From Football Field to Chip Founder: PLX’s Legacy
I got to know Jim Guzy on the football field. My school, Hillview Elementary, was playing against Fremont Elementary in flag football. They had this kid who was crazy fast on the field. That was Jim Guzy. Later, he became an electrical engineer and innovator. Jim and his brilliant friend, Wei-Ti Liu, came to me with a business to design semiconductors that provided a bus interface between the memory, the processor, and the peripherals of the computer. I told them I would invest if Jim's father, Jim Guzy Sr., would match my investment. Jim Sr. was the founder of Memorex and was on the board of Intel at the time. He matched. Then, together, we all recruited Mike Salameh, a recent Harvard MBA graduate, to become CEO of the business. PLX Technology was founded in 1986 by Wei-Ti Liu, Jim Guzy, and Mike Salameh. Today, every computer, server, consumer electronics product, game console, automobile, and IoT device has multiple bus interface devices. A cell phone alone has about 20 bus interfaces from a camera serial interface to a USB interface to a display interface. There are maybe as many as 100 billion bus interfaces in the world today. PLX went on to have a successful IPO and fifteen years later was acquired by Broadcom. Fast in football, brilliant in business. Jim Guzy was the real deal.
First $40 MRR Achieved, 3K Leads Ready
I have been really busy building SAAS and finally seeing some traction. I was not posting much but here I am 39.99 MRR not bad so far. I will update as we go, I have 3000 leads and trying to...
Build for Outcomes, Not Every Customer Request
"The customer is not always right when it comes to guiding your product development." $10M ARR bootstrapped. Never built what customers asked for verbatim. Built for the outcomes they actually needed. https://t.co/ubYZfSUe3L
From $3.5B Hedge Fund to Wellness Venture
This ex-colleague of Stan Druckenmiller once ran a $3.5B hedge fund. Then he pivoted to running a consumer wellness company.
Legal AI Harvey Hits $11B After Cold‑email Breakthrough
Legal AI startup Harvey just reached an $11B valuation. On The Upstarts Podcast, CEO Winston Weinberg shares how a cold email to Sam Altman helped launch its journey, and why he believes lawyers are a surprise power user of AI tools. Plus,...
Systems, Persistence, Execution: The Blueprint Behind McDonald’s
Ray Kroc didn’t just build restaurants. He built a system. * Persistence beats talent * Systems scale businesses * Execution wins long term Lessons from McDonald’s growth: https://michaelwmchugh.com/ray-krocs-mcdonalds-success/
Junior Founder Finds Inspiration and Intimidation at CEO Offsite
at a ceo offsite with one of our crossover investors and im pretty objectively the most junior/early stage founder here and its so genuinely inspiring + intimidating in best way
Tech Accelerates Clinical Trial Recruitment of Ideal Participants
I spoke to a startup building software to help clinical trials recruit more of the right kinds of people more quickly - a serious challenge at present.
From Acne Journey to Multi‑Million Skincare Brand
Alix Earle spent years posting about her acne, from Accutane rounds to bare-face breakouts. Now she turned that story into Reale Actives, a 4-step skincare line built with her dermatologist. For a year, she seeded unlabeled products, teased a mystery account, and...
Building a Custom Fitness App Around My New Squat Rack
Got a squat rack finally so why not vibe design and code my own fitness app while I'm at it. https://t.co/0utcVSDSsw
Founder Mode: Conquer Fear, Execute Relentlessly
Founder Mode is an arrival. It means you’ve overcome the fear of failure, and you simply execute to overcome any obstacle in your way.
AI + Crowd Voting Uncovers Viable Startup Ideas
Some nice new ideas upvoted by everyone today With the new AI models + human upvoting and downvoting there might actually be good ideas here for people to build startups from Possibly... https://t.co/PcyxSjjTQs
AI Fuels Document Churn, Founders Must Work Harder
Founders are running their decks, docs, and narratives through AI to drive investor cycles. But investors are doing the same: they’re making (more) comments on investor agreements, advisor docs, warrants, etc. Founders: expect to work harder to close.
Nvidia-Backed Startup Valued at $25B to Counter Chinese AI
Nvidia-Backed Startup Seeking to Counter Chinese AI Eyes $25 Billion Valuation Yes, it's all about "countering Chinese AI"... https://t.co/7VwOnVxaeb
Female Founders Face Fundraising Challenges Far Beyond Expectations
I talked to one of female founder clients today & she said something that stuck - “Fundraising [as a female] is so hard - so much harder than even they say.”
OpenAI Funds Isara, a Youth‑led AI Startup
OpenAI Backs New AI Startup Seeking Bot Army Breakthroughs The San Francisco company, called Isara, was founded last June by two 23-year-old AI researchers, Eddie Zhang and Henry Gasztowtt. They have hired researchers from Google, Meta , and OpenAI. https://t.co/TmyAydRBDk
Success Doesn't Require a Mark Cuban Investor
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you don’t need Mark Cuban on your cap table in order to succeed.
Know Who to Avoid: Startup Success Shortcut
Half the battle in a startup is figuring out who not to spend time with.
Growth Requires Custom Innovation Accounting, Not Standard Metrics
The Lean Startup proposes a unique way of looking at growth metrics The book suggests that the typical metrics, user registration growth and gross revenue, don’t paint an accurate picture of true sustainable growth Rather, each founder needs to find their...
Build a Million‑Dollar Business with One Skill Daily
Create one Claude skill a day - that’s all you need to build million dollar business.
AI Keeps Investing Basics Same, Execution Completely Transformed
When it comes to investing in the age AI, “nothing has changed, but everything has changed.” As Hustle VC co-founder Elizabeth Yin explains to me, understanding a founder’s potential and a company’s basic health and outlook is the same as...
Stop Waiting for Permission—Start Shipping Your Ideas
The biggest mistake I made early in my career was waiting for permission... Waiting for someone to tell me I was ready or good enough. That my ideas were valid. That I could make it work from Nova Scotia... Stop...
Serial Founder Rebuilds Communications for Each Tech Era
Craig Walker has done something very few founders manage to pull off once, let alone repeatedly. He launched GrandCentral, which became Google Voice. He launched DialPad which became Yahoo Voice. And now, with his latest Dialpad, found 15 years ago,...
Embrace Uncertainty; True Insight Requires Discomfort
Sit deeply in uncertainty to figure out what you really want to build. Slop is great at feigning confidence. You aren't more insightful just because you plugged in more context. Discernment takes discomfort.
AI's Rapid Evolution Demands Enduring, Unified Platforms
The SaaS era was defined by unbundling : find a workflow, optimize it, own it. Salesforce chose sales automation. Slack chose chat. Dropbox chose file sharing. Point solutions won by perfecting single workflows. The playbook : own one pain point,...
Insights on Launching and Scaling AI Startups with Kyle Poyar
It's always great to chat with Kyle Poyar for his new series all about launching and growing as an AI startup, check it out below
Early Hires Risk More than Founders, Despite Equity
William on how an early stage employee takes way more risk than a founder: "If I'm making $400-500K at Google or Meta and go to an early stage company to get 1% of this company and make $90,000. I've now changed...
Act First, Answers Follow—Confidence Thrives in Uncertainty
If you need all the answers before you start, it's never going to work. Action comes first. Answers come after. You can have absolutely no idea how… And still have complete confidence you'll figure it out.
Hire Strategic Roles to Break $5M Ceiling
14 lessons from coaching 70+ 7-8 figure ecom founders: 1. A lot of founders hit $2-5M and can't break through. They picked a $5M product from day one, did dropshipping with no repeat customers and only Facebook working. 2. Product flywheel determines...
Hourly-Paid Users Drive Teams' Perfect Product-Market Fit
No. Teams actually has the best product-market fit. Its users are paid by the hour and are incentivized to pass the time
New Job Fair Boosts Environmental Impact Careers in CA
I struggled so hard to find a job out of college that I’m building my own new type of job fair that ACTUALLY will help people most likely increase their chances of landing a job in environmental/ social impact -...
Small Towns: The Smarter Startup Playground
Everyone chases startups in big cities. The smart move is your small town. Lower rent, less competition, stronger margins. Open a coffee shop bar, a boutique, or a phone repair shop and fill a gap people drive hours to solve. In a town of...
Network Effects Are the Blueprint for Defensible Startups
James Currier joined my Modern Brand and Community Playbook class at USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for the 4th year running. 💥 Network effects are a foundational factor in my playbook. You cannot build a defensible business without...
Inside GoodGood Golf's Secrets to Explosive Growth
Played 3 holes with @goodgood_golf and picked their brains on how they became the fastest-growing golf channel in the world ⛳️ Full video out now https://t.co/DJXv7h8kGj https://t.co/7TQAdLndnV
VCs Fund Performance, Not Just Thesis Alignment
The thing that will make a VC want to fund you is not how well you match their (claimed) investment thesis. It's the same thing that will make every other VC want to fund you: how well you're doing.
Bootstrapped Success: Define Enough, Share Wealth, Out‑Care Competition
I’m bringing my friend @wilreynolds into the Make More Money program for a fireside chat. If you don’t know Wil. he founded @SeerInteractive in his living room in 2002. Built it to 200+ people, fully bootstrapped. Turned down $50M in acquisition...
Tech‑Heavy Startups Dominate Harmonic Q2 List with Minimal Overlap
Harmonic just dropped its Q2 '26 Hot 25 list, featuring the early stage companies seeing the most investor interest on @Harmonic_AI's platform. My biggest takeaways: Almost zero competition between these products. Every quarter, this list has multiple clusters of startups all sort...
Human‑first WhatsApp Support: Gen Z Chat as Competitive Edge
I want to hire a 25 year old Gen Zer to sit on WhatsApp all day chatting with our customers In a world of ai, I’m focused on things we can do that are more human, and don’t scale The idea of...
From One Child to Three: Parenting Redefines Me
One day I’m going to tell you all of the story about how I believed that since I built a business with ONE child without losing my mind, I could build a business with THREE children & not lose my...
Friendly Bubble Robot Tackles Senior Loneliness in U.S.
EXCLUSIVE: in a sea of Terminator-looking bots, Aussie founder Grace Brown took a different direction for her robot, Abi: color, bubbles, and fun. Now her startup Andromeda, which has raised $16.6M, is launching for senior homes across the U.S. - with...
Trayd Raises $10M, Slashes Payroll Time 28x
Congrats to Trayd on their $10M Series A! Specialty trade contractors deal with union rules, multistate labor laws, and a ton of manual back-office work. Trayd automates payroll, HR, and compliance for them, cutting a 14-hour weekly process down to under...
Talk to Users, Not Just Add Features
Your side project doesn't need more features. It needs more conversations with the people using it.
Pivot Gracefully: Align Research, Preserve Relationships
When UX researchers present findings that contradict the feature you just spent three months building based on the PM's gut feeling. THE GOLDEN PLAYBOOK FOR PIVOTING WITHOUT BURNING BRIDGES:
Happy Pay Secures $5M Seed to Expand BNPL Across Africa
𝗥𝗲𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 “𝗕𝘂𝘆 𝗡𝗼𝘄, 𝗣𝗮𝘆 𝗟𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿” 🇿🇦 South African fintech Happy Pay has raised $5 million in seed funding, in a round led by global venture capital firm Partech, 𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝗮 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲𝘀...
Invest in Founders, Not Categories: Glimpse’s Success
Heard this from VCs? "You're great, but your category isn't." I invest in top-notch founders, not categories. Case study: Akash Raju , Anuj Mehta , and Kushal Negi at Glimpse . Started out in a completely different business. But got...
Active Angel Investing: Relationships Drive Monumental Returns
I had one of the legends of angel and seed investing on Uncapped, @RonConway. He's the founder of SV Angel been an early backer of companies like Google, Facebook, Airbnb, and many more. We talked about the evolution of tech, being...
Show Up Directly, Customers Forgive Rough Products
No dashboard. No portal. Manual operations. Sarah Ahmad got on Zoom with every single early customer. She says people forgive a rough product when you show up and solve their problem directly. https://t.co/yYvLbzjEa1
From Street Hustle to Music Empire: Eazy’s ‘Why Not Me’
A book tech twitter hasn’t read but is a great biz book Ruthless, the story of Eazy E and Ruthless Records: - eazy e was a 21 year old drug dealer - saved up 200k from selling drugs - used it to...
Custom AI Tools Automate Reviews, Boost Reliability
Building your own tools like GStack is an amazing experience. You come up with something you think might work and then two days later it replaces what you were doing before. Instead of /plan-ceo-review and /plan-eng-review sequentially, I find myself using...