Hey Reader, The word quit tastes like metal in the mouth. It sounds like failure, but really it’s a dirty word for allocation. This is not a pep talk or a eulogy, that’s not my job. Mine is just to ask you to hold up a mirror if you’ve stalled, and consider three honest paths: Keep Going (Beast Mode): The loops are kinda working. The smoke signals are kinda forming. You are confident this isn’t a delusion issue, the issue is it’s just not fast enough. (the dip) Redeploy (New Vehicle): You...
8 days ago • 6 min read
Hey Reader, Who cares. Hurry up. That's it. That's the whole message. As in stop doing random acts of nothingness that don’t drive the outcome.Do the thing that matters. Do it again. It's not about being perfect. It's about moving. And violently ignoring everything else that doesn't align with your goal for today. Go do that. Also, if you happen to enjoy my content, would be hugely appreciative if you could pre-order my book. Starting A Startup: Build Something People Want Every founder...
15 days ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader, Focus. Relentlessly. With precision. Insane Discipline. Unreasonable levels of work. Just you. Heads down. Do the work. Ship the roadmap. Hit the milestones. But also? Build the toy.... Starting A Startup: Build Something People Want Every founder starts at zero. No one starts with a product, customers, revenue, or a real clue how it will all play out. Failure is the result of not doing everything in your power to turn your nothing into something. It's that simple. Buy Now Want to...
22 days ago • 4 min read
Hey Reader, The wannabe founders can talk about their idea, the market, the problem statement, all 11 slides on the YC deck template and sound fab. Good founders can go deeper. The players, the mechanics, the moving parts. The network, the sales plays, the - wow this founder really knows their shit kinda founder. Great founders? They know it all. They've lived in the problem so long (enough), gone so deep (enough), it's part of their DNA. They know shit that we don't even think to ask....
29 days ago • 5 min read
Hey Reader, The early days f’n suck. The super-early stage actually lasts way past when you thought you’d be through it. It’s deeply embarrassing. And any sane outsider would believe you shouldn’t even be in business. Your product is held together with duct tape and prayer. Your team is three people working for equity in a company worth 0. Your runway is some black magic of squeezing 6 months out of 2 months of cash. Your biggest customer is your friend, and she doesn't actually use it. The...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Hey Reader, Let's not pretend startups are built on empathy and consensus. Well... the most effective founders understand this is a dual dynamic. Relentlessly empathetic to their users but unapologetically decisive with themselves and their teams. Under the surface, most startups are built on belief, manipulation, and unreasonable conviction, but without the foul names. Don't believe me. Read the headlines. Harvey ($5bn). Lovable ($1.8bn). They are not revolutionizing code or legal AI. They...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Hey Reader, Quick ask.Everything I’ve built. Playbooks, frameworks, founder replies is all free. And it always will be. I’ve got a book coming out in September focused on going from idea to customer 1 by asking a series of reasonable questions, and helping you find the answers. If anything I’ve written has helped you, challenged you, fueled you, made you smile or your day suck less, I’d love it if you’d pre-order it: → Amazon US→ International / Indie Retailers If you're building founders -...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Hey Reader, In the last 7 days, what's the worst experience any user had in your product? Not a Sentry alert. Not a bug you patched.I mean the worst real thing a user actually experienced.Do you know? (if not, then observability) And if you're pre-launch.. What do you think it will be? Was that a one-off... Or does that happen to 1 in 20 people? Your product isn't judged by the best experience.It's judged by the worst experience that happens often enough to matter. Reddit Ads Outperform Other...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader, If you can’t tie your daily actions to revenue, directly or indirectly, I really don’t know what the f you’re doing. The number of founders doing weird loops around the actual work… Perpetually busy. Doing universally applicable horizontal fluff. I hear you. You’ve got a big plan. A bigger roadmap. A new onboarding flow. A new design system. A BIG integration unlock. A pathway to go from point-solution to suite, maybe even platform!! Cool. But until someone trades something they...
2 months ago • 4 min read