FOUNDERS NOTES
Resources to build your product, or run experiments to grow it.
Your competitor is building the 1% fixes you shelved.
Building software is cheap now, so the small improvements that never earned a business case get built anyway. Stack enough of them and the game changes.
Oct 22, 2026
Building a safe playground for non-developers and AI to work with files
The safety nets developers take for granted, version control, checkpoints, the ability to undo, aren't there for everyone else. When AI edits three files at once and something breaks, where do you even start?
May 27, 2026
Why I Built Voice Transcription That Works Offline
I haven't typed more than a few sentences in the last three years. Everything starts as speech. Here's why I built offline voice transcription into my daily workflow, and where it's heading next.
May 25, 2026
The first time I watched my assistant watch other assistants
I gave one AI session the job of watching the others. Not sub-agents in the same process, but fully interactive terminal sessions where I can step in, and the orchestrator doesn't even have to be the same model as the children.
May 22, 2026
Your comfort zone didn’t happen to you. You built it.
Every founder has one. That warm, familiar space where the calls are easy, the work is predictable, and nothing feels risky. You think you ended up there. You didn’t. You constructed it. Brick by brick. Every time you picked the safe option, you added a wall. Every time you avoided the hard conversa
Mar 2, 2026
Your data is useless if the right people never see it.
You built the dashboard. You connected the sources. You set up the filters, the segments, the funnel views. Then you shared it with three people who don’t make decisions. This is the analytics trap. You measure everything. You act on nothing. Not because the data is wrong. Because the data never rea
Feb 27, 2026
You don’t have a data problem. You have a direction problem.
You bought the analytics platform. You set up the dashboards. You hired someone who knows what a funnel is. Six months later, nobody looks at any of it. Here’s what happened: you started with the tool, not the question. You measured everything because you could. Not because you should. More data did
Feb 26, 2026
AI won’t replace you. But you plus AI will replace you without it.
Everyone’s asking the wrong question. “Will AI take my job?” Wrong frame. The right question: “Am I using AI to do my job better than anyone else can?” AI agents can think. They can plan. They can act without you holding their hand. They manage workflows, call external tools, and adapt when things b
Feb 25, 2026
AI agents can’t do 100% of your work. That’s the point.
Everyone’s chasing the dream of full automation. Hand it all to the AI. Sit back. Collect the output. Here’s what actually happens: the agent does 80% of the work in 20% of the time. The remaining 20%, the decisions, the judgment calls, the things that require you, that’s where all the value lives.
Feb 24, 2026
The gap between AI in theory and AI in practice is execution.
Every company has an AI strategy now. They’ve done the workshops. They’ve sat through the demos. They’ve nodded along to the consultants. And then nothing ships. The problem isn’t understanding. It’s building. The gap isn’t knowledge. It’s the distance between a slide deck and working software. Betw
Feb 23, 2026
Nobody cares what you built. They care what they do next.
You obsess over features. You polish the UI. You write clever copy. You run ads. Then you watch your dashboard. Traffic goes up. Signups stay flat. Nobody moves. Here’s what you missed: growth is not about impressions. It’s not about clicks. It’s not even about visits. Growth is about the moment som
Feb 20, 2026
Failing is the job. Learning is the edge.
You ran ten experiments last quarter. Eight failed. You call that a bad quarter. It wasn’t. It was the job. Growth isn’t about getting it right. It’s about getting it wrong fast enough to find what works before your runway dies. The experiments that flopped taught you more than the two that hit. But
Feb 19, 2026
Your best experiment is your last experiment’s leftovers
You run a test. You get a result. You think you’re done. You’re not. That result, the data, the insight, the failure is the starting line for the next round. Not the finish line. This is how compounding works in practice. Not in spreadsheets. In experiments. Each cycle feeds the next. The output bec
Feb 18, 2026
Resurrecting users is hard. Do it anyway.
Onboarding is easy compared to this. You had their attention when they signed up. Now you’re competing for it again. The re-engagement emails sit unopened. The push notifications get ignored. They found another way to solve their problem. This is why most founders ship resurrection campaigns and giv
Feb 9, 2026
Sticky products don’t happen by accident.
You launched. They signed up. Then they stopped coming back. You built features. You tweaked onboarding. You told yourself they’d be back. But you never tracked the one number that would tell you if your product is actually becoming part of their daily flow. Daily active users. That’s your measure o
Feb 8, 2026
Experiments die without creativity.
You can copy every framework. Every checklist. Every template. Your experiments will still fail if you don’t bring something original. The best experiments aren’t the ones that worked for someone else. They’re the ones you designed for your specific problem. Your specific market. Your specific custo
Feb 7, 2026
Interview users before you hire.
You’re ready to hire. You need a developer. A marketer. A salesperson. You’re writing job descriptions. Scheduling interviews. You haven’t talked to fifty users yet. You don’t know your super consumer. You’re not clear on what problem you’re solving or how to message it. So you hire people to build
Feb 6, 2026
Experiments don’t fail. They inform.
You ran the experiment. It didn’t work. You call it a failure. You move on. Wrong. You learned what doesn’t work. You learned who doesn’t respond. You learned what message doesn’t land. You learned what channel doesn’t convert. That’s not failure. That’s information. The real failure is not running
Feb 5, 2026
Finding your super consumer takes time.
You think you’ll nail it in a week. Maybe two. Interview ten people. Identify patterns. Done. Three weeks in, you’re still confused. The data is messy. People say one thing and do another. The patterns aren’t clear. You thought you knew. You don’t. Because defining your super consumer isn’t about sp
Feb 4, 2026
You don’t know your super consumer yet.
You have an idea. A vision. A product roadmap. You know exactly what you’re building. You just haven’t talked to the people who’d actually use it. You’re guessing. You’re building based on assumptions. Who your super consumer is. What they need. What they’d pay for. You’re making it all up. Every st
Feb 3, 2026
You’re not breaking even in six months.
Every founder says the same thing. Six months to break even. Maybe nine if things go slow. You’ve built the spreadsheet. Run the numbers. It all works out. Six months later, your burn has tripled. The timeline is now twelve months. Then eighteen. Then you stop putting dates on it. Because you undere
Feb 2, 2026
You hired your friend. Now you can’t fire them.
You needed help. Your friend needed work. It felt like the right move. Loyal. Trustworthy. Someone who believed in you. Six months in, they’re underperforming. Missing deadlines. Creating tension. But firing them means losing the friendship. Hurting the family. Making every holiday awkward. So you k
Feb 1, 2026
The conversation you’re avoiding is getting worse.
You know you need to have it. The performance issue. The attitude problem. The behavior that’s infecting the team. You’ve been meaning to address it. For weeks. You tell yourself you’ll wait for the right time. After this launch. After that deadline. When things calm down. Things don’t calm down. An
Jan 31, 2026
You take credit. You pass blame.
The campaign worked. You tell everyone it was your idea. The launch failed. You point at your team. This isn’t leadership. It’s insecurity wearing a title. Your team sees it. They know when you’re stealing their win. They know when you’re dodging responsibility. They don’t say it out loud. They just
Jan 30, 2026
You’re not pivoting. You’re panicking.
Last month it was B2B. This month it’s B2C. Before that, it was a marketplace. Now it’s SaaS. Your team nods in the meeting. Then quietly updates their LinkedIn. A pivot is a strategic shift based on data. What you’re doing is throwing ideas at the wall every time something doesn’t work immediately.
Jan 29, 2026
You quit before the data arrives.
You launched the campaign. The ad. The experiment. Three days in, the numbers aren’t what you hoped. So you kill it. You didn’t stop because it failed. You stopped because you got impatient. Most things that work take longer than you think. SEO takes months. Content compounds over weeks. Ads need ti
Jan 28, 2026
You’re not your customer.
Your super consumers are telling you what’s broken. What’s missing. What doesn’t work. You’re nodding. Taking notes. Then building what you wanted to build anyway. You think you know better. You’ve got the vision. The roadmap. The long-term play. They just don’t see it yet. They see it. They’re just
Jan 27, 2026
Your ego is not a business strategy.
You’re building features nobody asked for. You’re solving problems that don’t exist. You’re betting the company on your gut feeling. Every week, founders invest months into features they “know” customers will love. They skip the research. They ignore the data. They launch and wait. Crickets. The mar
Jan 26, 2026
Future-Proof Your Business: Headless E-commerce Examples
Explore headless ecommerce examples to future-proof your business. Discover strategy, implementation, and optimization.
Jan 26, 2026
You’re abandoning your super consumers for a logo
You know who’s buying from you right now. They’re using your product every day. They’re telling their friends about it. They’re your proof of concept. Then you see a bigger name express interest. Suddenly your super consumers become background noise. You shift your entire roadmap. You slow down on t
Jan 25, 2026
Every founder you admire has maxed out a credit card.
They just don’t post about it. LinkedIn shows you the funding rounds, the growth charts, the “lessons learned” threads. It doesn’t show you the 3am panic when the payment fails. The balance transfer game. The spreadsheet calculating exactly how many days until you’re broke. This is the startup tax n
Jan 24, 2026
The answering engine is the new influencer.
Your customer isn’t reading reviews anymore. They’re asking ChatGPT. They’re asking Claude. They’re asking Perplexity. Whatever answer comes back becomes their truth. You spent years building SEO. You optimized for keywords. You chased backlinks. You paid influencers. None of it matters if the AI do
Jan 23, 2026
Reddit Didn’t Beat Slashdot. It Made Slashdot Irrelevant.
Slashdot was the king of tech news in the early 2000s. Curated stories. Moderated comments. A loyal following. Reddit didn’t try to be a better Slashdot. It didn’t compete on curation quality or comment moderation. It asked a different question: What if users decided everything? No editors. No gatek
Jan 22, 2026
Curiosity Without a Filter Is Just Noise.
Most founders have vacuum-cleaner curiosity. They suck up everything. Every article. Every podcast. Every “you should try this.” Every shiny new idea. The problem isn’t the curiosity. Curiosity is an asset. The problem is there’s no filter. So the ideas pile up. The browser tabs multiply. The to-do
Jan 22, 2026
Your Data Stack Is Your Ceiling.
Start with what you can afford. Even if that’s free. The mistake isn’t starting cheap. The mistake is staying there. Your data quality is directly proportional to your success rate. Bad data leads to bad decisions. Bad decisions lead to wasted money, time, and momentum. So here’s the move: use what
Jan 22, 2026
You’re not “waiting to see how AI plays out”. You’re falling behind.
Every month you delay, a competitor is cutting their work in half. They’re responding faster. Finding patterns you’re missing. Shipping while you’re still researching. They’re not smarter. They just started. AI in 2026 isn’t about being cutting-edge. It’s about being functional. The companies still
Jan 22, 2026
“It Depends” Is a Lazy Answer Without a Diagnostic
Your retention is leaking. You ask for advice. Everyone says “it depends.” It depends on your audience. Your positioning. Your business model. Your product. Your timing. Your messaging. Great. Now what? Here’s the problem: “It depends” is true. It’s also useless. Because without a diagnostic, you’re
Jan 22, 2026
The best content strategy is the one that ships.
Not the one with the perfect editorial calendar. Not the one with 100 days of keyword research. Not the one you’ve been overanalyzing for weeks. The one that ships. You have the trackers. The SEO strategy. The content pillars. You’ve mapped it all out. You’ve published nothing. The founders who win
Jan 21, 2026
Before you build, answer three questions.
Most founders start with the product. Features. Roadmaps. Tech stack. Wrong order. Start here: Category. What’s the new and different market you want to own? Not compete in. Own. Point of View. What do you stand for that nobody else does? How do you move people from how things were to how things sho
Jan 21, 2026
You’re chasing the big grant. You’re missing the free tools.
You’re refreshing that accelerator application. Waiting on the VC intro. Planning for the government grant announcement. Meanwhile, your competitor just got Notion free for a year. Intercom credits. AWS startup tier. HubSpot for Startups. Stripe Atlas perks. Trello, Figma, Airtable, all with startup
Jan 21, 2026
Don’t move the goal post.
You ran the experiment. The ad. The campaign. The content piece. Three days in, the numbers aren’t hitting. So you tell yourself: “Maybe the real metric is engagement, not clicks.” Or: “Let’s give it another two weeks.” Or: “The goal was always directional.” No it wasn’t. You set a target. You said:
Jan 21, 2026
You’re not that lucky.
You’re sitting there wondering why nothing is working. Why every door closes. Why this only happens to you. Here’s the truth: you’re not special. Not in this. Every founder has sat exactly where you’re sitting. Same doubts. Same spiral. Same “why me?” running on loop. And the ones who haven’t hit th
Jan 21, 2026
If you haven’t sold it yourself, you don’t know your customer.
You hired a salesperson. You built a funnel. You’re running ads. And you still can’t describe your super consumer. Not really. Here’s the thing about manual sales: it’s not about closing deals. It’s about hearing the pauses. Catching the objections. Noticing what makes someone lean in versus check o
Jan 21, 2026
READY TO MAKE A REAL CHANGE?
