Bootstrapping a SaaS Startup from Scratch
No co-founders. No funding. No connections. No customers. No — you’re not nuts.
Hard Startups
The most counterintuitive secret about startups is that it’s often easier to succeed with a hard startup than an easy one. A hard startup requires a lot more money, time, coordination, or...
Three Years as a One-Man Startup
I’ve spent most of the past 3 years creating one language learning web-app, Readlang.
Coinbase from YC to DPO
Today, Coinbase has gone public. We are proud to say that Coinbase is a Y Combinator company and a member of the Summer 2012 batch.
Why's that company so big? I could do that in a weekend
I can't think of a single large software company that doesn't regularly draw internet comments of the form “What do all the employees do? I could build their product myself.” Benjamin Pollack and Jeff Atwood called out people who do that with Stack Overflow. But Stack Overflow is relatively obviously lean , so the…
Our $445M Series D
Our Series D round of financing.
Black Swan Farming
September 2012 I've done several types of work over the years but I don't know another as counterintuitive as startup investing. The two most important things to understand about startup investing, as a business, are (1) that effectively all the returns are concentrated in a few big winners, and (2) that the best…
Before the Startup
October 2014 (This essay is derived from a guest lecture in Sam Altman's startup class at Stanford. It's intended for college students, but much of it is applicable to potential founders at other ages.) One of the advantages of having kids is that when you have to give advice, you can ask yourself "what would I tell…
Reflections on Being a Female Founder
Not a lot is written about being a female founder and CEO. I used to believe that my journey as a startup founder was the same as any other founder's experience, regardless of gender, in that it is...
Persisting as a solo founder
I quit my job in January 2020 to build...
Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute
As an entrepreneur, I have never felt such pain as I do while typing this. We have faced numerous challenges before but non compares to the arbitrary closing of our Payment account by Stripe for literally no reason.
What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast
What can software engineers learn from the shutdown of the company? Exclusive details.
Startup Stock Options – Why a Good Deal Has Gone Bad
A version of this article first appeared in the Harvard Business Review VC’s have just changed the ~50-year old social contract with startup employees. In doing so they may have removed one o…
OpenClaw – Moltbot Renamed Again
The journey from Clawd to Moltbot to OpenClaw—and why this name is here to stay.
Don't Take VC Funding – It Will Destroy Your Company
Why VC funding can hurt startups: selling equity for cash, chasing traction over profitability, and why bootstrapping may be safer for founders.
Tailscale has raised $160M
Tailscale has raised $160 million USD ($230 million CAD) in our Series C, led by Accel with participation from CRV, Insight Partners, Heavybit, Uncork Capital — and new investment from Anthony Casalena - CEO of Squarespace.
Pricing low-touch SaaS
How to approach pricing and packaging a new SaaS app, by example
How AirBnB Became a Billion Dollar Company
Detailed breakdown explaining questionable marketing techniques used by AirBnB. By David Gooden, marketing expert & MN luxury realtor.