
- If The Star appears: Promise hope with credible steps. Share small wins and roadmaps.
- If The Sun appears: Clarity and transparency. Show behind-the-scenes and celebrate customer wins.
- If The Devil appears: Name the common trap your product helps users avoid. Build campaigns around relief and freedom.
- If The Empress appears: Sensory quality and care. Invest in packaging, support tone, and design details.
Try the brand triangle:
- Card 1: The feeling we want to evoke
- Card 2: The proof we can deliver it
- Card 3: The story customers will tell others
Legal, money, and runway sanity checks
You cannot scale a business on vibes. Use tarot to prompt diligence, then do the work.
- Justice or The Emperor: Update contracts, entity structure, and governance.
- Hierophant: Standards, certifications, or compliance in your field.
- Pentacles cluster: Model cash flow weekly, not just monthly. Prepare a 13-week cash forecast.
Link any risk identified to an owner, a date, and a mitigation step. Treat it like any other project.
A short guide to your first 30 days with tarot in the startup lab
Week 1
- Daily one-card. Write one sentence and one action.
- Run the Decision triad midweek on your biggest open question.
- End with a 5-card retrospective: win, miss, surprise, risk, next step.
Week 2
- MVP check spread. Trim scope to one must-have.
- Customer interviews. Ten calls, one page of notes each.
- Pull a card before the last five interviews to set an intention: listen, ask, or clarify.
Week 3
- Go-to-market pulse. Set one channel, one KPI.
- Fix one ops bottleneck flagged by Pentacles or Swords.
- Timebox a two-hour brand session using the brand triangle.
Week 4
- Lean Canvas spread. Compare with real-world signals from interviews and tests.
- Choose three metrics for Q2. Share them with the team.
- Run the Founder health triangle and schedule rest before the next sprint.
Card-by-card prompts for tighter decisions
When a card shows up, try a targeted question that translates symbolism into action.
- The Hanged Man: What am I willing to pause or trade to unlock better results?
- Wheel of Fortune: What parts of this plan depend on timing I don’t control?
- Five of Pentacles: Where is the customer experiencing friction or feeling left out?
- Eight of Wands: What can move this week if we remove approvals or batch work?
- Two of Swords: What data do I need to unstick this stalemate?
- Queen of Wands: How do we show confidence without overpromising?
Bring your team into the practice without weirdness
Not everyone loves cards. Keep it inclusive and practical.
- Frame it as a structured brainstorm with random prompts.
- Invite each person to interpret one card with a business angle.
- Capture actions in the project tool, not just in a notebook.
- Keep sessions short and focused on one decision.
A shared language around suits and majors supports faster alignment on risks and opportunities. Over time, your team will recognize when a situation feels like a Swords week or a Temperance moment.
Try this today
- Pull one card for your top priority. Write the raw reaction that pops up first.
- Translate the reaction into one testable step with a start time.
- Tell one person your plan and the metric you will track.
- Put a 20-minute review block on your calendar for Friday.
- If you feel stuck, pull a second card only for “what am I avoiding.”
Keep it light. Keep it honest. Let the cards spark a fresh angle, then let your actions and data carry it forward. For further insight schedule your private reading at ReadMeLive.com.