August 20, 2025
Opinions#109 — Cold Take: Your North Star is broken if it's just for product
For it to be a true engine of sustainable growth, the North Star Framework must extend beyond the product and engineering.
August 10, 2025
Opinions#104 — Cold Take: Why MEDDIC/MEDDPICC kills Dev Tool startups
Most sales teams do a bunch of low-quality qualification that harm their company's reputation and kill opportunities.
July 29, 2025
Opinions#98 — Cold Take: Stop treating sales reps as your data infrastructure
Most startups are hemorrhaging intelligence from customer conversations while burning through runway on manual data entry instead of revenue generation.
July 13, 2025
Opinions#90 — Cold Take: Companies are stuck in "AI pilot hell"
Enterprises are getting stuck in AI pilot hell. Security, not model performance, is what's stalling adoption.
June 13, 2025
Opinions#81 — Cold Take: Don't go deck-less when pitching investors
Yes, I know it's 2025. And yes, you still (probably) need a presentation deck. A deck is more than just a presentation aid.
April 9, 2025
Opinions#52 — Cold Take: 'No marketing' isn't a badge of honor
Early-stage founders who boast about 'zero marketing' are revealing dangerous gaps in customer understanding.
March 23, 2025
Opinions#48 — Cold Take: Broad automation trumps R&D acceleration
While institutions focus on AI for research breakthroughs, economic data suggests the real value lies in widespread automation.
March 5, 2025
Opinions#42 — Cold Take: Good AI strategy beats good funding
While tech giants pour billions into AI, nimble startups are finding strategic advantages through counter-positioning.
February 27, 2025
Opinions#41 — Cold Take: PLG isn't right for most early-stage startups
Founders are rushing to PLG too early, missing the crucial feedback loop that only comes from direct customer engagement.
October 30, 2024
Opinions#33 — Cold Take: Nontechnical SaaS founders need a CMO before a CTO
Marketing co-founders often outperform technical ones for early success in today's SaaS landscape.
September 10, 2024
Opinions#29 — Cold Take: Sales prospecting is an engineering problem
Founders are replacing traditional SDR teams with automated prospecting pipelines, turning sales development into engineering.
August 13, 2024
Opinions#28 — Cold Take: Don't price your enterprise product until you have to
Good pricing is about figuring out what your concrete value is to an organization: don't rush it.
June 17, 2024
Opinions#24 — Cold Take: You're going to fail your first pilot, and that's okay
Most startups fail their first pilot, but successful founders use these early setbacks to gather critical feedback.
October 1, 2023
Opinions#0 — Introducing Field⸻Notes
Founders have a hard job. The stakes have never been higher. AI is transforming every industry and unlocking unprecedented opportunities, but the competition is stiff (and well funded). These are notes from our team, who has decades of experience finding the right positioning, product direction, and go-to-market strategy for world-class startups. We hope they help. Good luck out there.
Strategic messaging isn't marketing fluff—it's the difference between burning cash on ads or sales efforts that don't convert and building a growth engine that scales.