Founder Resources

Building a generational business is hard - we do our best to help you get through the earliest stages of doing so, including through our content.

❯focal products

Products for founders

We are very much a startup ourselves and are increasingly building products for founders to leverage.

# More products to come soon

❯focal writing

Our writing

We capture a lot of what we see and think about in writing.

• datetitlesource
• Apr 23, 2026What it takes to win for AI startupspascal's notes
• Dec 18, 2025GTM Engineering Best Practicespascal's notes
• Dec 12, 2025How to nail GTM Engineeringpascal's notes
• Dec 4, 2025How to win in AI (and why horizontal > vertical)pascal's notes
• Nov 20, 2025How to Actually Do a P0 Launchpascal's notes
• Nov 19, 2025The P0 Launchpascal's notes
• Nov 12, 2025Introducing the focal founder residencypascal's notes
• Nov 7, 2025Speed-Run Enterprise Deals (But Only the Right Ones)pascal's notes
• Nov 6, 2025Build Your Own FDE Playbookpascal's notes
• Oct 30, 2025Say No Like a Doctorpascal's notes
• Oct 29, 2025Shrink The Surface Area, Raise The Barpascal's notes
• Oct 23, 2025Balancing the two muscles of PLGpascal's notes
• Oct 22, 2025Usage First, Monetization Laterpascal's notes
• Oct 15, 2025How Relyance AI builds culturepascal's notes
• Oct 8, 2025How To Build Companies When The Cost of Code Goes To Zero?pascal's notes
• Oct 2, 2025Getting Reps Productive Fastpascal's notes
• Oct 1, 2025How Pump hires top sales talentpascal's notes
• Sep 24, 2025Invest in Marketing from Day 1pascal's notes
• Sep 17, 2025How to reset a broken culturepascal's notes
• Sep 10, 2025Sell wedges, not empirespascal's notes
• Sep 7, 2025Objections are your friendpascal's notes
• Sep 6, 2025Nailing the proposal stagepascal's notes
• Sep 5, 2025Mastering the demo callpascal's notes
• Sep 4, 2025The science of salespascal's notes
• Sep 3, 2025First call exceptionalismpascal's notes
• Aug 28, 2025Selling towards a budget that doesn’t existpascal's notes
• Aug 27, 2025Enterprise or bustpascal's notes
• Aug 22, 2025Burn is borrowed urgencypascal's notes
• Aug 21, 2025Titles are traps early onpascal's notes
• Aug 20, 2025Avoid dead equity at all costpascal's notes
• Aug 14, 2025Kill happy-ear forecastspascal's notes
• Aug 13, 2025Your funnel never liespascal's notes
• Aug 8, 2025PMF needs to grow up toopascal's notes
• Aug 7, 2025Boring, existing market, violent speedpascal's notes
• Aug 6, 2025The Leap Checklistpascal's notes
• Aug 1, 2025Scare 90% Away To Hire The 1% Killerspascal's notes
• Jul 31, 20257 Filters That Protect Your Culturepascal's notes
• Jul 30, 20255 non-obvious tactics for sales hiringpascal's notes
• Jul 26, 2025Raising Prices Is Easy. Closing Bigger Deals Is Not.pascal's notes
• Jul 25, 2025The Valley of Death: ACV from $10K–$36K ARRpascal's notes
• Jul 24, 2025Set Sales Quotas The Right Waypascal's notes
• Jul 23, 2025You Closing Deals Doesn’t Mean You Have PMF Yetpascal's notes
• Jul 19, 2025$20M+: The Perpetual Reinvention Machinepascal's notes
• Jul 18, 2025From $10M to $20M ARR: Building the Machinepascal's notes
• Jul 17, 2025From $3M to $10M ARR: Widening Without Losing Your Waypascal's notes
• Jul 16, 2025From $1M to $3M ARR: When 'Do More' Means Do Lesspascal's notes
• Jul 12, 2025The Hidden Costs of Partnershipspascal's notes
• Jul 11, 2025The Framework for Thriving Partnershipspascal's notes
• Jul 10, 2025How to Turn Partnerships Into Actual Revenuepascal's notes
• Jul 9, 2025Partnership Economics: Trading Margin for Velocitypascal's notes
• Jun 28, 2025The Hidden Complexity of Enterprise Salespascal's notes
• Jun 27, 2025The Design Partnership Playbookpascal's notes
• Jun 26, 2025The Art of Not Leading the Witnesspascal's notes
• Jun 25, 2025The Brute Force Reality of Early Customer Discoverypascal's notes
• Jun 21, 2025Does AI change what we know about building startups?pascal's notes
• Jun 13, 2025Speed Is Your Only Advantagepascal's notes
• Jun 12, 2025If, when, and how to Pivot: Lessons from 8 Pivots in 14 Monthspascal's notes
• Jun 11, 2025Bet on a Space You Care About, Not a Specific Ideapascal's notes
• Jun 11, 20255YF Episode #38: Graphite Co-Founder & CEO Merrill Lutsky5 year frontier
• Jun 6, 2025Revenue is the Only Truthpascal's notes
• Jun 4, 2025Outbound Can’t Wait For Product Market Fitpascal's notes
• Jun 4, 2025Everyone Loves to Give Advice, No One Wants To Buypascal's notes
• Jun 1, 2025The ultimate startup moat: Building in publicpascal's notes
• May 31, 2025Build your growth team nowpascal's notes
• May 30, 2025To win, move from cold to warm outboundpascal's notes
• May 29, 2025Start with outbound from day 1pascal's notes
• May 28, 2025Experimentation speed is everything in growthpascal's notes
• May 27, 2025Why Most Startups Don't Focus on Growth Early Enough (+ New Podcast Launch)pascal's notes
• May 14, 20255YF Episode #37: AIRCO Co-Founder & CEO Greg Constantine5 year frontier
• Apr 30, 20255YF Episode #36: Clari Co-Founder & CEO Andy Byrne5 year frontier
• Apr 19, 2025(6/6) How to get from $1M to $10M ARRpascal's notes
• Apr 18, 2025(5/6) How to get from $1M to $10M ARRpascal's notes
• Apr 17, 2025(4/6) How to get from $1M to $10M ARRpascal's notes
• Apr 16, 20255YF Episode #35: Ema Founder & CEO Surojit Chatterjee5 year frontier
• Apr 15, 2025(2/6) How to get from $1M to $10M ARRpascal's notes
• Apr 14, 2025(1/6): How to get from $1M to $10M ARRpascal's notes
• Apr 8, 2025If you're not doing it already, you're extremely late!pascal's notes
• Apr 2, 20255YF Episode #34: Contextual AI CTO Aman Singh5 year frontier
• Mar 28, 2025If you build it, I'd love to try it.pascal's notes
• Mar 19, 20255YF Episode #33: Helm.ai CEO Vlad Voroninski5 year frontier
• Mar 18, 2025Opportunity in ambiguitypascal's notes
• Mar 11, 2025Singularity of Purposepascal's notes
• Feb 19, 20255YF Episode #31: Voltron Data CEO Craig Dunham5 year frontier
• Feb 15, 2025Decision-making in early-stage investingpascal's notes
• Feb 5, 20255YF Episode #30: Fireworks AI CEO Lin Qiao5 year frontier
• Jan 29, 2025How to win in this era of softwarepascal's notes
• Jan 29, 20255YF Episode #29: Orbital Materials CEO Jonathan Godwin5 year frontier
• Dec 4, 20245YF Episode #28: Prescient AI Co-Founder & CEO Michael True5 year frontier
• Nov 13, 20245YF Episode #27: Gecko Robotics Co-Founder Troy Demmer5 year frontier
• Oct 31, 2024Always be the driver, not the passengerpascal's notes
• Oct 30, 20245YF Episode #26: Prolific Machines CEO Deniz Kent5 year frontier
• Oct 24, 2024The emerging startup playbookpascal's notes
• Oct 17, 2024Look past the surfacepascal's notes
• Oct 16, 20245YF Episode #25: Arctic Wolf CEO Nick Schneider5 year frontier
• Oct 10, 2024The increase in distribution riskpascal's notes
• Oct 4, 2024Recharge. Consistently.pascal's notes
• Oct 2, 20245YF Episode #24: Synonym CEO Edward Shenderovich5 year frontier
• Sep 18, 20245YF Episode #23: Geminus CEO Greg Fallon5 year frontier
• Sep 4, 20245YF Episode #22: Higharc CEO Marc Minor5 year frontier
• Aug 21, 20245YF Episode #21: Enhanced Games President Aron D'Souza5 year frontier
• Jul 24, 20245YF Episode #20: Poolside CEO Jason Warner5 year frontier
• Jul 10, 20245YF Episode #19: Neuroscape Founder Dr. Adam Gazzaley5 year frontier
• Jun 20, 20245YF Episode #18: Story Protocol Co-Founder Jason Zhao5 year frontier
• Jun 5, 20245YF Episode #17: Colossal Biosciences CEO Ben Lamm5 year frontier
• May 22, 20245YF Episode #16: Epsilon3 CEO Laura Crabtree5 year frontier
• May 8, 20245YF Episode #15: Bright Machines CEO Lior Susan5 year frontier
• Apr 24, 20245YF Episode #14: Carbon Co-Founder Philip DeSimone5 year frontier
• Apr 10, 20245YF Episode #13: Archer Aviation CEO Adam Goldstein5 year frontier
• Mar 27, 20245YF Episode #12: Inworld Co-founder Kylan Gibbs5 year frontier
• Mar 14, 2024How much equity should I sell?pascal's notes
• Mar 12, 20245YF Episode #11: Commonwealth CEO Brian Doxtator5 year frontier
• Mar 7, 2024The biggest determinant for startup successpascal's notes
• Feb 29, 2024What I wish someone had told mepascal's notes
• Feb 27, 20245YF Episode #10: Ambient AI CEO and co-founder Shikhar Shrestha5 year frontier
• Feb 22, 2024Early vesting is broken!pascal's notes
• Feb 13, 20245YF Episode #9: R-Zero Systems co-founder Ben Boyer5 year frontier
• Jan 30, 20245YF Episode #8: Briq CEO Bassem Hamdy5 year frontier
• Jan 16, 20245YF Episode #7: Mindbody CEO Fritz Lanman5 year frontier
• Jan 2, 20245YF Episode #6: Empire State Realty Trust CEO Anthony Malkin5 year frontier
• Dec 19, 20235YF Episode #5: Kintsugi CEO Grace Chang5 year frontier
• Dec 5, 20235YF Episode #4: Finder Co-Founder Fred Schebesta5 year frontier
• Nov 21, 20235YF Episode #3: ASAPP CEO Gustavo Sapoznik5 year frontier
• Nov 8, 20235YF Episode #2: Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo Cliffton5 year frontier
• Oct 24, 20235YF Episode #1: Sweetgreen CEO Jonathan Neman5 year frontier
• Oct 19, 2023What it takes to raise capital in 2023pascal's notes
• Oct 18, 2023Introducing: 5 Year Frontier 🔮🎙️5 year frontier
• Sep 29, 2023Cold Outbound is Under-Appreciatedpascal's notes
• Sep 21, 2023The Relationship Between Risk and Returnpascal's notes
• Sep 18, 2023Supercharge your Fundraise with an Investment Memopascal's notes
• Sep 14, 20238 lessons from YC(S23)pascal's notes
• Aug 10, 2023Get your SaaS Startup Off the Groundpascal's notes
• Aug 3, 2023How to Succeed with Founder Led Salespascal's notes
• Jul 27, 2023How to Go About Customer Reference Askspascal's notes
• Jul 20, 2023It's tough(er) out there for "red ocean" startupspascal's notes
• Jul 13, 2023🧱#8: The VC Rebrand Guidebrick by brick
• Jul 13, 2023Write like an Amazonianpascal's notes
• Jun 30, 2023Diligence at the Pre-Seedpascal's notes
• Jun 22, 2023SaaS metrics 2.0pascal's notes
• Jun 15, 20233 areas where founders must leverage Gen AIpascal's notes
• Jun 6, 2023Introducing findfunding.vc 🧨company news
• Jun 1, 2023The power of spaced learningpascal's notes
• May 25, 2023Intensity beats strategypascal's notes
• May 18, 2023What's your "Popsicle Hotline"?pascal's notes
• May 14, 2023150+ places to launch your productpascal's notes
• Apr 26, 2023focal is live 👋company news
• Apr 20, 2023Cut Through The (Inbox) Noisepascal's notes
• Apr 15, 2023Two Great Readspascal's notes
• Apr 12, 2023🧱#7: Navigating Year-Endbrick by brick
• Apr 6, 2023Lessons Learned From Two Startupspascal's notes
• Mar 30, 2023Fundraise Deliberatelypascal's notes
• Mar 23, 2023Tell Me How You Workpascal's notes
• Mar 20, 2023🧱#6: On Point Offsitebrick by brick
• Mar 16, 2023Keep Calm & Communicate Wellpascal's notes
• Mar 9, 2023Your #1 Job: Don't Run Out Of Runwaypascal's notes
• Mar 2, 2023What can you help me do better, right now?pascal's notes
• Feb 23, 2023Angels > Advisors!pascal's notes
• Feb 18, 2023Our breakup message is SO successfulpascal's notes
• Feb 16, 2023🧱#5: Content Is Kingbrick by brick
• Feb 9, 2023Send A Breakup Messagepascal's notes
• Feb 3, 2023Execution Trumps Strategypascal's notes
• Jan 27, 2023Sell The Value, Not Your Product!pascal's notes
• Dec 15, 2022🧱#4: Brick by Brickbrick by brick
• Nov 15, 2022🧱#3: Brick by Brickbrick by brick
• Oct 15, 2022🧱#2: Brick by Brickbrick by brick
• Sep 17, 2022🧱#1: Brick by Brickbrick by brick
• Oct 8, 2021Price Before Productpascal's notes
• Jun 18, 2021Speed Is Your Greatest Allypascal's notes
• Jun 4, 2021Iterate Until You Nail It Before You Scale It!pascal's notes
• May 21, 2021As an Entrepreneur, Nurture Your Brain, Body and Soul Like an Elite Athletepascal's notes
• May 7, 2021Forget MVPs, create Minimum Lovable Productspascal's notes