🦁 I'm super excited to be back in Cape Town this week 👋 I will be hosting a masterclass on community growth strategies. Then I speak at AWS Community Day South Africa on the topic of "Community as Code"😉 If you have any recs on places to visit or eat, LMK😁 See you soon Cape Town!

🔍 I was that annoying kid asking "why" about everything. Bit it's such an important question! Most founders stumble through ideas without deeper motivation and asking why. Your big why emerges through customer conversations and 3 AM questioning moments. foundersinthecloud.com/p/why

⚡ Every second counts. But only if it's purposeful. Startups are perpetual motion machines. Build → feedback → learn → repeat. The faster you iterate, the better your odds. But you need to prioritize! Real advantage = speed toward right outcome. foundersinthecloud.com/p/speed-comp...

Spent some time tonight at the 9/11 memorial. People say never forget. I say learn from this moment so we can have a more hopeful and caring future.

🎯 Bezos: "Most decisions should be made with 70% of the information you wish you had." Waiting for 90% = being slow. Type 1 (irreversible) vs Type 2 (reversible). Most are Type 2 but treat like Type 1. Slow decisions kill startups faster than wrong ones. foundersinthecloud.com/p/make-faste...

Tariffs are what will ultimately destroy America. That is not to minimize the other stuff going on right now. But the long-termhealth of a nation is based on what people believe to be true about their financial security. And tariffs are already exposing a hole in that safety net.

Taking NJ Transit into NYC. Such a poor experience compared to transit in Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore. Expensive, late, rude employees, gross passenger behavior, run down stations. With systems like BART going out, SEPTA going bankrupt, US public transportation is a disaster.

⏰ 3:59AM wakeup. Cold shower. Espresso IPO (3 cups). 1,000 pushups. Meditate on valuation multiples. Sprint plan in Notion w/ my Japanese fountain pen. Founder mode!!! LOL, forget the hustle theater—let’s build things that last 💪

Was at Innovation City Cape Town last November for an event. It was a business matching session. I was in town to give a talk, and the team invited me to join. Ended up manning the AWS table, even though I just left AWS 😅 It was all good, made some good connections 😁

Stop burning cash on stale growth tactics👎 🔥 Build communities that sell for you instead I grew a community from zero to 30K members across 24 cities with major impact! I'm in Cape Town Sept 18th to share my playbook of Community Flywheel + 11 step process + real metrics💡 trib.co/innocitytalk

This is the real startup mantra Courtesy of Charles Bukowski

I have finally given up and started using Notion. It actually does not suck as hard as I imagined it would. Pleasant surprise is the AI assistant actually does a good job helping to create some of the pages I need without doing it by scratch.

💸 "We spent $50 on MVP." - 2024 reality. Cloud + AI + no-code = launch for almost nothing. Biggest cost? Your time. Barrier to starting isn't money anymore. It's having courage to begin. foundersinthecloud.com/p/build-near...

💡 "Live in future, build what seems interesting" Paul Graham. Best ideas from noticing, not brainstorming i.e. my HR startup I asked: why do talented people do unfulfilling work? $1.9T productivity waste! Where do you find your startup ideas from? foundersinthecloud.com/p/where-do-s...

🍣 Never ordered tamago until Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Apprentice made 200+ before Jiro approved. Progress depends on unreasonable people. Startups are unreasonable by definition, but beware of becoming a toxic culture! foundersinthecloud.com/p/unreasonable

🔄 Corporate to startup founder? The hardest part is unlearning corporate habits! Habits that kill startups: Waiting for perfect info, endless meetings, consensus over speed. Startups are execution machines, so reset your mindset first in the transition: foundersinthecloud.com/p/transitions

🔄 Every 20 years tech platforms shift: 1960s Mainframe 1980s PC 2000s Cloud+mobile 2020s AI And it's not just better chatbot! We will see AI-native everything. Intelligence as infrastructure. 1-person billion-dollar AI startups. Read more: foundersinthecloud.com/p/next-20-ye...

Sometimes you just need to take a break to recharge 🔋 I get reenergized in the mountains ⛰️ - hiking, fresh air, clearing my mind. Tired of hustle culture telling us to work 15-hour days. That's just performative burnout waiting to happen. Work hard, yes. But rest so you can scale new heights 🏔️

📖 Writing my first book Community-in-a-Box ran into a buzzsaw of brutal feedback when I shared my first draft😵 Most books are vanity projects, but if you have unique expertise and intentional about the process, a book can open doors! Here are some tips: foundersinthecloud.com/p/books

💸 One typo cost $150M (NASA Mariner 1) Bad writing costs America $400B annually! Most startup content = AI buzzword soup 🤮 Good writing is like a good conversation that opens doors and builds influence. Here are some tips to write better: foundersinthecloud.com/p/writing

📧 I wrote long emails like Russian novels. My boss said: "Maybe you can send us a 50-page summary." Ouch. Less is more. Senior people drowning in info. Amazon taught me how to get to the point in my communications faster: foundersinthecloud.com/p/brevity

🐅 Malaysia Boleh and happy Hari Merdeka! Most overlook Malaysia's startup scene: - 3x longer runway vs Singapore - Multilingual talent - Gov't + tax incentives - Gateway to 650M ASEAN consumers - Carsome first unicorn The momentum is building🚀

🌍 Was I crazy flying 16hrs to Hong Kong for "business stuff"? Stack Overflow data though showed fastest growing dev ecosystems = Indonesia, Vietnam. But going global is like doing another startup🤯 Here a 12-step framework for you global expansion: foundersinthecloud.com/p/scaling-gl...

⚔️ "Best time start business = yesterday. Second = today." Love pirate spirit! But there are some questions you should ask youself first. Do you have curiosity? 10-year stamina? Financial runway? Comfort for the unknown? Take this test and see: foundersinthecloud.com/p/the-startu...

🏀 Obama: "You didn't build that alone." Silicon Valley loves solo founder myth but its sort of BS. DARPA created Internet and gov't funded university research. True leaders credit teams during wins.

🥟 I was the NYC Kingpin of dumplings! My tours were featured in the New Yorker, but I had zero passion for business. That's difference between the idea and founder-market fit!

⏰"Every second counts." Startups are perpetual motion machines. The faster you go, the faster you find product-market fit, the faster you scale your business. Slootman: "Multiple priorities is the same as no priorities." So focus on the 1st priority!

Winged my demo last week. It worked but was forgettable🤦‍♂️ Fixing bugs an hour before stage, no prep, pure improv in front of 100 people. Delivered "meh" when i could've been memorable. Talent saves you from disaster but only prep creates WOW moments. What's your worst "winging it" story?

✈️ 251,978 miles. 190 days away. 76% of work days on road. I spent a lot of time reflecting on the biggest observations from the year. Four ideas: Build anywhere but some places better. Amazon hit Day 2. AI changed everything. Community beats algorithms. foundersinthecloud.com/p/my-persona...

👨🏻💻So I demoed last night at the PicCollage AI Demo Night, showed off tools I built to help me scale as a solo founder. Shout as well to my Taiwan Gold Card friends at our monthly happy hour my good buddy Anuraag from NYC to talk about AI adoption in the enterprise!

💥 "Hope you like feedback!" Customer demo disaster. "Dumbest, most pointless shit ever." Reid Hoffman: "Not embarrassed by v1? Means you launched too late." Your MVP will suck because turning vision into tangible product is the hardest part!

🚀 SpaceX caught 20-story rocket with robot arms🤯 People think we're out of innovation like when Andreessen said in 1994: "Tech in US is dead." Pattern repeats. There's no boat to miss because innovation never stops!

Great food discovery at a local weekend fair, a NJ shop that does a solid Nashville Hot Chicken sandwich 🙌

💀 Startup "truths" are cargo cult myths. Don't need: funding, technical co-founder, domain expertise, Silicon Valley, amazing idea. But MailChimp, Shutterstock, etc. bootstrapped to billions! foundersinthecloud.com/p/12-things-...

I quietly scream inside and smile whenever I have to wait for people to get going somewhere.

Looking back to my first visit to Finland with 42Geeks, what an awesome experience and so much amazing tech being built there!

🎉 Annual lists everywhere but what about people who actually helped? So I created"The Fifty", amazing people who made the past year rewarding. Success isn't solo and gratitude is the best strategy for collaboration!

🔥 The Bear's kitchen, dysfunctional chaos or high performance? Founder Mode went viral but thin line between engaged leadership and toxic micromanaging. The better way is to set culture early, be even more customers centric: foundersinthecloud.com/p/founder-mo...

💀 "Worst pitch ever seen." VP Sales destroyed me! Secret is that great pitches are about attention, not facts. We are pitching "System 2" info to "System 1" brains. Instead, create drama, engage visually:

🤖 In 10 years won't say "AI startup" - just like don't say "cloud startup." NOT using AI is an immediate red flag for your startup🚩🚩🚩 How are you using AI today to accelerate the growth of your startup?

🏃♂️ Tried marathon once. Ditched training, overtrained, ankle 3x size. Starting easy, sustaining hard. Two frameworks saved Enterprise Sales Forum: 50-500-5000 Principle + Community Flywheel: foundersinthecloud.com/p/2-things-y...

😵My startup had 3 visions. Lesson is don't have 3 visions😅 Vision is the meaningful future change you're making. Craft yours to be short, future-focused, and about change! foundersinthecloud.com/p/what-is-a-...

⚡ "You think I'd succeed at Amazon after startup life?" 5 years later, I decided to leave AWS last year, it just felt different. Why leave? Startup reset, AWS shift to Day 2 bureaucracy, and AI is perfect time to launch a startup!

😴 "Slept like baby. Woke every 2hrs and cried." Ben Horowitz. Work-life balance is not thing in early-stage startups. 3 factors that matter: fast decisions, passion through difficulties, luck on timing. www.foundersinthecloud.com/p/hard-thing...

Remembering that time I went to a dinner and the slices of cake were bigger than my head 🤣

So awesome catching up with folks this week in Taipei😊 Hit the AWS Summit Taipei 2025✌ Mingled with friends at the 11Fleet event 🤝 Spoke at the Light Dao event on community building🎤 The warmth, welcome & collaborative spirit of Taiwan is real ❤️

🥟 What surprised me most building my startup in Taipei: Cafes are real workspaces Amazing quality of life Safest city ever MRT and YouBike take you everywhere Dogs in baby strollers🐶😂 The key lesson, little things matter when choosing where to build 🚀 foundersinthecloud.com/p/Taipei"

😅 It's a busy week of events in Taipei for me📅 Today I'm attending the AWS Summit Taipei 2025, then the 11th Fleet Mix & Mingle: Professional Networking Event in the evening, then speaking tomorrow at "Light Dao Salon: Entrepreneur Journey & Book Talk". Let's me if you are joining the events!

One lesson learned about using AI for content: It cannot help saying things like "it's real", "the hard truth", "pro tip", and other filler garbage. All of these are major AI tells. Do not blindly use AI for content, it will make you look dumb and bite you in the ass.

🚫 "Chief Revenue Officer" with no product/market/sales process? I made this mistake. Zero revenue result. Avoid: strategists, corp dev, chief of staff, VP/C-levels (except after obvious traction): foundersinthecloud.com/p/11-job-rol...