Writing
Frameworks, essays, and the thinking behind how I build. Ideas pressure-tested across three careers and dozens of builds.
The State of the Solo Builder: 2026
36.3% of startups are now solo-founded. A data-driven report on the solo builder surge, AI leverage, the funding gap, the human cost, and what it actually means for people building alone.
Stop Spraying
Thirty comments a day is a 2023 playbook on a 2026 algorithm. The platforms now measure depth, not volume. Here's what the data says, what I'm learning in public, and how to stop being someone else's conversion event.
Distribution Is Not Marketing
Distribution starts on day one or it starts too late. Every conversation, demo, and build log is distribution. The mistake is treating it as a launch activity instead of a building habit.
Your Swarm Is a Committee
Spinning up a pile of agents feels like industrial progress. It's usually a committee with a coordination tax. Agent count is the newest vanity metric — and the most sophisticated way to avoid the only question that matters.
The Build Trap Got Cheaper
AI didn't create the build trap. It just made it free. When building was expensive, reality had a say. Now that building is cheap, you can avoid reality indefinitely.
I Keep Meeting the Same Eight Builders
After hundreds of conversations with founders, product teams, and creators, the same patterns keep showing up. The trap isn't lack of skill. It's the thing skill lets you hide behind.
Ten Conversations and One Decision
The gap between you and a founder is not knowledge, not tools, not a better idea. It's ten conversations with people who can tell you the truth, and one honest decision about what the answers mean.
Building AI Is Not Building Software
Your instincts from building software will mislead you when you build with AI. The system is probabilistic, not deterministic. That changes everything about how you ship, test, and talk to users.
The Math Never Works
Every AI project estimate is wrong the same way. The build takes longer, the integration is harder, the users are slower to adopt, and the costs you forgot to count are bigger than the ones you did.
Your Stack Is Fine
You don't need a framework. You need users. Choosing tools is the most productive-feeling way to avoid shipping, and AI makes the temptation worse.
Stop Managing Your Product
You left your PM job to build something. Then you kept doing your PM job. Your backlog is a coping mechanism. Your roadmap is a security blanket. Here's what a solo founder actually needs.
Your MVP Worked. Now What?
Your AI feature works in testing. Your first users said it was magic. That's the dangerous moment. Here's everything that breaks when the controlled conditions disappear.
Pick Two
You can't win on everything. Pick exactly two things your product will be known for and build your entire strategy around them. Here's how to choose and why three is too many.
The Anti-Slop Rules
Your copy sounds like AI wrote it. Here are the words, patterns, and habits that signal machine-generated mediocrity, and what to do instead.
Where to Find Your Ten
A three-week operational playbook for finding ten real people to have discovery conversations with. Week by week, channel by channel, with anti-thrashing rules built in.