
Kevin Hart built a tequila brand in a declining market and grew it 85% in one year. Gran Coramino sold 300,000 cases, passed $200M in retail sales, and became a top 25 tequila worldwide. He joins weekly sales calls, meets distributors, and works on taste because he owns equity, not a label spot. While the category grows 2%, his brand grows 100% because buyers want quality over volume. The lesson is simple: if you own it, work it, and make the product strong, people return.

I’m hosting an exclusive investor mixer at this private hangar in Vegas on Thurs 2/26 👀 DM if interested. https://t.co/65LxbH2BJO

Every week a new AI tool goes viral. Every month half of them die. Stop falling for it. Before adopting anything, ask one question: "Does this give me 30% more output, savings, or speed?" No → move on. Yes → go all in. I've watched founders waste...

Stumbled across this snap from 2014 in my camera roll. Founders, YC’s deadline just passed but they accept late applications. https://t.co/wp6gokGBi5

since @behind_genius's last study of the 100 most recent billion-dollar-plus tech exits study in April 2025, there have been 45 new exits added...things are heating up! https://t.co/W4I8gsyiDu
Enough AI slop. Enough gambling apps. There’s never been a better time for engineers to build companies that reshape the physical world. Start one with 5050. Apply now. Early bird deadline Feb 15. https://t.co/giXwZLE8uX

Here's a fun example of building features that have a direct customer impact and then measuring the results. We were getting more complaints of people losing their work in @kit when they used multiple computers, lost internet, or their browser had...
I like to think of startup investing like surfing 🏄♀️ You don't want to paddle out too early (market doesn't exist yet). You don't want to be too late (already crowded with competitors). And sometimes the wave you're betting on...

Why I avoid competitive markets (usually) We see 1,000+ pitches/month at @HustleFundVC. Many founders obsess over competition for the wrong reasons. Here's what they should actually worry about: 👇 https://t.co/b0BOgdWtRe
Valuation is understandably one of the most top-of-mind topics founders want to cover in our conversations. Something we often emphasize is that there are two sides of valuation: the objective side based on core SaaS metrics, and the subjective side...
We're launching Monaco today. Monaco automates customer acquisition and revenue growth for startups. The platform disrupting sales with AI has finally arrived. https://t.co/mH03HIOdx8
We at @uncorkcap couldn't be more excited to share this news about a recent investment of ours: Inertia led by my old friend @jeffiel. https://t.co/DgUzgdgvhM
In this episode of Design Review, @aaron_epstein sits down with @jornvandijk, the CEO and Co-founder of @framer. Together they unpack the brutal “gray zone” between early revenue and real product-market fit, the pivot that reignited their growth, and how to adapt...
Most founders position their products around their ultimate vision rather than what users can immediately understand. This is why so many brilliant products struggle to gain traction early on. Flo Crivello from Lindy shared a perfect case study with me:...
The Mental Shift Required In An AI-Native World In my second piece in Forbes, I explore how founders should rethink what it would mean to start their companies from scratch in an AI-native world. AI isn’t just a product or tooling shift,...
A plateau is not a failure. It means people are paying. Every month. They find enough value to stay. The problem isn't your product. It's your funnel. We found that only 25% of signups ever made their first post. That was the whole leak. Not...
Amazon wants to build an AI content marketplace. Publishers would upload their articles. AI companies would pay to train on them. This means less copyright risk, more profit sharing, and fewer lawsuits. The AI arms race is turning into a licensing war.
Simple > Complex Shipped > Perfect Consistent > Viral User feedback > Your assumptions These 4 principles built every successful product I've made.
It seems like the number of things people claim they are building is up but the number of great products is roughly the same. I find this particularly interesting about what it means is actually hard.
The best teams ship what they can prove users need. User research turns opinions into evidence and protects you from confident guesses. Get the receipts on your users with Seena Labs — seenalabs.io
Is there a higher leverage activity than building an audience of people who know and trust you? I can't think of one.
The tools don't matter. The framework doesn't matter. The stack doesn't matter. What matters: Did you solve someone's problem today? That's the only metric that counts.
Thanks for resurfacing this, Dimitry Gershenson 🙏 ❤️ So much has changed since we put this together in 2023 (i.e. AI dominating the startup ecosystem) but also, not much has changed (i.e. the importance of asking "why now?").
What do I believe that few other people believe yet? Startups can and will be 10x bigger YC’s role to make that happen. We're the tree of prosperity: minting more great founders so that both the mega-platforms and the boutiques have...
anyone with theories on how software teams will evolve? today: 1 eng, 1 PM, 1 designer (EPD) tomorrow: 10 PMs who vibe code all day + 1 eng architect (the architect creates the scaffolding and writes adversarial agents to manage tech debt, security, scalability issues) Thoughts?
Entrepreneurs: private equity firms OVERVALUED SaaS companies during 2020-21. NOW, those “overvalued” companies are getting marked down 30-60% 🤯 If you’re an investor = BUY distressed assets LOW If you’re a startup founder = CASHFLOW CASHFLOW
Out of all the things we've shipped recently, this one has been my biggest wow moment. Instant feedback from any type of user... → Create a persona that matches your real users and buyers. → An AI agent takes on...

When @benfrancis was first building @gymshark , he was encouraged to expand its product range to reach a broader audience. More appeal equals more growth, right? They found the opposite. Growth isn’t always about adding more. Sometimes it’s about becoming lethal...
This take might age like milk, but I'm calling it: the tech CEOs might move their domicile to other states for tax reasons, but they will keep their teams in California. The chicken-and-egg of talent density is so difficult to replicate...
We’re about to be flooded with: – average MVPs – look-alike products – tools with no point of view – software that works but doesn’t matter What actually wins now isn’t speed to “something.” Today, anyone can prompt their way...
Making $1 beats planning to make $1M and doing nothing. Seen this too many times with aspiring founders.
Flo Crivello , founder of Lindy told me he gave early users a product that was oily, half-broken, and rough around the edges. His no-code AI automation platform wasn't ready. Not by traditional standards. The first people through the door...

Most solopreneurs don’t fail because their product is bad. They fail because they build things nobody wants. If you start with “what should I build?”, you’re already late. Comment “YES” if this hit home.
If you have a side project, share below. I'll retweet some interesting ones to give you more attention 😄 I'll do this every month to encourage more people to build side projects and escape 9-5.
A corollary for AI tooling: its outputs will only ever be as good as the person wrangling them from it. That's really all it is. Yet another powerful tool (like a compiler, or k8s) that can only be run effectively by...
yeah I guess technical founders never had to deal with being (self-)promoted to management. Those who never wanted to work for a boss again now are becoming the ultimate pencil-pushers. I'm going through the same sobering realization. The antidote? Painting Warhammer.
Entrepreneurship is one the greatest means to wealth creation and venture capital is one of the levers that fuels that, yet it’s gate kept by insiders… My goal has always been to change that.
hi! if you want to work at some of the most interesting startups in AI, come to our next mixture-of-experts event at @conviction and hear from the founders of Harmonic, Worktrace, Sunday, Treehouse and Trajectory https://t.co/ZL7mdnszUl
When the typical outcome for a post seed, post series A, and post series B startup is death. Perhaps the best strategy is to be careful how much you copy the startups around you. Are you brave enough...
Aspiring VCs - do you know VC is a ton of sales? Externally: - Pitching to LPs - Winning over founders & other VCs - Recruiting talent Internally: - Pitching new deals to your team - Proposing new firm initiatives - Suggesting new firm processes

BIG NEWS: I just launched Pulse. The world's first news reader that cuts research from 2 hours to 5 mins👇
Entrepreneurs: if you spent more time on Sunday building than watching the Super Bowl, you're going to WIN.
Posting jobs and waiting fails. Demand beats supply in hiring. A headhunter mindset shifts recruiters from process to market mapping and relationships. You map talent, build ties, and engage before rivals. Do you treat recruiting as a task or a strategy?
A corporate position that workers should "just use AI to do stuff" has never been enough. AI use in companies is a leadership problem that involves answering fundamental questions about what people should do with their time, how work is...
If you use any software, you will hit bugs. Only a tiny 5% of your users will ever report bugs. The speed at which those bugs are fixed is the true measure of a founder in mastery of their craft.
A house being sold at 90% of the value you think is appropriate, is a great deal. A house at 50%… you suspect a major flaw… probably it’s not worth dealing with it. First time founders often price like the second, ...
MVPs are overrated. You don’t need a smaller product. You need real demand. Code comes second. Agree or disagree? Comment below.
Voice AI startups raised more than $650 million in January. The figure goes up if you count startups like Synthesia and Decagon. I am keeping a track of voice AI funding in a post on my newsletter. https://t.co/j5BU7tpGJx
When someone copies your product/design/pricing/website/feature, it’s OK to be mad. Also remember: It means they have no ideas, no insight, and they don’t know how to get it. Which means you’ll always be ahead, just by doing what you’re already doing. So do...
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned as a startup founder is the value of delegation. Letting go of control was uncomfortable, but it’s the only way the company could grow past me.