Generational

I talk to great founders every day, some even generational.

CEOs who’ve scaled their startups to amazing heights: hundreds of millions in revenue, Series C and D, but everything they built is now threatened.

Everything changed in December 2025. Code is free and investors are demanding an "AI narrative" but most founders have never considered brand, positioning, or distribution. And they have to do it for the very first time, during the most critical technology revolution of our careers.

I talk to many founders who feel more lost than they let on, and here are ideas we keep coming back to:

1. Brand is what customers say about you.

2. When code is free, deciding what to do matters more than ever.

3. Deciding what to do comes from introspection and understanding what makes you uniquely suited to walk this hero's journey.

4. Distribution matters. Customers matter more. The job of a business is still to help customers get to an outcome.

5. Making a product that customers want matters. Building a company whose values customers resonate with matters even more.

6. Grift, grindmaxxing, and hollow distribution are insidious, because they trade your long term credibility for short term dopamine. You won't know until it's too late, because you'll be in an echo chamber.

7. Not being first to a category is scary. Losing pole position is a nightmare. Invest in brand from a position of strength.

8. The CEO is the true CMO.

9. In services, you get what you pay for. Trust, cultural alignment, and shared values (or lack thereof) always show up in the final deliverables.

The barriers to code and to customers have never been lower. It's an incredible time to be building something meaningful.