People like to put founders in boxes: the technical one, the marketing one, the operator. I understand why. It is neat. It is also how a lot of good ideas die in the gap between departments.
I do not call myself a developer, and I am not only an AI creator. I am a founder who uses whatever the business needs. In practice that means five tools.
The five tools
- Business: offers, pricing, operations. Does this make money and can it keep doing so?
- Marketing: positioning and distribution. Do the right people know and care?
- Technology: enough to build, direct and judge the work.
- AI: leverage on thinking, writing and making.
- Automation: leverage on doing, so the business runs without you pushing every button.
You do not need mastery, you need range
Being world class at all five is impossible. Being dangerous at all five is very possible. The goal is to understand each well enough to make good decisions, spot bad advice and hire or build well.
Specialists go deep. Founders connect.
Where the leverage lives
The interesting opportunities sit at the joins. Marketing plus automation gives you content systems that publish daily. Business plus AI gives you offers that were too expensive to deliver last year. Technology plus distribution gives you products that spread by design.
How I keep learning
Build small things in the tool you are weakest at. Nothing teaches marketing like launching something. Nothing teaches technology like shipping a tiny app. The experiments page on this site exists partly to keep me honest about that.
- #Founder
- #Skills