05 - Selling FounderStack? Let's catch up
What has happened in the last few weeks since you've heard from me?
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Wow! What a month!
Maybe you have missed these updates, or maybe you’re one of our new subscribers. In any case, a lot has happened since last time.
I set out on this journey to build in public with AI and show you what’s possible.
While exploring the problem & ideation phases with helpful tools, we haven’t even gotten to building yet (which I think is the dopest part). I planned on building a quick MVP and test this week, however, some things have happened.
Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans.
I have received an offer from another founder to buy my domain FounderStack.ai. I’ve also explored collaboration with another founder who built a similar platform and reached out to me.
Let’s dive into it! ⬇️
Welcome back, my fellow builders! Thank you for being a part of the build crew.
A warm welcome to the 94 new subscribers since the last edition! Seeing I haven’t written anything the last weeks, it’s crazy that we grew by 20% or so in a month. I will repay the favour by offering some great value in the updates to come 😉
In today’s update:
What has happened in the last weeks?
Selling FounderStack?
Collaborations?
Pivot
Update 5 - 25 March, 2025
🤔 How am I feeling?
Good, but a bit lost!
I have started this project with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. While that is definitely still there, I do wonder if it has become time to pivot or rethink my approach.
3/5 smileys, let’s see where we can take this. Why? Read on..
Missed the last one?
In the last edition ⬆️, we…
Talked about personas
and creating them with BuildPad.io
Tools
News
Memes
What’s next? The updates from the last weeks:
👀 Selling FounderStack…’s domain?
Whilst travelling in Japan, I got a very friendly message on Linked in from Simon.
Now after our conversation (which is still ongoing actually), I have asked for Simon’s permission to share that conversation here.
Simon, being a big believer in building in public, kindly agreed! So here’s what Simon had to say:
Clear, and friendly, yet with an obvious ask.
His site (go check it out and give it some love) is founderstack.pro
The companies are different, his is a stack of four (more coming) essential software tools for founders.
My reply then (after a bit of an hiatus), was this:
I replied as above, stating I was happy to consider an offer, tho it would be a pain for me to deal with.
Mostly, I am emotionally attached to the name, I love it! I also already got merch with it (thanks Ale 😘) and wouldn’t want to start over.
Still, Simon had some fair arguments to mention in favour of selling:
He also put down an offer of a $1,000. Great, but not whilst mentioning that he was talking to the owner of founderstack.com as well. Good to have some competition in the negotiation process for him, as well as pressure for me to reply quickly and maybe not drive too hard of a bargain.
In general, I really like Simon’s approach and vibe here. Friendly and collaborative, though our wishes may differ. He's even offering to give me a shoutout to his large online following (under a different name).
I replied as such:
I asked for $3,500, as domain names aren’t cheap. Furthermore, having a domain name like .ai or .com is better than his current .pro. I don’t need to make a fortune on it either, but I have already spent some money on merch and the like, as well as I will be spending money in the future doing this name change.
I have since (two days) not heard from Simon, so I’ll keep you posted on where this goes!
💡 But seeing we’re building in public, it’s a great chance to ask you for your input, dear fellow builder! What do you think?
Please let me know your thoughts! It helps me make a good decision.
👥 Collaboration with TechBible?
Then, another interesting thing happened. The founder of a website called TechBible.ai reached out to me. The platform she built was actually quite similar to what I had in mind as well.
So that made me pause. Was this what I wanted to built?
My action plan was:
MVP Platform (directory of stacks of founders, affiliate marketing) → workflows → AI-assisted tool curation & search
I took a call with the founder of TechBible last week. While it was impressive what she had already built by herself both on the platform, as well as a large social media following.
However, I did feel that in the call, while there were synergies to be explored, there were also some discrepancies. For one, both of our profiles were pretty outgoing (if that makes sense). We're both good at marketing, sales, reaching out, and we do have technical know-how as well (at least being able to do basic building and vibe coding). We may need a more technical co-founder or CTO for the next phase (this is what I feel for me).
In the follow-up after our call, I received an email from the co-founder in which she suggested a six-week trial period and laying out the next steps in her mind (what needed to be done for us to pick a weekly cadence and then work on certain tasks that she had in mind) and see after six weeks where we go.
However, if there's anything that I've learned in my years of entrepreneurship, it's never a good idea to work for free nor to arrange things beforehand. While I do believe very much in trial periods, I think it could be more clear from the start on how to collaborate.
Another one of her questions was if I was willing to come to San Francisco for a program for a while, and I think that it would be better to first meet up in person before taking any of those massive steps.
Long story short, both because I'm not super sure if I want to continue with FounderStack the way it is as well as not sure if we're the right match for co-founders, I replied in a polite message to state that at the moment I would not pursue collaboration and that I would follow her journey with interest.
The solo journey continues, for now.
📱 Time to pivot?
Then the next question becomes: is it time to pivot or not? As I laid out in a previous step, I had a certain plan in mind for how I wanted to build this thing, and upon seeing the first step of that plan already built in Tech Bible, it made me think on whether to continue or not on the current trajectory I'm on. Is this really what I want?
Is it close enough to the problem?
Do founders want to see what other founders use?
Yes, I think they want to see what other founders use, but is it a problem they're willing to pay for, and is it something that is close enough to the problem? Is it enough to see "what do other founders use," or is it more about the workflows and actual tool curation?
I see a future where there's going to be so many tools built because it's so easy now days with Vibe coding to just build tools and make tools, and potentially a lot of people will lose their jobs.
Where either people that still have jobs are very, very much more productive than they were in the past by using a lot of tools.
And also people that have lost their jobs will find other ways to make an income, most likely making their own tools, agents, and monetizing that to businesses starting their own businesses, whether that's big or small.
In any case, I foresee a future where a lot of tool curation, tool selection, and making sense from all of those tools is needed.
And my question is, am I currently building something that makes sense to solve that?
Another consideration is that normally boring problems are the best to solve because that's where the money is at.
Another interesting tweet that I saw the other day was saying that in the past, at Y Combinator was really the home only of a couple of Stanford grads, they were great at computer science and they were the ones who got to start companies.
But nowadays, at least 95% percent of the code in the startups in YC is already AI generated, meaning that being able to code is less and less important, and it's more about the other things that make a good entrepreneur (eg. industry expertise, insider insights, secret sauce).
Maybe that is something that I should focus on instead.
Do you have a boring problem in your job that needs solving? Let me know, maybe we can chat ;-)
In the mean time, I’ll start thinking (and building)!
🗞️ This week in AI & startup news
Vibe Coding
We may have already heard about it in the last weeks, but Vibe coding is here to stay, and what a cool word isn't it? So, what is Vibe coding really quickly? It is just coding using AI-assisted tools such as Cursor, Windsurf, or even Claude or Bolt, and it just makes coding so much easier for people who don't have technical know-how. Of course, there'll be a lot of mistakes, but it's highly highly increases efficiency and makes it so much easier to build tools which is perfect for entrepreneurs and builders like us. And it's even better than no-code in my opinion because that tends to be very annoying and quite limiting as well. I think Vibe coding is the future. Have you tried it out yet?
Auxia Secures $23.5 Million for AI Marketing Agents
Auxia, a Palo Alto-based startup, raised $23.5 million in funding to enhance its AI agents that personalize consumer shopping experiences. The round was led by VMG Technology Partners, with participation from investors like Google CMO Lorraine Twohill. Auxia's AI streamlines workflows and automates complex tasks across marketing and product teams.
Agent-only jobs: Humans need not apply
We knew it would happen, but it’s crazy it did: A job posting only for AI Agents.
🛠️ Tools!
Tip of the week:
WisprFlow!
I'm actually currently writing this entire newsletter using Wispr Flow. It's a great little tool - it's basically voice-to-text (nothing mind-blowing).
However, it's all built into your MacBook once you install it.
So you just hold down the Fn key and that's it. You talk and it creates the text.
Another great thing is that it uses context so from whatever you're writing at the moment it tries to match your writing style or makes sense of the names or people in the email to reply to and it is so much faster.
It saves me so much time, especially in combination with tools like Cursor to do vibe coding just by voice. It's amazing. It makes life great - you don't have to type or even for using it for ChatGPT or other LLMs so you don't have to write your prompts very elaborately.
You can just do it by voice. They also have a Command Mode where you can select text (e.g., what you just wrote) and Hit Command Mode (fn + cmd) and then do a command. Like, 'Hey, now change this into three paragraphs or change the tone whatever', and it will do that.
I love it, so please install it. It will make your life a lot better.
Want more tools?
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😅 Bonus: Memes
How far since the days that this was really true? I guess its only me now.
Here’s to building wealth.
How do you treat ‘your’ AI?
Thanks for reading!
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I’m a founder, undercover nerd & padel-addict - writing about building FounderStack.ai in public. I’ve launched multiple start-ups since 18, and bootstrapped CORE Global to high six figures. I share my favourite tools, my founder journey and other curated research here, on AI Builds a Business.
Thanks for reading! With love from Indonesia ,
Jon ☀️
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Great update, boring problem, how to get all those people that have no clue about what is coming included en 'transformed' into the future workplace. I would vote for pivot, as you mentioned everyone will constantly create the software that is needed for a specific task or some entertainment
LOVED IT!