Letters
Every Brainwaves letter, newest first.
2026
- Your smile
- Minecraft
- Before Labubu
- The summer shelf
- Upto36
- 6 more startups
- Something I built
- I made a video
- 6 Startups I Met in June & July
- I told Mike I was passing on this one
- Muse Bio Inc.
- 6 Startups I Met in May & June
- The Two Faces of San Francisco
- Why You Should Read Alan Kay's "The Center of Why?"
- Today, no startup motivation :)
- Your tech is not the answer
- Portfolio Spotlight: Devo
- Is it normal to talk to yourself?
- The illusion of the finish line
- YC Winter 2026 Demo Day — I watched 154 pitches, and some patterns are very clear
- The calm founder
- 6 startups, 1 investment. Can you guess which one?
- Keep your hobby secret
- Stop comparing pages
- 4,000 weeks
- Why most customer interviews are a waste of time
- Your salary is a runway decision. Most founders get it wrong.
- He built a fintech, lost it, wrote a book, and started again.
- Angel Investing, Done Right
- Please stop sending 5-year projections
- Most founders scale fast. Paavo scales right.
- The Truth About Success (It's Not Just Winning)
- The meeting tax
- Portfolio Spotlight: Twice Commerce
- Startups don't execute. They search.
- One question that reveals product-market fit
- Why I invested before there was any traction
- Guy Kawasaki’s simplest advice for founders
- Zero complaints is bad news
- Peer Robotics
- Tim Draper: trust your gut, not the committee
- The Advice Trap
- The investor phrasebook (a field guide for founders)
- Investors don't owe you feedback
- You're not committed, you're trapped
- Better, Not Bigger
- Why I Built Sol Avery
2025
- 🎙️ My Podcast with Seth Levine & Elizabeth MacBride
- 5 Startups for This Week
- Stop Playing CEO
- The Hero Delusion
- The Fake Traction Trap
- What Investors Don't Tell You
- Mentor ≠ Advisor
- How Successful Startup Founders Actually Meet
- My Post-Meeting Prompt (I Use It After Every Founder Call)
- Brown M&Ms and Bad Founders
- Serendipity is a strategy (not luck)
- The Next Unicorn
- The Startup Lie Everyone Believes
- Funding is just fuel, not the finish line
- Is Your Product a Vitamin or a Painkiller?
- 10 Clear Signs You’ve Finally Reached Product-Market Fit
- The complete pitch deck checklist VCs actually use
- The Echo Chamber
- The IKEA Effect
- How to hack your investor
- The less you say, the more you build
- Start scared
- There is no finish line
- Simple is not easy
- Check three dials
- The Power of "Dumb" Questions
- Rejection = Validation
- The less you do, the more you achieve
- Start before you are ready
- Stop Living Their Life
- Fastest way to kill investor interest
- The Ego Trap and the Learning Paradox
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