Every week, I advise founders on how to hit $10k MRR. On Tuesdays, I share my consulting notes from those private sessions. Learn from their mistakes so you don't burn your own cash.
My big bet for 2026 (It isn't more vibe coding)
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Hey Reader, Every founder I meet right now is obsessed with engineering. They are arguing over which LLM is faster, which vector database is more scalable, and how to shave three milliseconds off their API response time. They think the "best" tech wins. I’m placing a different bet for 2026. My main focus isn't on the engineering — it’s on Vibe Marketing. Here is the "Clarity Filter" reality: Engineering is becoming a commodity. In a world where AI can help you write code and deploy infrastructure in minutes, "having the tech" is no longer a moat. It’s just the ante to get into the game. The real battle has shifted from the back-end to the front-end of the business: Marketing and Sales. Vibe Marketing isn't about catchy slogans or aesthetic Instagram grids. It’s about:
If your startup is 90% engineering and 10% marketing, you’re building a library that no one is visiting. The job of a 2026 founder is to be a Chief Narrative Officer, not a Chief Technical Officer. If you can’t sell the "vibe" — the transformation and the trust — it doesn't matter how good your code is. The tech gets them to look. The vibe gets them to pay. Which one are you spending 80% of your time on? Speak soon, P.S. Want to get to your first $10K MRR faster? |
Clarity Filter
Every week, I advise founders on how to hit $10k MRR. On Tuesdays, I share my consulting notes from those private sessions. Learn from their mistakes so you don't burn your own cash.
Hey Reader, A founder I spoke with last week thought he had social selling dialed in. "I can ask a friend who knows an e-commerce manager to make an introduction," he said. I had to stop him right there. That's a warm referral. A perfectly valid tactic – but not social selling. Calling it social selling is like calling a taxi a road trip. Same road, completely different commitment. Here's what social selling actually looks like: Step 1: Find your exact ICPs on LinkedIn. Not broadly....
Hey Reader, A founder I work with was freezing up on every cold call. Not because he didn't know his product. Because every call felt like a performance review – him auditioning, the prospect judging. The pressure was killing his ability to actually listen. So we tried something that felt almost too simple. He started paying prospects $100 for a one-hour research interview. Not a demo. Not a pitch. A conversation where he asked questions, took notes, and genuinely tried to understand their...
Hey Reader, A founder I work with spent weeks validating his SaaS with Account Executives. The data was damning: AEs lose roughly 53% of their deals because they're prioritizing the wrong opportunities. But when he brought this up in conversations, prospects shut down. Not because they disagreed. Because they couldn't admit it. The problem wasn't the product. It was the pitch. He was, without realizing it, opening every conversation with: "You are bad at your job, and I have a fix." Nobody...