I was catching up with a founder friend in the CPG space recently. His business is doing well now with real revenue and profits. I congratulated him. He appreciated it, then told me something I didn’t know: just a couple of years ago, he was $2 million in debt. That’s crushing weight for a first-time … Continue reading Just keep going
I was listening to a 20VC podcast featuring Alan Chang, founder of Fuse Energy and an early employee at Revolut. When Revolut launched, they weren’t the only player in the market. Similar services existed with comparable feature sets. But only Revolut became a massive success. Why? People tried to find a logical explanation. But it … Continue reading Working weekends and evenings
Being back in zero-to-one founder mode, one of the biggest challenges I’m facing is needing two completely different lenses: Focus only on day-to-day execution (the microscope)? You lose your true north. No sense of mission.Focus only on the big vision (the telescope)? You can’t advance the business. Dreams alone can’t ship products. I find most … Continue reading The telescope and the microscope
I recently heard a story: a founder in their 40s had just achieved a major exit of the company they ran for 10+ years, then passed away not long after, before even filing the tax return on the exit. I’m not sharing this to be morbid or depressing. Quite the opposite. It’s a reminder that … Continue reading Carpe Diem
As a post-exit founder, I have many folks around me who are thinking about launching a new fund. My recommendation to them is always the same: start with content and community. (More specifically, content = newsletter and podcast) There are plenty of examples: 20VC, Not boring capital (Not Boring), SaaStr.ai Fund, My Climate Journey, you … Continue reading Content, community, fund – in that order
My friend said: ”AI won’t reduce lunch meetings to 15 minutes, or Zoom catch-up calls to 3 minutes.” It’s such an obvious statement, but it carries a lot of meaning. AI will do everything faster, compressing the time it takes to do tasks.But it won’t reduce natural human rhythms. Lunch meetings will stay 1-1.5 hours. … Continue reading AI can’t make you eat lunch faster
What if AI were a 3D printer? Everyone is talking about the death of SaaS – soon everyone will build their own software using AI. But will that really be the case? Imagine you had a powerful 3D printer at home that could produce virtually anything. Would you mean you will make your own hammer? … Continue reading AI is the new 3D printer
I was on the same panel as Drew Glover, and one line he said really stuck with me: your do/say ratio over time is a great way to build trust with investors. What it means is simple. Whatever you say you’ll do, make sure you actually do it. That’s how trust compounds over time, whether … Continue reading The do/say ratio
Scene 1: At a recent conference, Cal Henderson, cofounder of Slack, said: there’s no better feeling than him walking into a random cafe in a random city and seeing someone using Slack. Scene 2: A few years ago I was having dinner with an early member at LINE, a messaging app practically everyone in Japan … Continue reading Founders’ dopamine hit
One of the early mistakes I made after starting Saywise was this: I was too obsessed with making the world a better place. As an exited founder, I didn’t have to start another company; if I started one, I wanted it to be deeply mission- and purpose-driven. Our mission was (and still is) ambitious: use … Continue reading Wrap your broccoli with bacon