Founder Weekly (Issue 685 May 14 2025)

Welcome to issue 685 of Founder Weekly. Let's get straight to the links this week.

Small Budget, Big Impact: Outsmart Your Larger Competitors

Being outspent doesn't mean being outmarketed. Our latest resource showcases 15 small businesses that leveraged creativity instead of cash to achieve remarkable marketing wins against much larger competitors.

• Proven techniques for standing out in crowded markets without massive budgets

• Tactical approaches that turn resource constraints into competitive advantages

• Real-world examples of small teams creating outsized market impact

Ready to level the playing field? Download now to discover the exact frameworks these brands used to compete and win.

Download now for free here.

General

Why Bell Labs Worked.

Or, how MBA culture killed Bell Labs.

The Unsung Ingredient in Stripe, Square and Linear’s Success: Taste

Tactical advice for weaving craft into your product and operationalizing taste.

The Explore/Exploit Framework for Startups

How to balance action and uncertainty in the early stages of building a company.

Indie developers may save the video game industry from itself

From garage coders to Steam sensations, generations of independent creators have used the latest technologies to change how we play games.

When Software Buys Software

Software was built for humans. Now it’s being chosen by machines.

Artificial Intelligence Index Report 2025

The 2025 AI Index Report by Stanford HAI highlights AI's rapid advancements, with models surpassing human performance in various benchmarks and a significant 280-fold reduction in inference costs since 2022. Concurrently, the report underscores rising concerns over AI governance, noting 233 reported incidents in 2024, including misinformation during elections, emphasizing the urgent need for robust oversight.

Marketing, Sales and PR

Inside a high velocity sales-assisted GTM motion

How Pylon closes up to 30 deals per sales rep each month.

9 Early Metrics That Predict PLG Success (and How to Track Them)

Ben Yoskovitz and Ben Williams identify nine early metrics—such as Time-to-Value, Activation Rate, and Free-to-Paid Conversion—that serve as leading indicators of success in product-led growth (PLG) models. These metrics help teams assess product-market fit and guide iterative improvements before scaling.

Money and Finance

In 2025, venture capital can’t pretend everything is fine any more

Venture capital in 2025 is in crisis, with most sectors stagnating and AI being the sole focus—primarily centered on OpenAI, which has attracted a significant portion of funding. The industry faces systemic issues, including the end of the zero-interest-rate era and limited exit opportunities, leading to a precarious reliance on a single company for returns.

The Downside of Secondaries

How secondary transactions are sneakily costing you lots of money.