Founder Weekly (Issue 699 September 10 2025)

Welcome to issue 699 of Founder Weekly. Let's get straight to the links this week.

100 Genius Side Hustle Ideas

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General

AI Startup Prompt Library

Copy. Customize. Accelerate your startup journey with expert-built prompts designed for real founders.

The decade of centicorns: why scaling to $100B is the new normal

The article explains that AI is making intelligence abundant and cheap, enabling startups to aim for $100 billion valuations called "centicorns" instead of just unicorns. By leveraging superintelligent agents and minimal teams, these AI-native startups will create new use cases, converge traditional roles, disrupt organizational structures, accelerate growth, and redefine success benchmarks, positioning themselves to outperform incumbents in impact and value creation.

Your target market isn’t demographic

How to define your actual target market, which probably isn’t traditional demographics and firmographics.

A PM's Guide to AI Agent Architecture: Why Capability Doesn't Equal Adoption

A complete guide to agent architecture, orchestration patterns, trust strategies, and adoption plans for PMs building AI agents.

AI will change how we build startups -- but how?

AI will change the way we build startups, but exactly how remains unclear. It accelerates building when you already know your vision and plan, but won’t substitute for clarity on what to build or how.

Marketing, Sales and PR

How to Launch Your Startup Out of Stealth, from Figma's First Marketer

Claire Butler joined Figma six months before its public launch and helped bring the design product out into the world. Here, she defangs the launch process, outlining all the steps you need to take to get ready now.

Build a Cold Email Scorecard in Less Than 15 Minutes with ChatGPT

Use ChatGPT to create a self-service checklist your SDRs will actually use.

Pricing the AI Workforce: From Pilots to Real Revenue

The article discusses how AI is transforming pricing strategies, emphasizing that traditional models no longer suffice and new approaches must be crafted from first principles. It introduces a matrix framework (autonomy × attribution) to help AI companies choose pricing models, highlights the importance of designing pilots that demonstrate measurable value, and cautions that while pricing innovation can disrupt incumbents, sustained defensibility comes from deeper moats like network effects and brand.

Why everyone’s switching to AI credits

OpenAI and Salesforce aren’t the first to introduce credit-based pricing, but they’ll make it much easier for you to do it.

Money and Finance

We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us

The Mind-Virus of Big Venture has become a Pandemic.

When Should Founders Sell Their Shares? And How Much?

Learnings from Revolut, Databricks, Stripe, Klarna & More.