I love Substack. Always have. Their team is great. But a silent change could force me off the platform if it stays. They broke email. My paid subscribers cannot read today's paid newsletter on mobile without downloading the Substack app. @SubstackInc: roll this back. Now.

Your app breaks during a live demo, what’s your move?

i've noticed something odd lately a lot of people who used to pay for services like ghostwriting or design now think they can do it themselves with AI so they fire those people but in most cases they can't get anywhere close to the old quality they nuke themselves without even noticing it open rates decline slowly. followers tune out. people care and buy less. the decline is obvious to anyone who actually knows the craft but these CEOs think it's all good because they don't have enough experience to know what "great" actually looks like it's a painful trap just because AI can do stuff doesn't mean you should suddenly do everything yourself i've seen too many founders dilute and distract themselves from what actually moves the needle they're saving $3k/month on a writer while losing $300k in attention and trust here's what I think about it: only do things yourself (even with AI) where you 100% understand what excellent quality looks, feels and smells like if you can't tell the difference between good and great in that skill, you shoudn't be the one doing it keep paying someone who knows their stuff use AI to make THEM faster

Buffer just turned 15 years old! And we're fortunate to be closing out our best year in the past 7. We have 69,000 customers, a $23M annual run rate, and achieve over $2M in profit in 2025. To mark 15 years of Buffer, here are 15 of the key lessons I've leaned first hand as a founder CEO. These may not all apply for you, but I hope some are useful and they at least get you thinking: 1. Survival is a competitive advantage. Setting up the ownership structure to play an infinite game is both a great strategy and a lot of fun. 2. Becoming our own customer again has supercharged our motivation, productivity, taste, and clarity of problems to solve. 3. Sustained results over the long term come primarily from differentiation rather than purely from execution. 4. It's generally better to double down on the strengths of your product than shore up weaknesses. 5. Customers come first, because without customers there was never a business in the first place. 6. It's better to shape the company structure around everyone's strengths than try to fill out a perfectly neat org chart. 7. There are many different flavors of CEO, so be yourself and build the team around who you are, rather than doing what you've read a CEO should do. 8. Intuition is an undervalued trait in all roles. Tapping into it and helping people develop it can lead to creating something special. 9. When great strategy and strong operations come together you create magic. You'll generally be stronger in one than the other, so elevate those who are great at the other side of the equation. 10. Even with success, I may feel low. It can feel unsettling when tough emotions hit especially when it seems like I should feel awesome, but there are always clues to follow to get back to a better place. What I find when I explore the emotions can lead to a breakthrough. 11. When you take care of the team, they will give so much to the company and customers. Trust them, be generous, give autonomy and flexibility, and many people will stay for over a decade. 12. Building a truly great product or new feature is dependent on not settling for good enough. Ask yourself if you're really proud of what you're putting out there, and put in the work to feel awesome about your contributions. 13. You're always finding your way. It's better to settle into continual pathfinding than put yourself down for not having perfect clarity. It's a moving target. 14. It's not worth sacrificing health, family, friendships and hobbies for some hypothetical outcome that will solve everything. It's better to try to have it all now. 15. It's worthwhile shooting for the moon. Sometimes you can just choose the more ambitious path. It might feel scary but in my experience it's almost always the right choice. We can achieve far more than we realize. Building and leading Buffer has been the gift that keeps giving. Thank you for following along, whether it's been for the entire journey or since more recently.

I've scaled 4 products past $100k MRR everyone asks for the strategy here's what actually worked: 1. week 1: build something, anything, ship it 2. find 5-10 people, get them to try it 3. become annoying - DM, email, call 4. watch them use it (most won't) 5. ask why, fix it, ship again 6. daily check-ins, daily updates 7. solve their actual problem, not what you think it is 8. keep shipping until they beg you not to change anything 9. that's your signal - now go loud 10. content everywhere, SEO grind, paid ads 11. double down on channels that work 12. cut everything else the gap between $0 and $100k? steps 3-8 most people never leave their code editor you can't build a business without talking to humans

Free users are not customers.

Bad ideas vs good ideas Habit tracker Gut health tracker to help people fix their health issues Todo list Auto generated checklists for lawyers from a client file Link in bio Productized service to build websites for churches Directory of tools for indie hackers Directory of in-home hairdressers sorted by city The best CRM ever Browser extension to automatically create an entry to the biggest CRM on the market from a LinkedIn profile, an X account, an email etc Social media scheduler Content planner with AI creation for Vtubers Super AI chatbots AI assistant trained on Shopify documentation for e-commerce support teams Pomodoro timer Time tracking app that auto generates invoices for freelance translators Job board for devs Reverse job board for godo developers All of those are 100% random ideas, but they’re all niched, with a specific target, easy distribution, and an existing market. Coaching sessions starts at $300/h

Day 1: entrepreneur Day 2: social media manager, designer, support rep, copywriter, legal, IT, barista

The real moats in 2025: specific workflows, proprietary data with real switching costs, distribution, and UX that makes AI disappear into the job-to-be-done. Simultaneously: we are early (only a % are using AI properly) so this is an amazing time to start a startup.

If you're a founder and you're not leaving your product landing page open in Apple Stores, what are you even doing

the number of well-executed easter eggs in @stripe's BFCM city is just incredible * shoes outside of @cursor_ai * hover on ppl like @levelsio * Cheeky Pint bar * @tryramp ramp * @bannerbearHQ bear * actual @TBPN audio * live transaction volume what else?

Reminder: your customers want to self serve In the last 30 days over 3,000 different people accessed our KB We have 403 articles The goal: every customer can get to success and never needs to contact support