Every founder hits the “are-we-still-on-the-right-map?” moment. Pivots aren’t an admission of failure—they’re a feature of learning in public. The trick is knowing when you’ve gathered enough signal to yank the wheel before you crash into a multi-year slog. Most days, for better or worse, I find myself wondering either if it's time to pivot or questioning the integrity of a pivot. Let's unpack the pivot. What Even Is a Pivot?At its core, a pivot is a shift in direction based on a fresh unders...

IntroEvery startup talks about ICPs—short for Ideal Customer Profiles—but let’s be real, most of us wing it. We think we know our customer, and we might even have a Notion doc to prove it. But knowing of your customer isn’t the same as knowing how to find, target, and win them. An Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is a clear, data-informed picture of the kind of customer who is most likely to buy, stay, and spread the word. It’s not just a pretty persona slide for the deck. It’s your operating sys...

“Speed is the only moat” - Varun, Co-founder WindsurfWhat Are Moats?A moat is what protects your business from competitors once you start winning. It’s the thing that makes it hard to copy you—or at least, not worth the effort. Just like a castle’s moat kept enemies out, a startup’s moat keeps disruption out.What Are Good Moats?Classic moats include network effects (your product improves the more people use it), proprietary technology or intellectual property (you've built something others ca...

The Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is critical for every founder to understand. It spells out the type of customer who benefits most from your product. Unfortunately, most of the time we squint at this just as much as we do Product-Market Fit. Why? Because it's hard. If your startup is a vehicle for delivering customer value, then the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) represents the customer, and the product is the value. The ICP is a sketch of the people who buy quickly, stick around, and tell thei...

“A head start is rarely large enough to matter, and time spent in stealth mode-away from customers-is unlikely to provide a head start. The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.” — Eric RiesFive years ago, if you told me you were going into stealth mode, I’d assume you were either overestimating your idea or underestimating your market. Most people simply don’t care enough to steal what you haven’t proven works. And yet, the myth persists: build in silence, launch with firework...

TAM, SAM, SOM: these funny acronyms are critical to any founder, but especially to a Vibe Founder. While most businesses aren't "venture scale", every one of them has to make decisions that support their survival and longevity. Before we worry about WHAT, we must think about WHO we're serving, the problems they have, and the value they attribute to solutions. Vibe Founders have many different goals:Making enough to support yourself and your passionsBuilding a small team and business to suppor...

AI is reshaping how founders, consumers, and investors think, act, and build. Its power is massive—and so is its appetite for disruption. Over the past 30 years, I’ve founded a dozen startups, from scrappy bootstraps to venture-backed moonshots. I’ve worn every hat—designer, engineer, product lead. I’ve had wins and more than a few losses. Each one left me with lessons worth sharing. For the last 20 years, I’ve tried to do just that—turning my experiences into insight through blogs, podcasts,...

Product-Market Fit is a term used to describe when the offering a business has meets a market of customers. Most founders will never truly achieve it, instead, they get close and call it good enough - this is the “Product-Market Squint”. Let’s examine the original thoughts and how to adapt them to today.“Product Market Fit. That mythical unicorn all startups spend tireless nights and weekends toiling over greasy keyboards and greasier food.”I first wrote that on March 30, 2017. Has much chang...