Optimal Pressure: Just Enough Dread to Drive Success
Existential dread is a great motivator. Too much runway you get lazy. Too little runway you don't give yourself a chance. You need just enough runway for the dread to kick in, fight or flight mode, do your best work, charge money, get paid.
Changi Airport Sets Unmatched Speed and Comfort Standard
Changi airport will ruin other airports for you. It is quiet, spacious, great amenities, and super efficient / quick to get through. Arrival in particular, it’s not unusual to go from exiting the plane to getting in a cab in...
Six Months to $10k MRR: Hard but Life‑Changing
Getting to $10k MRR in 6 months is hard but doable. Worth it though. Those 12 months will be the highest value 2 years of your life.
Accidental Instagram Ad Clicks Mistaken for Success
There’s some PM at Instagram looking at the metrics of ads that people accidentally click on thinking “wow I’m doing a great job”.
One‑shot AI App Creation Is a Myth
The idea of "one shotting" an app using AI is a fugazi. If you had to describe my app and all the edge cases I have solved over the years, it would be a prompt the size of a small book,...
Claude Prompts Fewer Permission Alerts in Rails than Node
Working with Claude in Rails, I hardly ever get "need your permission" alerts. With a node project it's like several per minute. Infuriating.
Claude Mimics Developers: Native JS Promises, Endless Edge Cases
Claude testing my patience today after it happily declared "lets just build X feature with native JS we don't need that library" and then we run into a million small edge cases. In other words, it's acting just like a real...
Missing Japan’s Quiet, Polite, Spotless Everyday Life
I just spent 3 weeks in Japan and I miss it already. - the quiet. people talk quietly, no phones on speaker. - people drive politely - no trash on the street - restaurant staff are attentive, food is always quick etc I want to go...
Either Code Hard or Stare Into the Abyss
Checking out people at the coworking space, there's 2 types. One is deep in claude code. The other is zoning out in a zoom call. You're either creating generational wealth, or staring into the abyss. There is no in between.
Claude Optimizes Lambda, Cuts AWS Bill by $1K Monthly
Claude helped me reduce my AWS bill by about $1000 / mo. Just by tightening up a lambda which kept timing out, adding in better exception handling etc. Very pleasant surprise when I went to pay the bill today.
AI Hasn't Boosted April Fools, Proving SaaS's Inevitability
AI should have enabled infinitely more April Fools gags. But we saw basically the same amount we always saw. April Fools is a good abstraction for why conventional SaaS is not going anywhere and why companies aren’t going to build...
When SaaS Hits $50K MRR, Tiny Fees Don’t Matter
At $50K MRR with typical SaaS margins that’s $35K going to your bank every month after costs. Congratulations you’re printing money. At that point, life is so freaking good, and you cultivate such an abundance mindset, I guarantee no founder...
X's “Experts” Can’t Distinguish MRR From ARR
X is seemingly full of business experts who don’t know the difference between MRR and ARR.
Public Changelogs Lose Value as AI Automates Updates
Something I legit wrestle with… is it worth keeping a public changelog anymore for your SaaS business? Any competitor can basically now automatically ingest the updates and get Claude to make PRs. It only gets them a scrappy level of parity...
Japan's Cherry Blossoms Reveal a Society at Its Best
Cherry blossom road trip in Japan. Everywhere I go in this country, I am reminded that Japan is peak society. It’s quiet, beautiful, respectful, people are polite, food is amazing, service culture is top notch, people take pride in what...