Open‑source Community Set to Outshine Corporate AI Agents
A lot of the decacorn AI agent cos and labs other than OpenAI are trying to kill OpenClaw or replace it However: I think community and open source is too strong and the Apple II moment will actually happen for OpenClaw itself, not for some corporate closed source solution
Ship Now: Success Comes Without Perfect Conditions
Every successful founder I know has one thing in common: They didn’t wait for perfect conditions. The market wasn’t ideal. The team wasn’t complete. The product wasn’t finished. They shipped anyway. Don’t shrink your ambitions. Go for it.
Coca‑Cola’s Founder: War‑addict Turned Accidental Billionaire
The man who started a $90 billion-dollar company by accident: Meet John Pemberton • Morphine addict after the war. • Sold a cocaine wine rip-off. • Died nearly broke. Here's the bizarre story behind the world's most iconic brand:
Startups Praise Meritocracy, Yet Underpay Top Performers
Startups love meritocracy until you ask for a raise. You hit quota for 6 months, close deals, then hear “next quarter” while a founder pays $15k a month to an advisor who joins one call a week. If your numbers grow and...
Startup Funding Surges to $297B, Signaling Generational Shift
Startup funding has hit an unprecedented level. Global investment reached $297 billion in Q1 2026, a 2.5x jump from the previous quarter and more than entire years of venture funding before 2019. The scale signals something bigger than a cycle. Capital is...
Great Investors See Beyond a Single Bad Pitch
The best investors don't write founders off after one bad idea. I know someone who pitched a terrible idea in 2011. Truly awful. The kind of pitch that makes you wonder if they understand their own market. More >>
Launch Licensed Products Fast with Niche Partnerships and UGC
How to launch a licensed product that does millions in its first month: (We’ve followed this exact process to get household name brands to license The Oodie) Find a license that matches your audience. Don't shoot for the biggest name on...
Pricing Signals Quality: Avoid Free, Use Trial Conversions
Never give anything for free. You end up attracting the wrong customer, not the ones you want. Founders constantly make this mistake because they don’t understand their customer well enough. Instead of rushing to scale more time should be spent understanding...
AI Case Studies Double Revenue, Cut Capital Needs
Big deal paper here: field experiment on 515 startups, half shown case studies of how startups are successfully using AI. Those firms used AI 44% more, had 1.9x higher revenue, needed 39% less capital: 1) AI accelerates businesses 2) The challenge is understanding...
Build, Don’t Just Learn: Doers Thrive with AI
Everyone is out here taking AI courses and upskilling and consuming tutorials about prompting and so much other bookish knowledge. Honestly all that time could just go into building something real. The best way to learn is through DOING. Stop worrying...
Experience a Startup Yourself, Not Just Read About It
You cannot know what it’s like to try a startup until you try it. It’s like thinking you know what it will be like to have kids. If you want to know, then try it, rather than reading about it.
Founders Pull Back Transparency as Complexity Rises
Got a lot of feedback on this one. Plenty of founders who once did (or planned to) build in public have significantly curtailed their transparency. When the idea/execution-complexity balance changes, marketing and expertise-signaling methods quickly follow.
Microsoft's Humble Beginnings: Founded April 4, 1975
Microsoft was founded on April 4, 1975. A photo of Microsoft staff (cofounders on the bottom row) in 1978 https://t.co/PyY3BlT4Zy
AI Concierge Cuts Hardware Procurement Time to Minutes
Sri @AshwiniVaishnaw Ji, Your call for “Design in India” is both timely and necessary. To make this vision real, our engineering teams need not just incentives, but the ability to move faster from idea to execution. Today, a large portion of engineering...
Usage‑Based AI Startups Hit $100M ARR Faster Than SaaS
AI startups stopped selling subscriptions. They charge per query, per app, per token, and hit $100M ARR in months like Emergent. Lovable and Cursor crossed hundreds of millions with teams under 100 and over $1M ARR per employee. Median AI startups reach $1M...
Series A‑C Diligence Is Essentially This Simple
This is basically all the diligence you mofos in Series A, B, and C are out there doing right now
Spot Real Growth vs Hidden Distractions in Business
#TimTalk - How can a founder distinguish between a “growth opportunity” and a “distraction in disguise”? with Jad Atwe https://t.co/qbSSvZj1IH via @DLAIgnite #SocialSelling #DigitalSelling #Sales #SalesLeader #Leadership #Culture #Marketing #Success #Mindset #Entrepreneur #Management
Freedom Over Payroll: Choosing Solo Success Over Hiring
I think it's as unimaginable in the mind of someone who has thousands of people on payroll why you "wouldn't" just hire a second person As it it unimaginable to me why you "would" I personally love my life without managing people,...
Price Fairly: Value Over Undercutting or Exploitation
How I think about pricing as an anti-capitalist business owner... I'm not the cheapest, to undercut everyone and exploit my own labor for volume. I'm not the most expensive, to maximize profit and price out everyone who isn't wealthy. I just price my...
Three Startups in Six Months, Now Need Trusted Help
i launched 3 businesses in the last 6 months https://t.co/lTcrAhRMgx https://t.co/wFmKcg5583 https://t.co/r9ybVChxYV i reached the point where i now know i need help running them seems obvious in hindsight on top of everything else i am running. but it takes a lot of trust.
Try, Fail, Eliminate: Progress Comes From Doing
Knowing what you don't want to do is just as valuable as knowing what you do. Pick a direction. Give it three months. If you like it, keep going. If you hate it, you've still eliminated something and that's progress....
Identify True Demand: Is Your Product the Must‑Buy?
Market-qualifying question: Will the customer buy 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 no matter what? If no, this is a difficult market; you have to create demand. If yes, the questions are: Will it be you? Why? For whom?
Amazon Launched Just After the Web, Started with Cash Orders
Amazon was founded in 1994, one year after the birth of worldwide web from @CERN. In 1995, Jeff Bezos spoke about customers mailing cash to @Amazon for book purchases. https://t.co/sk7gsFBNNr
Distribution Beats Quality: Why Reach Trumps Content
The distribution mindset shift @MediaKing built a $50M media company from South Dakota with 19 employees. His biggest lesson from the early blogging days: "There were plenty of great blogs that didn't get read and plenty of average ones that did." Distribution wins...
AI Automates Global Product Compliance, Ending Spreadsheet Chaos
https://t.co/6WvpufeY6S is building AI infrastructure that automates product compliance for global retailers. Managing compliance across markets means different regulations per country, fragmented documentation, and constant changes. Most teams still run it on spreadsheets. Every product launch becomes a fire drill. Complir maps...
Unicorns Take Years, Not Quick Wins, Investors Overlook
One of my biggest pet peeves: investors who write off companies too soon. Building a unicorn takes YEARS, even when things go phenomenally well. While there are exceptions, most $100M+ rev/yr companies didn't get there fast. More >>
Reprogramming Mindsets: The Core Trait for Founders, Operators, Hires
The single most important quality in a founder, a strong operator, and a hire: the ability to reprogram their mind and assumptions. https://t.co/q2Md2PWkj6
AI Speeds Internal Tools Into Profitable Side‑hustles
Jesus wow Ramp is SHIPPING Companies internal tools become things they turn into side-hustle businesses because AI lets them ship so fast. And Steer is interesting. It's a way to make your AI a super nerd about the thing you're super nerdy about
Use a Closing‑Week Checklist to Prevent Last‑Minute Surprises
Founders: Create a 'Closing Week' checklist: - All stakeholders identified - Security reviews completed - Payment process confirmed - Implementation timeline agreed No surprises in the final yard.
First Paycheck After Years of Bootstrapped Persistence
I got my first paycheck from one of my SaaS companies 🎉 Might not seem like a big deal, but I've been trying to make this work since 2020. I've poured thousands of hours and tens of thousands of my own money...
AI‑Driven Roadmap: Blend Data, Feedback, and Bets
How do I plan a product roadmap in 2026? I haven't done it in a year as we've been firefighting I want to combine customer requests, insights from support, customer adoption data, fun stuff, and bets What's the playbook in 2026? Connect everything to...
AI-Generated Code Delivers 25x Productivity, QA Becomes Bottleneck
This week in our SaaS CEO masterminds, one stat blew my mind Multiple companies reported 50-100% of their production code is now AI-generated. One team rebuilt an entire platform in 2 months with 4 people...a project previously scoped at 1...
Choose Your Team, Customers, Partners—Make Hard Work Worthwhile
Owning and building your own business is extremely hard. The benefit, you get to pick: - your customers - your partners - your team members - the location You spend 2,000 (likely more) hours a year working, optimize for who you do it...
Databricks' $1M Challenge Signals Strategic Lock‑In
Databricks just opened a $1M startup challenge for B2B companies building on their platform. Prize money follows ecosystem bets. When a platform offers $1M in prizes, it's not charity. It's lock-in with upside. Know where the gravity is.
AI Secures $211B in 2025, Half of Global VC
ICYMI: The HumanX & Crunchbase AI Funding Report is out. In 2025, AI companies raised $211B, nearly half of global VC. See where capital is flowing now, & which companies presenting at HumanX may be poised for funding, acquisitions, or...
VC Funding Surges, But Concentrates in Big Funds
Venture capital is rebounding, but not evenly. Most of the $47.8 billion raised in Q1 is flowing into large, established funds, as investors prioritize track record in a more uncertain environment. Regulation, geopolitics and overallocation are pushing capital toward perceived safety. The...
No Numbers in Founder Updates Signal Trouble
From one of my advisors who is a long-time angel: "I’ve been writing down my portfolio each month with 'spidey sense' assessments of founders whose updates have been getting fluffy. No numbers in the update = not a good sign."
AI Turns Public Transparency Into Competitor Blueprint
Building in public has been fundamentally changed by the advent of AI. Pains me to say it, but the transparency playbook that built my career now hands competitors a blueprint. Here's what I still share (and what I never will. Anymore.) https://t.co/dejGIMcP7M
Validate with 20 Paying Customers Before Any Setup
Are you thinking about starting a business? Some might think you should begin by incorporating a company, building a website, purchasing equipment, getting insurance, working on your pricing strategy, making some ads, and setting everything up. Wrong. Your first step is to go...
Zero Staff, High Marketing Spend Drives Scalable Revenue
Some are saying this Medvi story is fraudulent. What others in the industry are saying is with zero headcount, all the $ can go into marketing (meta, affiliates, etc). All the infra is rented. Operating margins will be extremely low,...
Growth Fueled by Strategy, Not Just Protein Trend
a lot of people think @chomps grew because protein snacking became a mainstream trend. but @slimjim and @jacklinks had dominated the meat snack aisle for decades. category growth doesn't explain how a $6,500 side hustle became america's fastest-growing food brand. 🧵 https://t.co/WIHgut9dQq
Shift From Hustle to Structure for Steady Revenue
If revenue still feels reactive instead of steady That is the stage where hustle stops helping and structure starts mattering most
Build Real‑Life Business with Simple Systems, No Hustle
Before you hit follow (which I hope you do), read this: I’m 46. Gen X. I’m not building an online business in perfect conditions. I’m building it while juggling real life - running a pub, with a one-year-old, limited time, and a lot going...
Hidden Milestones Reveal Real Indie Hacker Progress
SIGNS YOU'RE ACTUALLY MAKING PROGRESS AS AN INDIE HACKER: (even when it doesn't feel like it)
Speed Over Moats: Teams Must Outrun Short‑Lived Defensibility
1. Yes, current moats matter But also… 2. The team and evidence of how fast you are moving today may be even more important because defensibility could be short-lived so can your team move fast enough to continually stay ahead
Stay Light: Attachment Blinds Product Insight
The more you’re attached to your idea (the product, the UX, the feature, the target customer, the market, the competitor, the differentiation, the price, the tech stack, the name, the colors), the less you can notice when it’s wrong. Hold everything...
Get My VC‑Breakthrough Resume & Pitch Deck
I don’t talk about this much but my annual newsletter tier includes the EXACT resume and why me pitch deck I used to break into VC. If you’re trying to get in, it’s the most useful thing I offer. 👉 https://t.co/IF78dodBhB
AI Unlocks Fast Growth in Slow Industries
Massive market that very few people know how to apply AI. The guy basically built an affiliate network / distribution channel to sell weight loss drug and he was able to do it extremely quickly and efficiently with AI. I believe the...
AI‑Powered World Model Makes Traditional Org Charts Obsolete
Jack Dorsey just published something that should be required reading for every founder. The premise: the org chart needs to be replaced entirely. And the argument starts 2,000 years ago. For thousands of years, every organization on earth has run on the...
From Passion Project to Full‑Time Founder: Pickleball’s Pull
I actually never wanted to be a founder. Having worked in early startups most of my career, I knew what a heavy toll it takes on founders especially. Court & Crew started out of my love for pickleball and its...