Pivot to Project Work Generates $10K‑20K Monthly
A TinySeed founder had no product-market fit, and the company wasn't making money. Two months after deciding to pivot into project-based work, they were generating $10,000-$20,000 a month. No inbound traffic, no big audience. In this episode, I talk about how they did it and also cover: • Why AI changed the economics of custom dashboard work • The four habits that separated Nobel laureates from forgotten researchers • Why going deep on one idea for years beats launching many things quickly • The expertise that looks like magic from the outside Episode 833 👉 https://lnkd.in/eGpJWGaF Thanks to YSecurity for sponsoring this episode. When enterprise customers ask about your security posture, you need more than a vague answer. Ysecurity gives founders access to 40 senior security engineers, including alumni from Apple, Uber, Microsoft, and Robinhood, by the hour with a monthly cap, so you can close deals and get SOC 2 or ISO certified without hiring a full-time team. Your first 8 hours are free. 👉 https://lnkd.in/eMTAyRk9
Free 2‑Hour Masterclass Reveals Claude Design Playbook
THIS GUY IS LITERALLY GIVING AWAY THE DESIGN PLAYBOOK FOR CLAUDE DESIGN 🤯 A Free 2-hour masterclass showing how to build an ENTIRE startup: → brand guidelines → decks → website → apps → videos ... using ONLY Claude Design. Guide is below + full tutorial in 🧵...
Evidence‑Driven AI Turned Slack Bot Into $450M Business
2022: Started as a Slack bot. 2026: Hit $450M ARR in 3.5 years. Here's Perplexity 's $20B+ growth story👇 Aravind Srinivas (ex-OpenAI) with Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski were frustrated by Google's endless list of links. Their vision:...
Validate with Prepayments and Manual MVP for Instant ARR
I’ve built 3 companies with a combined ARR ot $35M. So here’s the plan if I had to start a SaaS or AI company from zero today: > 50 discovery calls before writing a single line of code > Not...
Health Tech Must Prove Value over Existing Solutions
Dear Health Tech startups: your product is the LAST resort for a health system to solve a problem. That’s why they won’t buy. Here’s what I mean… For years my investors would say to me: “@SeamlessMD has been so successful at reducing...
Avoid VC Euphoria: Grow only to Sustainable Scale
The biggest mistake I see at $10m ARR - and I see it ALL the time - is Founders getting caught up in the completely unavoidable euphoria of real traction and raising VC money for a business that is actually...
Future Deep‑Tech Startups Will Defy SaaS Revenue Rules
imagine a software startup raising $800m before their first dollar of revenue. Can’t imagine it the last two decades of software has been dominated by a simple theory: ship quickly, get customers early, generate revenue quickly to validate PMF, manage KPIs...
Hire an Accountant Who Closes Books Within 30 Days
founders, make sure you have a good outside accountant that closes your books each month within 30 days. if you're looking for a good and reasonably priced bookkeeper, DM me for a referral.
Build Audience, Spot Gaps, Service First, Automate to Scale
I have done 0 to $1M ARR 3 times… …If I lost everything (again) and had to get back up (again), this is exactly what I would do: 1. Start posting organic social content about what I'm an expert in,...
Build Hermes with Daily Brief and Self‑Improving Swipe File
If I was starting Hermes from zero, these are the 9 workflows I'd build first (to make it a real Chief of Staff): 1. Daily Brief Every morning at 7am, Hermes pulls my calendar, top 3-5 urgent emails, weather, and 3 headlines...
Discuss Conflict Resolution Before Contracts and Cap Tables
Most co-founding teams talk about the product and the market. They don't talk about what happens when they fundamentally disagree. That's the conversation that determines whether the company survives a real crisis. Have it before the contract. Before the cap table. Before...
Three Pillars: Hard Metrics, Social Proof, ROI Validation
Founders: Your pitch needs 3 levels of backup: 1. Hard metrics: '40% cost reduction' 2. Social proof: '8 of top 10 banks use us' 3. ROI validation: 'Payback in 4.2 months' Each reinforces the others. Have all three ready.
Choose Joy Now: Build What Truly Inspires You
1998: Started a website design agency at 14. 2002: Started iContact from a dorm room. 2008: Built one of America's fastest-growing software companies. 2010: Overweight. Burnt out. 2011: Had a 10-hour panic attack. 2012: Sold iContact for $169M at 27....
Neurosurgeon Turns Credentialing Bottleneck Into AI Startup
For Dr. Marc Ayoub, a neurosurgeon born into a family of doctors, the path to entrepreneurship was a necessity born of frustration. As Ayoub describes it, while the medical profession was sold to him as a lucrative and stable career, the...
AI Agents Get Wallets to Shop and Run Businesses
Agent to agent commerce with Colin Gillingham, @gillinghammer, founder of https://t.co/mNywgIlI70 We go into what he is doing to give your AI agents a wallet so they can go shopping. Or run their own business. https://t.co/6D3amN2p5S
Lumius Launches Fast, Accessible Universal 3D Body Camera
The future of ultrasound is 3D. Lumius is making it fast, accessible, and intelligent — a universal 3D camera for the body. Congrats on the launch, @treevoo_lumius and @lichenhang1225! https://t.co/7IzDsljqrf https://t.co/7FdahhZ9UK
Back Bold Founders; Crazy‑smart Often Looks Crazy
Can't agree more with Adam (yet again) As I always tell my team, "there is a very fine line between 'crazy smart' and 'crazy' and when we're writing a very early check we have to be willing to get this wrong...
Act First, Refine Later: Embrace Messy Execution
Take action first. Build the perfect process second. Too many people wait until the process is perfect before they start executing. Start messy. Iterate toward clean.
Founders Are Constantly Selling: Hires, Product, Investors
As a founder, you're always selling. You're selling new potential hires on your company, you're selling your product to customers, and you're maybe selling to investors a piece of your company.
Niche Banking Solution Scales to $250M ARR
2021: Building credit cards for sneaker resellers 2026: Hitting $250M ARR in 5 years Here's Slash 's $1.4B wild growth story👇 Victor Cardenas, a Venezuelan immigrant, dropped out of Stanford at 19. Kevin Bai left Waterloo the same year. They...
Rapid Customer Acquisition Is the Core Lesson for Serial Founders
Almost all of my serial founders have figured out how to get customers super quickly, even sometimes pre-product. They learned from their first business that that was the primary problem.
Game Startups Demand Clear Customers, Tiny MVP, and Luck
My reply to someone considering starting a video game company: The distribution of possible rewards for starting a video game company are generally not very good today. The market is well served, and gaining a foothold requires strong execution on both...
How I Lost $50 Million and What I Learned
Here’s the wild story of how I lost $50,000,000
Programmable Drug Targets Cancer Cells via DNA Recognition
FinalDose is building the first programmable drug platform - a single smart drug molecule that finds diseased cells by their DNA and destroys them. They're starting with all cancers. Congrats on the launch, @Jeffliu6068Liu, @sklin_lite, and @liyaohuang2! https://t.co/uKJgl7lpmR https://t.co/l4b1hS2mn7
Series B Secures $50M, Paving Sales Future in Monaco
We're announcing our $50M Series B led by Benchmark. Founders Fund and Human Capital are tripling down in the round. We gave Benchmark a sneak preview of our upcoming GA release. They saw the future of sales. We had a term...
Pitch Insights, Not Products: Customer Acquisition Remains Key
I'm seeing a lot more businesses pitch multiple apps and even ideas, but the problem is still the same as in all prior decades: customer acquisition. Those are the insights to pitch, not the product.
From Twitch to $7.5M: Maya Higa’s Global Impact
Maya Higa's TED Talk is now available. The 10-minute talk covers how she got started on Twitch, has raised over $7.5M, reached millions globally, and how @alveussanctuary is the wildlife sanctuary you can visit from anywhere.
AI's Potential Outpaces Funding: Altman's For‑Profit Miss
One of the things Musk vs Altman shows is how much more promising AI is than anyone expected. Sam could have started it as a for-profit company. His life would be much simpler now if he had. But he didn't...
Serial Entrepreneurs Thrive on Creation, Not Just Profit
Had a short in-person meeting with a true serial entrepreneur in his 50s. He had an early exit 20 years ago, and another one a few years ago. You can say the motive for profit and quality of life is...
Escape Golden Handcuffs: When to Go All‑In
How do you leave a $400K salary to go all in on your business? I answer that and more in this round of listener questions episode. We cover: • The golden handcuffs problem and how to escape it • When...
Startup Success Proves Wealth Can Come Ethically
A friend's startup is growing at 93% a month. I pointed out that her net worth is also growing at 93% a month, and that she can thus feel, in her own life, the falsity of politicians' claim that you...
AI‑Native Enterprise Spending Soars, Redefining SaaS Landscape
Every week I publish a roundup of the biggest SaaS deals, funding rounds, and insights shaping the industry. This week the signal is impossible to ignore. AI-native enterprise spending grew 94% year over year in Q1 2026. Traditional per-seat SaaS...
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...
Free Tiers Attract Users, Not Validate Them
If you suddenly started charging $1/mo for your 'free' tier, most users would quit. That’s why free tiers 𝘢𝘳𝘦 useful but they 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 customer development. https://t.co/9ezISx6c10
Writers Can Build 8‑Figure Digital Empires Too
People are always surprised that I've built an 8-figure digital business as a writer too
Ship Early; Version 1.0 Will Inevitably Suck
You're going to launch things that embarrass you later. Offers that are too cheap. Content that's too cringe. Positioning that's too vague. Ship them anyway. Version 1.0 is supposed to suck.
From Near‑Failure to $13K: Writing Business Takes Off
In the last 6 weeks, this writer has: • Made over $13,000 • Doubled his income • Gone full-time on his new writing business But these wins almost didn't happen: https://t.co/pddmTwYWzA
From Barstool Idea to Billions in Assets
Top quote from this week’s conversation with Will England, Derek Drummond, and Tony Caruso on co-founding Dockside Platforms — and taking it from barstool brainstorm to billions in assets. With thanks to @AlphaSenseInc, @CanoeAI, & SRS Acquiom. https://t.co/MmhrV7zcGF
Validate Customers Before Branding; Avoid Attachment Bias
Entrepreneurs obsess over logos before they have a single paying customer. Here's why that backfires: you build an attachment to the brand. And when customers tell you something fundamental needs to change, you resist it — because the brand you love...
Startups Fail When No System Finds Their Product
hot take: most startups don't fail because of bad execution. they fail because they built something nobody had a system to find.
Proposed CGT Threatens Startup Equity Compensation Model
Few things close the gap between labor and management/capital than access to equity ownership of what you yourself help build. Proposed #CGT changes basically erase the equity-based compensation system that makes #startups thrive internationally.
Funding Doesn't Guarantee Success; Repeat Paying Customers Validate
Funded companies fail just as often as bootstrapped ones — they just fail more expensively, and more slowly. A term sheet tells you an investor thinks you might build something. It tells you almost nothing about whether customers will actually pay...
Childhood Entrepreneurs Gain Early Insight Into Business Pitfalls
Founders who have run lemonade stands or other businesses as a child have a leg up because they already know where a lot of pitfalls are.
Running a Business with AI Agents via Discord
My new speciality skill ive developed this year is using running a business with AI agents using discord as the human-in-the-loop interface
Targeting Mid‑Market Firms with a Multi‑Product Ecosystem
More on Flex's GTM strategy that's 85% organic: "We don't really give a shit about product focus. What we really give a shit about is customer focus. We have a very narrow customer persona of between $3m and $100m in revenue. It's...
Early-Stage Climate Tech Funding Slips Significantly
Funding for Early-Stage Climate Tech Is Drying Up #energysky -- via Heatmap News https://t.co/QMO0zCr2RK https://t.co/CjxCQedMd7
Mochatrade Launches INR‑funded US Stock Futures with 50x Leverage
Mochatrade (@mochatradeapp) is a perpetual futures trading platform that gives Indian traders access to 50+ US stocks (Tesla, Nvidia, Apple), indices and crypto - funded in INR via UPI, with up to 50x leverage, available 24/7. Congrats on the launch, @theblackmanda,...
Cerebras IPO Soars: AI Demand or Bubble?
Cerebras just raised its IPO to a valuation at $48.8 billion. The offering has been oversubscribed 20x, and it's the biggest IPO of 2026 so far at a valuation of 71x ARR. Is this sheer insanity, or is the demand...
Focused Risk Yields Gratitude and Business Success
A moment of gratitude because I’m just so beyond grateful for my business and life right now 🙏🏼 When I went to launch Sales Baddie I took a “risk”. I got rid of my highest income earning offers. I literally told...
Live‑work Retreat: Build, Learn, and Hack Together for 30 Days
This is just a life hack btw Gather your friends together in a villa for 30 days and: - build together - learn together - demo what you work on - live together: gym, run, surf, etc - inspire more people to build and become indie...