Concepts

• Your MVP is Bloated
  When you finally “launch” your MVP, you’ll probably get zero users and you’ll feel stupid for making a bloated MVP.
• What’s Your Value Prop Story?
  The Value Prop Story Test is a quick and easy sanity check for a startup. It should be really easy for startups to pass the test. Yet 80% of startups fail it.
• The Lean MVP Flowchart: How to Follow the Value
  The core of a startup isn’t building a product; it’s giving a person value. Here’s what that means for your MVP and for your subsequent growth.
• The Great Filter of Startups
  The evolutionary leap that only a small fraction of startups manage to make
• Manhandle Your Early Users
  The approach that successful founders use to break through the traction barrier
• The Bloated MVP Test
  A simple 10-question test that tells you if you’ve just wasted your life on a bloated MVP
• The Power to Judge Startup Ideas
  The fundamental reason why so many founders fail the Value Prop Story test is that humans suck at giving specific examples of abstract concepts.
• When Not To Be A Lean Startup
  If your startup is one of the rare ones whose primary risk is technological rather than market, you can be excused for having a less lean MVP.

MVP Reviews

• AlphaSheets MVP Review
  It just kept getting more bloated
• Arbital MVP Review
  It should have been all about the content
• Axiom.org MVP Review
  Blockchain? More like Bloatchain
• Beaker Browser MVP Review
  0 use cases + 4 years of engineering = 0 users
• Dropbox Paper is a Bloated MVP
  It’s unclear why to not just use Google Docs
• General Magic MVP Review
  Surfing a wave, or boiling the ocean?
• Golden.com MVP Review
  It’s got everything except a value prop story
• Hey.com MVP Review
  They really know what they’re doing MVP-wise
• Listle (YC S19) MVP Review
  A “place to listen”, but for who?
• Openland (YC W18) MVP Review
  Chasing the siren song of product and engineering craftsmanship
• Reddit MVP Review
  Started from the value prop story now we’re here
• Roam Research MVP Review
  Pages + Bullets = Cool New Product Category

My Crypto/Blockchain/Web3 Posts

• a16z Is Gaslighting Us — May 2022
  Their “State of Crypto Report” is so logically flimsy it’s weird
• Debating with Balaji Srinivasan about Blockchain Use Cases — Jan 2022
  Struggling to understand how Balaji thinks blockchain technology adds value to internet-enabled use cases
• Web3 is Vision-LARPing — Nov 2021
  Role-playing as a visionary when you don’t have a coherent vision
• Cryptocurrencies Make Sense As Uncensorable Mediums Of Exchange — Nov 2021
  Cryptocurrencies are useful because millions of people want to make transactions that their governments want to prevent
• Why Web3’s Shared Data Across Applications Doesn’t Matter — Nov 2021
  The ability for applications to read and write their data to the blockchain will be inconsequential
• Chris Dixon’s Crypto Claims Are Logically Flimsy — Sep 2021
  Crypto discourse has turned into the ultimate Bloated MVP
• Naval Ravikant and Chris Dixon Didn’t Explain Any Web3 Use Cases — Oct 2021
  Their web3-themed episode of Tim Ferriss’s Podcast didn’t provide the one thing I was hoping for
• The Billion Dollar Homepage — Sep 2021
  NFTs meet old-web nostalgia
• Digital World of Crypto/Blockchain/Web3 — Dec 2021
  Credit to the incomparably hilarious Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared

Other Stuff I’ve Written

• The 4 Angel Investing Strategies — Jan 2022
  Exclusive access to hot deals, discovering founders, picking winners, and indexing the category
• VC Larping - Jun 2021
  VCs’ job is to value companies. They should stop LARPing about “value add”, “deal flow”, and “access”.
• Where’s the Twitter of Podcasting? - Jul 2019
  Someone will figure out how to make podcasts bite-sized, socially interactive, and serendipitous
• Data Denormalization Is Broken - Sep 2016
  The software industry is losing $trillions/year due to the lack of a declarative denormalization paradigm
• I’m just an average guy who does Electrical Muscle Stimulation instead of going to the gym - Sep 2021
  My review of the Katalyst fitness system after using it for three months
• Sample Questions for the Y Combinator Interview - Sep 2018
  This is my most popular post thanks to SEO luck
• Half-Baked Products and Idea Kernels - Mar 2020
  To get a quick feedback loop going, keep your ideas half-baked
• I Hate Phone Calls - Jan 2019
  You don’t need to be calling me for any business reason
• Send A Complete Message, Not A Stream-Of-Consciousness Dribble - Oct 2020
  The Slack DM etiquette your busy coworkers wish you’d follow
• The Truth About Being A “Detail-Oriented” Employee - May 2019
  How to focus your efforts on being detail-oriented where it matters
• Startup Idea: ImproveMyLifeRightNow - Oct 2018
  Proactively stalk people and pitch them ways to improve their lives
• A Simple Project Management Process - Sep 2020
  How to keep track of people doing stuff you asked for