I build things and share lessons nobody told me straight.
I'll send you an email when I publish something new. No spam, just real stuff.
Everyone says SaaS is dead and AI wrappers won't survive. Here's a simple test: remove all AI from your product. If the core still works and solves the problem, it's not an AI wrapper—the AI just makes it better.
After 95+ cold plunges in 3-degree water, I learned that pain from hard things doesn't disappear—it shifts. You stop fighting it, stop fearing it, and realize that hurt and impossible aren't the same thing.
Every time I hit an obstacle making TikTok videos—lighting inconsistency, teleprompter updates, caption templates—I solved it once and built it into my workflow. Without these boring systems, I'd burn out. With them, I can create multiple videos in a day.
Stop filtering content ideas because you've said something similar before—if the same topic comes back with a different angle or emotion, that's exactly why it's worth repeating.
After sixteen years as a professional software engineer, I finally shipped my first iOS app with AI as my tutor. The breakthrough wasn't the code generation, it was having expertise to guide the architecture while AI translated it into patterns I couldn't grasp before.
The best products come from founders who use them daily. When you're the target user, you feel every friction point before your users complain about it.
Stop working five to ten minutes before you finish a task. The next day you'll know exactly where to start instead of staring at a blank page.
Being small isn't a problem when you're not ready to scale.
I used to feel guilty about skipping gym days. Then I found a way to skip without actually skipping. When I'm too tired to lift, I show up and just stretch for 60 minutes instead. I keep the habit alive without destroying myself. Zero guilt.
I broke Edicek for two days and nobody complained. Not because the bug was invisible—because nobody was there to see it. I have three users. That gives me something valuable: freedom to fail.
I ignored Whoop for years. Out of the blue, I spent $300 on it. What changed? Not the product. Me. My priorities shifted. The product was always right for me—I just wasn't ready for it yet.
Some videos don't flow. The script is choppy, takes aren't landing right. I used to waste hours trying to fix them. Now I take the best version, edit quickly, and publish. I don't know which videos will work anyway. Momentum beats perfection.
I spent five days on one programming tutorial video. Got 120 views. The videos weren't perfect—they were the best I could do, which meant they were average. Volume matters more than perfection when you're starting out.
I used to feel guilty about everything I wasn't doing—books unread, friends not seen, to-do lists ignored. Then I imagined my time as 100 hours a week and consciously decided where they go. Work gets 50. Family gets 20. Piano gets 2. Once you decide, the guilt goes away.
YC wants you to have a co-founder. I've worked on multiple projects with co-founders. One person always does more, always cares more. And 23% of co-founders leave after three years.
It took me 36 takes to record a one-minute YC video. English isn't my first language. I still got rejected. But now I can explain Edicek to anyone without thinking.
YC rejected me. But those five days preparing the application forced me to answer questions I'd been avoiding for months. The document became my compass.
London investors found my GitHub projects and offered funding. I said no. Money alone isn't enough—I need the network and knowledge that comes with the right partners.
YC says ship fast, don't overbuild. Then they ask: How hard is this to copy? These two things go completely against each other.
I'd have a content idea in the morning and think I'd remember it. Then nothing else would come all day. The first idea was blocking everything else. Now I save every idea immediately—not to use it, just to clear space for the next one.
A friend said I don't need a brand. People will use my product because it's good. He's wrong—not about expensive branding, but about consistency.
Everyone said start on Twitter. I tried it. Got 3 views per tweet. Then I tried TikTok and got 300. The difference wasn't just numbers—it was motivation.
You don't need new topics. You need new stories. The Ramsey Show made 3,000+ videos about debt—same message, different proof every time.
Post even when nobody's watching. It's not about today—it's about two years from now when someone discovers you and checks your history.
People stress about what content to create. But when I look at my video ideas, they're not invented—they're reactions to real things that happened. My trainer said once a week wasn't enough. That became a video. Ideas come from living your life, not sitting and inventing topics.
I stressed about finding my content niche. Should I talk about products, fitness, or business? Then I realized the creators I follow—I follow them as people, not their topics. You don't need a category. You are the niche.
When I'm stuck on a coding problem, I go to the sauna. Not for relaxation—for boredom. No phone, no distractions. That's when solutions appear naturally. I solved a 3-day problem in 20 minutes of lying in darkness.
I applied to Y Combinator Summer 2025 with Edicek and got rejected. Here's my complete application - tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it next time.
I spent 3 hours trying to replicate one animation from ChatGPT. Gave up. Top products look simple because every tiny detail is solved.
I have an external mic but record in a room with bad acoustics. Adobe Enhance Speech fixed it. Free tool, 60 seconds added to workflow, massive difference.
I love micro changes. Notice something small, fix it in two minutes. Do that 30 times a month and you've built something beautiful.
I saw someone doing 100 pushups and felt pathetic. Then I remembered I started at 5. You're comparing your day 1 to their day 500. Compare yourself to your own yesterday instead.
I used to wait for free weekends to work on my project for 8 hours straight. Then life would happen and I'd make zero progress. Daily work keeps the project mentally active—even just 10 minutes per day.
My trainer wanted three sessions per week. I gave him one. Two years and 130 workouts later, I went from 5 pushups to over 40. Even the smallest effort beats zero.
I couldn't relax at a friend's house until I got home and realized—their light was cold. Ten years of smart lighting taught me that fixed color temperature doesn't work because your needs change throughout the day.
1,184 improvements in 8 months. Some days 10 minutes, some days 2 hours. The key isn't time, it's momentum. Daily work beats weekend marathons because you never lose context.
After finding the perfect product name, I faced the usual problem: taken on half the social platforms. Here's how I turned a workaround into a feature.
Spent months looking for the right name for my product. Then I named it after my son. Good names come from iteration, not agencies.
I spend all my time building. But I can't find other builders because they're not visible. That's the paradox.
My sauna raised lemonade prices and added expensive ingredients. Their margins got worse, but I now go three times a week.
Battery percentages create unnecessary anxiety in electric cars because we're conditioned by phones to panic at low numbers.
Consistency beats having the perfect name on some platforms. Prefixes beat suffixes. And you need someone else to spot what looks weird.