I’ve read well over 100 self-help books in my life — to little to no avail. My disappointment with self-help boiled down to the fact that when life got serious, when I was facing existential issues like a business on the verge of bankruptcy, self-help credos didn’t really help. I…

Modern life is one of intellectual burden. Most of our jobs revolve around intellectual effort — creativity and analysis, thinking our way through complex problems. …

Roll-Up Vehicles (RUVs) are the single most powerful invention for founders to come out in the last 10 years. Why? Because they help break up the power monopoly that VCs have had over startups’ early days. All VC funds have what’s called an “ownership target,” which means they own at…

Hiring freezes, layoffs, slashed valuations…it’s a tough time to be a startup right now. It’s a splash of cold water in the face after a seemingly endless streak of good fortune. The 2010s saw the number of billionaires in the world more than triple, with Silicon Valley leading the charge…

Ever since Lawtrades took off, I’ve been sharing our deepest secrets. That is, I’ve been tweeting the following four metrics on a monthly (sometimes quarterly) basis: Total revenue Gross profit Supply-side earnings (how much we and our users earn through our platform) Number of customers using our platform As recently…

I grew up poor. As a first-generation immigrant living in New York, I shared a 2-bedroom house with 7 family members. My dad delivered newspapers. In my family, “success” was a $100k job — not finding your calling. I wasn’t allowed to use the internet at home so I would…

If you ask a startup founder how they’re doing, chances are, they’ll say, “Great!” Founder are incentivized to project an image of confidence and security. Succeeding as a startup means getting the world — investors, customers, competitors, etc. — to believe in you and your idea. …

At the end of 2019, Lawtrades’s bank balance was down to $20k. People were getting value from our platform, but we were struggling to convert that value into a healthy balance sheet. …

Three years ago, Lawtrades almost went bankrupt. We’d failed to raise a Series A or generate any interest among VCs. Last month, we closed $6M in funding (at an $80M valuation) from more than 100 customers and investors, using a link and no pitching. Here’s how it happened, step by…