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....
8 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...
15 days 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...
22 days 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 -...
29 days 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 1 month 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...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Hey Reader, You're probably quietly freaking out. It's a common theme I am hearing from founders at every stage of maturity. Every other LinkedIn post screaming with ridiculousness. I raised $30m in three minutes with AI, solo founders running businesses with 40 AI agents, MVPs vibe coded in a weekend with 100 customers and $22k MRR, the AI Marketing agency getting 82% conversion rates from emailing 3% of the world. AI video doubles auto-posting across founder socials while they sleep driving...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader, What stops someone from stealing your idea? Not much. In most cases, I can find, hire, or outsource to a team that gets to basic parity with your tech. I’m not talking about stealing your vision, that’s what makes you unique. I’m talking about stealing your traction. Your customers. Your edge. That’s what a "moat" protects. Your competitive advantage, your defensible edge. And if you don’t have one yet, be very clear what’s holding your position... likely by a thread. In the early...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Hey Reader, We need gamification!! We need a checklist at signup, because users don’t like leaving jobs unfinished. That’s certainty. They want a clear path, closure, and to know what's next. We need badges and progress markers, because users like feeling recognized. That’s status. They need to feel like they’re getting somewhere and that it matters. We need customizable flows and smart defaults, because users don’t like being forced into decisions. That’s autonomy. Give them agency, or...
2 months ago • 4 min read