Startups
10 essays on this topic.
Choosing a Co-Founder: What I Checked Before Saying Yes
I've co-founded one company with a former colleague and another with my girlfriend. What I looked for, what we put in writing, and how we split the work.
Investors or Independence? When a Small Startup Should Raise
Outside money buys speed, but it costs control and adds pressure. A plain-language framework for deciding if, when and why a small startup should raise.
How to Tell If an AI Product Is Real or Just a Demo
AI demos are easy to make and hard to trust. A practical checklist for buyers and founders to tell a real AI product from a polished demo.
What Steve Jobs Teaches Founders, the Light and the Dark
Steve Jobs was fired from his own company, came back and built Apple into a giant. What founders should learn from him, and what not to copy.
Nothing Was Wrong. That Was the Problem.
Why I left a good engineering job to co-found Santara AI. Not a bad boss or low pay, but one question about the next ten years of my life.
Boring Businesses Make the Best Businesses
Payroll, invoices, cleaning schedules: unglamorous problems people gladly pay to solve, and why boring businesses are often the best ones.
Read Every Word You Sign: Term Sheets for First-Time Founders
Valuation, dilution, liquidation preference, board seats and vesting, explained in plain language for first-time founders reading a term sheet.
People Don't Pay for Features. They Pay to Do Less.
Most founders sell what their product can do. Customers buy what they no longer have to do. A short essay on the most underrated idea in business: removing work.
Your Real Competitor Is a Spreadsheet
Most software doesn't lose to another startup. It loses to Excel, Google Sheets and a paper notebook. Why that happens, and how to win anyway.
My First Business Teacher: William Christopher Skelley
He taught me how startups really work, light side and dark side, and why founders end up working for investors. Then his story taught me more.
