Founder Weekly (Issue 700 September 17 2025)

Welcome to issue 700 of Founder Weekly. Let's get straight to the links this week.

Marketing ideas for marketers who hate boring

The best marketing ideas come from marketers who live it. That’s what The Marketing Millennials delivers: real insights, fresh takes, and no fluff. Written by Daniel Murray, a marketer who knows what works, this newsletter cuts through the noise so you can stop guessing and start winning. Subscribe and level up your marketing game.

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General

AI Will Not Make You Rich

Most of AI’s economic gains will accrue to consumers and established tech giants, not entrepreneurs or investors, because of rapid competition and consolidation. The best opportunities will be in companies that apply AI to improve productivity and reduce costs in fragmented, knowledge-intensive sectors, rather than in model building or pure AI startups.

$46B of hard truths: Why founders fail and why you need to run toward fear

a16z’s co-founder on why he takes CEO advice from an ex–prison gang leader, the $2M IPO everyone called insane, why he backed Adam Neumann, and how hip-hop teaches business better than an MBA.

The Vertical AI Playbook

The Vertical AI Playbook explains that successful AI adoption depends on embedding AI into workflows and owning the service layer where value is created. It identifies three strategic paths for companies: selling software to incumbents, buying and modernizing operators, or building new AI-native businesses, with capital allocation and operational discipline being critical to long-term success.

Is Your Startup Idea Any Good? Borrow These Validation Tactics from the Founders of Linear, Mercury and More

The article highlights unconventional tactics for validating startup ideas, emphasizing the importance of intentional customer conversations and alternative validation methods like minimum viable tests, undercover research, and cold outreach to avoid biased feedback. Founders also gain valuable insights by pitching ideas to other founders to test idea conviction and uncover potential challenges beyond typical customer validation.

Marketing, Sales and PR

Inside Replit’s Breakout Growth: Lessons from $2.8M to $150M ARR

Replit grew from $2.8M to $150M ARR in less than one year by combining product-led growth, rapid and disciplined shipping velocity, and marketing systems that amplified community energy. Key tactics included segmented lifecycle marketing tied to in-product usage, repeatable launch frameworks, and leveraging founder-led organic buzz to drive sustainable, compounding growth.

Do you need a GTM engineer?

The article explains that while the GTM (Go-to-Market) Engineer role is gaining attention as a blend of automation, data analysis, and systems thinking to optimize growth, actual hiring of such specialists remains rare and difficult. Instead of hiring a dedicated GTM engineer, startups are advised to build GTM engineering capabilities through outsourcing, upskilling existing teams, and leveraging AI and automation tools to create scalable, automated GTM systems.

SaaS Whale Hunting: Scaling Around $1 Million Average ACV

The article discusses targeting large enterprise customers ("whales") in SaaS by providing deeply integrated, mission-critical solutions that justify high average contract values. It emphasizes the need for specialized sales and customer success strategies to manage complex procurement processes, regulatory compliance, and long-term relationships essential for scaling in this high-value segment.

Money and Finance

10 Myths About Raising a Series A (and the Reality Behind Them)

Most founders walk into Series A fundraising with a playbook full of myths. They think $1M ARR guarantees a round. They think valuation is the goal. They think a big logo on the term sheet solves everything. The truth is very different.

The Deadly Sin of BURNING Money

The article warns that excessive spending ahead of achieving product-market fit or a repeatable sales model is the most common founder mistake that kills startups. It advises founders to be scrappy, disciplined capital stewards who prioritize unlocking growth and sustainable sales over reckless spending and constant fundraising.