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Welcome to the latest edition of Great Startups! Here’s what’s in store:

• Plan, Pivot or Panic: What They Don’t Tell You About Founder Anxiety

• Survey: How Tech workers really feel about work right now.

• Vibe Coding: How to get most of it.

• The $500 Hack: Your Startup Doesn’t Need a Fancy Name—Just a Working Credit Card Limit

• Targeting Made Simple: A step-by-step guide to finding your perfect customer.

• Hidden Startup Debt: The silent killer that’s slowing growth.

Get ready to dive into these power-packed insights for founders and growth enthusiasts!

Resources

• The state of B2B monetization in 2025. (LINK)

• More or Less: The three pricing strategies. (LINK)

• How to fight back against AI tourists (LINK)

• David Politis on doing whatever it takes to stay in the game (LINK)

• Sam Blond on how to generate more demand. (LINK)

ICYMI

• Grammarly acquires AI email client Superhuman (LINK)

• Netflix is getting into short videos with a new vertical feed for mobile. (LINK)

• Cloudflare launches a marketplace that lets websites charge AI bots for scraping. (LINK)

• The WordPress vs. WP Engine drama, explained. (LINK)

• 1X will test humanoid robots in ‘a few hundred’ homes in 2025. (LINK)

Quick Links

• Ray Dalio built a $14B empire by following core success principles that took him from humble beginnings to founding the world’s largest hedge fund.

• Iman Gadzhi and Pierre de Preux launched a SaaS and hit 7-figure ARR in 9 months by moving fast, using Iman’s audience, and solving a real problem.

• Lenny Rachitsky and Jen Abel on how to approach founder-led sales.

• Carta shares 50 slides packed with insights for founders from 45,000 startups.

• How One AI App Founder Makes $20K+ Monthly—and How You Can Too!

Not All AI Notetakers Are Secure. Here’s the Checklist to Prove It.

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What They Don’t Tell You About Founder Anxiety (Until It’s 3 AM)

Every founder faces two distinct types of problems: complicated (predictable, solvable with expertise) and chaotic (unpredictable, requiring experimentation). The biggest mistake is treating them the same—applying rigid planning to chaotic problems (like customer adoption) or being too loose with complicated ones (like engineering sprints). The key is recognizing which is which: Complicated challenges demand deep analysis, documentation, and process; chaotic ones thrive on rapid testing, iteration, and adaptability. Founders who master this distinction stop wasting time trying to predict the unpredictable and start making smarter, faster decisions.

How to Apply This Today

1. Audit your challenges—List your top 5 business hurdles and label each as complicated or chaotic.

2. Adjust your approach—For complicated issues (e.g., technical debt), invest in expertise and structure. For chaotic ones (e.g., pricing strategy), run small, fast experiments.

3. Communicate the framework—Align your team by clarifying which problems need planning vs. testing.

4. Track progress—As chaotic areas become predictable (e.g., proven marketing channels), shift them into structured execution.

This mindset doesn’t eliminate uncertainty—it gives you the right tools to navigate it. The result? Less wasted effort, better decisions, and a team (and founder) that’s less stressed and more strategic. (LINK)

Ok that’s it for this week, We keep refining our newsletter content, just hit reply to let us know what you think about this issue.