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Start Small, Master Basics, Then Scale for Real Growth

If I were a 22-year-old Stanford grad who wanted to work 9-9-6 for the hopes of making life-changing money, I wouldn't go to Y Combinator and try to create the next OpenAI. I would do the opposite. —- Get a job at a startup first or start something small. Learn how to make a product, sell it, bill customers, not f*ck it up. Make your mistakes when the stakes are low. When there's no VC breathing down your neck. Then aim higher as you get better. Take the profits and make bigger bets. —- I was stuck at $2.5M ARR for 4 years. Every big swing failed, and I wanted to quit constantly. But I kept learning, kept building. Now I'm at $25M+ ARR with a tiny team. The 22-year-old version of me could never have done this. I didn't have the skills yet. —- But you won't take this path, because it feels too good to go big. Even though you're probably gonna fail or make no money. It feels even better to send your mom a TechCrunch article about how your company is worth $100M+. And what feels best is bragging to your miserable SF friends about how you and your team are doing 9-9-6. —- Business is two things: Making your customers happy. Making more money than you spend. Keep doing that longer than everybody else, and you win. Slow and steady wins the race… not a 9-9-6.