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...
10 days ago • 1 min read
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...
17 days ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, During a mentoring session last week, a B2B SaaS team walked me through their go-to-market logic. They were targeting retailers in the CPG space. The reason? Retailers could mandate that vendors use the platform. Force the supply chain from the top. It sounded smart. It was a trap. I stopped them and asked one question: Who bleeds the most money when this problem goes unsolved?Silence. Then they realized it wasn't the retailer at all. It was a specific subset of mid-tier suppliers...
24 days ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, A founder told me recently he likes to be 90% happy with something before he ships it. I told him that's the fastest way to waste two months on something the market doesn't want. I aim for 70%. Here's the math most people refuse to do: Expect roughly 70% of what you launch to fail or require a hard pivot. Not because you're bad at this – because that's the baseline reality of building something new. Competition, timing, messaging, market fit – too many variables outside your...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, A founder was telling me he was worried about getting 'bad' signups. He was hesitant to go broad with outreach because he didn't want users who weren't a perfect fit and would eventually cancel. I stopped him. You are in the discovery stage. You have zero idea who your Ideal Customer Profile actually is – you only have a hypothesis written on a slide deck. The obsession with defining a narrow ICP before you have data is one of the most common forms of 'productive' procrastination....
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, I remember a project where I tore myself apart to get a win. We celebrated. Then my co-founder asked, “Great, how do we do it again?” I had no answer. The silence was deafening. I realized the massive effort wasn't validation of a smart strategy. It was just a brute-force miracle. And a business can't run on miracles. We love to glorify exhaustion. But if you can't replicate a result, your hard work wasn't a strategy – it was just luck. You’re confusing effort with progress. Real...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
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...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, I’ll be honest with you — my energy has been in the basement this week. Usually, this is where the "startup gurus" tell you to drink more coffee, wake up at 4:00 AM, and grind through the pain. I think that’s bad advice. Actually, I think it’s dangerous noise. Building a company isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon where the terrain keeps changing. If you redline your engine every time you feel a dip, you won’t just slow down — you’ll blow the motor. I’ve learned that when energy is...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, Everyone talks about Product-Market Fit. Almost no one talks about Founder-Channel Fit. I learned this the hard way on LinkedIn. It took me exactly one year of trial, error, and painful silence to finally figure out how to drive real business from this platform. Most founders treat marketing channels like a light switch — they flip it on, wait two weeks, and if the room isn't instantly glowing, they flip it off and say, "LinkedIn doesn't work for us." They are wrong. Usually, it's...
2 months ago • 1 min read