Insights

Notes from taking ideas to companies.

Playbooks and honest thinking on product, funding, and building ventures that last, written by the people doing the work.

BuildingLatest

You don't need a technical co-founder yet

Giving away half your company to get a prototype built is one of the most expensive decisions a founder can make. Here's when it's actually worth it, and what to do instead.

July 23, 20265 min read

Growth
The first ten customers matter more than the next ten thousand
Everyone obsesses over scale. But the companies that get there almost always start by doing things that don't scale at all, for a tiny handful of people who could walk away.
July 20, 20264 min read
Strategy
How to tell an idea from a business
Most ideas are not businesses, and confusing the two is why so many good ones quietly fail. Four questions that separate a clever concept from something worth building a company around.
July 17, 20265 min read
Playbook
From idea to company in 90 days
A realistic look at how a rough idea becomes a working product and a real company in a single quarter, and where most of the time actually goes.
July 15, 20266 min read
Fundraising
Raise or bootstrap?
The funding decision framed the way it actually matters. Not as a status game, but as a choice about speed, control, and what kind of company you're trying to build.
June 28, 20265 min read
Product
What a real MVP includes
"Minimum viable product" has been stretched to mean almost anything. Here's the version that actually earns the name, and the parts teams wrongly cut.
June 10, 20265 min read

Notes from taking ideas to companies.

You don't need a technical co-founder yet

The first ten customers matter more than the next ten thousand

How to tell an idea from a business

From idea to company in 90 days

Raise or bootstrap?

What a real MVP includes