Hey all,

15 years ago I wrote an article about the rise of a more social web for Huff Post.

Every year I reflect on how I spent money in the previous year. Previously, I have manually scraped my bank statements and put together a report, but 2025 was interesting because I built a fairly overkill personal finance product to make this report easy to generate for myself.

Because it is really easy, I m going to do a deep dive on how I spent money in 2025. (I was able to put this all together in ~10 mins)

Dear Product Hunt community,

If you re reading this and you ve launched something - or you're close to launching - you are already incredibly special.

There s a lot you end up thinking about as a startup founder.

Success, doom... and the question that connects those dots:

Everything with Ting started here on Product Hunt, so feels only right to wrap the last four months.
It s been mad. It's the only word I can use.

First time founders, new team, big idea, AI - I mean, that's all the fun ingredients.

I wrote a long essay following a talk I gave at AI DevCon in Brooklyn last month.

It starts out with an anecdote about hunting ChatGPT in December 2022 and goes on to explore what I think will be necessary to thrive as code becomes a commodity:

In December 2022, I hunted ChatGPT on Product Hunt.

It ranked #1 product of the day, then the week, and went on to be named Product of the Year.

Having co-founded a YC-backed conversational AI startup in 2018 (long before LLMs) I recognized in ChatGPT the missing ingredient that would have made that venture viable.

The future we d anticipated had arrived. I could revisit my old problem, or I could expand my area of potency by raising and deploying my own venture capital fund.

I chose the latter.

Three years later, on December 9th, I watched a 24-hour window on Product Hunt cross 500 launches roughly double what I observed throughout the preceding 825 days. Only 13 were featured; most were unremarkable.

The LLM has fundamentally shifted the economics of software development.

As someone with a dual vantage point being the #1 Product Hunter while investing in AI startups I watch the floodwaters rise in real-time.

What s become clear: SaaS is dying; VC is withering . Building software is not uniquely compelling. Code has become a commodity.

What most people miss about commoditization is that when a product or resource becomes abundant, it doesn t just get cheaper. It unlocks new and previously uneconomic uses.

Hey all,

It s that time of year where if you re not writing a year ahead post, then what are you even doing?

Hey all,

A new feature from Ting that I thought had some learnings for everyone building in AI.

I think it was Robert Kiyosaki who said that straight-A students end up working for C students, and B students work for the government.

On the other hand, we often see stories of college dropouts building billion-dollar companies. But these next big thing cases are maybe 2% at most. I believe top students usually find their place in more formal paths: becoming doctors, lawyers, and similar professions.

TechCrunch shared an excerpt from a roughly 30-minute panel featuring Sam Altman, where he mentioned that within the next two years, they plan to introduce hardware built by their AI company.

It s supposed to be:
"screenless" and pocket-sized
offering a calmer experience than smartphones

avoiding constant notifications and attention overload

I put together a digest of the last few months building Ting - the good, the meh, and the lessons I can imagine me wanting to tell future founders so they can dodge the bruises and get to the good stuff quicker...

The good:
- Nearly 1,000 users - ~50% MoM growth with no ads.
- Added Outlook, Teams, Zoom + multi-calendar.
- Launched Memories, micro product moments when the AI remembers small details + you feel seen.
- Team is now 2 founders, 2 engineers, AI QA + day-one consultant. Oh, and a baby was born yesterday!
- Inbound pilots from a top 10 tech company, top 3 ad network, top 3 bank.
- Great investor convos at Web Summit + SF.

Hey everyone,

I've been doing a lot of pitching recently.

I went to Web Summit where I got pitched at a lot.

I've noticed that more and more founders are building their personal brand and prioritising it over building their company's brand (the company account then just reposts the founder's thoughts).

I notice this especially with solo founders.

Hey all,

Me & @marianaprazeres will be at Web Summit in Lisbon (presenting on Weds on Alpha) this week and we're in San Fran (16-20) next week - if any builders want to connect with us, we'd love to say hello!

Dan

I wrote a list of all the things I learnt by becoming a first-time founder and leaving a role in big tech. It s more than I had when I started, so I hope it finds you at the right time:

Here we go:

• Getting going: Make sure you have a clear reason and those in your life are on same page. It is consuming!

• Unfair advantage: Founders aren t special, they just optimize to what makes them different (becomes important when raising too). It can be as simple as "worked in big company, saw firsthand the XXX problem"

• Getting started isn t easy: Make sure you consider the financial impact if leaving a job to get going Consider 12-18 months of no revenue or funding and if you can manage that

• Full-time or nothing: You can t do both a job and a startup. Investors won t back part-time conviction

• The pitch doc: Forces clarity, the problem, the customer, the market, and why you should solve it

• Raising money: Start with belief and momentum. An idea, a plan, and an MVP are enough to find your first backers

• Accelerators: Early programs like YC or Techstars can help refine your product and give you fuel to move faster. I have a longer list of Accelerators in case anyone needs it...?

• Foundations: Lock down your domain, name, trademarks, and structure early - future you will thank you

• Advisors: Find people who open doors and offer perspective, not control, ideally top % in their domain

• SaaS reality: You ll spend more on tools than you expect, it s part of building

• Building: Nothing s real until users touch it. Ship early, get feedback, iterate. It was extremely painful to hear users complain about our early bugs, but without that, we wouldn't be more reliable now...

• Co-founder: Pick someone with complementary skills and shared energy. You ll need each other

• Runway: Track every cost. I have a spreadsheet with every single one, also helps with tax reporting. Burn awareness is survival

• Energy: In a startup, you are the momentum. Working Saturday isn t working Saturday , it s pushing your dream forward

• Loved ones: Communicate early. The work will consume you; don t let it quietly consume them too

• Attention: Building is one thing. Getting noticed is harder. You ll code-switch between product, marketing, finance, and sanity

• What if you fail: Most startups do. But you ll come out sharper, braver, and more ready than ever

We launched Meet-Ting on Gmail to move fast. It got us out there, but we quickly built up technical debt and a heavy reliance on Google's APIs. 

This was a problem. Our most valuable potential users (the "meeting-heavy" pros) all use Outlook. 

After months of focused work to improve core reliability, it was time to expand our ecosystem. We call it our "Ting everywhere" strategy. Our native Outlook integration is live.

I wanted to take a moment to personally thank you all for the love and support on our launch!

It's truly a special moment when other resonate with the problem you're solving and the way you're solving it.

I have a feeling this one *might hit different* for some of you.

I ve been thinking a lot about what I call the founder shadow.

Hey everyone,

LOTS going on. Google just turned a core part of our product into a feature - which is always fun - BUT, we saw it coming when they added it to Workspace not long ago. Inevitable, really, importance of keeping an eye on the market. The wave of AI scheduling assistants is as validating as it is like white-water rafting...!