Founder notes · Oct 2026
When to bootstrap and when to stop going solo
Should you keep bootstrapping or stay a solo founder? Eric Shen shares lessons on AI, distribution, reflection, and when to raise or bring someone on.
Field Notes
For the long way up.
Ideas for the work of building a company.
SeriesFounder hacks: incorporation, meetings, grants and investors, affordably
Perspectives · Aug 2026
How to build an investor-ready data room
Build a stage-appropriate data room that makes important claims reproducible, resolves investor risk and keeps diligence moving.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
How to keep your founding team functional
Keep a founding team functional with clear agreements, decision rights, evolving roles and a fair plan for founder departures.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
How to test whether customers will actually pay
Turn customer interest into commercial evidence with a concrete offer, a real price and a commitment that costs the buyer something.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
Run a fundraise without letting it run the company
Run a focused startup fundraise: choose the right investors, synchronise meetings, read real signals and protect the company until cash arrives.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
Earn the fundraising story before the raise
Build an investor story that connects founder insight, company evidence, a venture-scale path and the milestone new capital should buy.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
Fix retention before buying more growth
Retention is an output of activation and repeated value. Diagnose the broken behaviour before adding more users to the same leak.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
Give product teams problems, not features
Strong product teams use AI to investigate customer problems and business outcomes, not to turn a feature backlog into faster output.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
How much runway is actually enough?
Runway should leave time to learn, decide and change course. Build it from observed cash and realistic scenarios, not a comforting average burn.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
How to assess startup revenue quality
Revenue quality depends on retention, margin, concentration, cash conversion and defensibility, not the top-line number alone.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
How to qualify an early B2B deal
Early qualification should protect founder time while preserving what unusual prospects can teach about the market, product and buying process.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
How to reach product-market fit
Use a narrow customer cohort to prove referenceable value, then let commitment, use and return earn each larger build.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
How to surface hidden operating risk
Find the drift, coupling and silence between a startup’s critical outcomes and the way its work actually holds together under pressure.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
Make startup metrics useful for decisions
Connect cash, unit economics and growth without losing the definitions, source lineage and assumptions that make a financial answer trustworthy.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
Positioning before AI-generated marketing
AI can create endless messages. Strong positioning starts with the customer’s real alternative, valued outcome and evidence from actual buying decisions.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
Scaling an AI-run company
Scale company judgement across people and AI with clear intent, decision rights, attention limits and evidence-backed learning loops.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
Send the right message once
Keep the audience, message and sender you approved together, and know exactly what happens when the context changes or someone replies.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
Should your startup raise now, or wait?
Decide whether to raise now by comparing the milestone capital buys, the evidence waiting could create and the runway a process needs.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
Test the product decision before you build
Continuous discovery gives AI-assisted product teams a desired outcome, fresh customer evidence and small assumption tests instead of a faster feature factory.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
The founder cannot delegate the first sale
Early enterprise conversations must advance the deal and improve the company’s market understanding. AI should run the follow-through, not invent the learning.
Product · Aug 2026
Turn a messy customer list into one you can use
Move clear customer records forward, isolate uncertain ones and keep the context needed to correct mistakes without starting again.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
Turn mixed replies into your next best move
Read sales responses in context, avoid premature conclusions and turn uncertainty into the smallest useful next test.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
When should you hire your first salesperson?
Hire after the founders can show a narrow customer, repeatable buying problem and teachable sales motion, not to discover them by proxy.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
Where should you incorporate your startup?
A practical framework for choosing a local, regional or US company around your operations and next fundraise.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
Which growth channel should you test first?
Choose a growth channel by matching customer behaviour, product mechanics and economics, not by copying another startup’s playbook.
Perspectives · Aug 2026
Which term-sheet terms actually matter?
Compare venture term sheets through ownership, downside economics, control, future financing and the investor behind the offer.