Founder Weekly (Issue 707 November 5 2025)

In partnership with

Welcome to issue 707 of Founder Weekly. Let's get straight to the links this week.

Don’t get SaaD. Get Rippling.

Disconnected software creates what we call SaaD, or Software as a Disservice: wasted time, duplicate work, and stalled momentum. From onboarding checklists to reconciling expenses, SaaD slows every team down.

Rippling is the cure. With one system of record, you can update employee data once,and it syncs everywhere: payroll, benefits, expenses, devices, and apps.

Leaders gain real-time visibility. Teams regain lost hours. Employees get the seamless experience they deserve .

That’s why companies like Barry’s and Forterra turned to Rippling – to replace sprawl with speed and clarity.

It’s time to stop paying for inefficiency.

Don’t get SaaD. Get Rippling.

Stop SaaD in its tracks

General

The Real Moat in Deep Tech

In deep tech, the biggest moat isn’t your patents or algorithms. It’s your learning velocity. Breakthroughs fade. Knowledge spreads. What separates the great deep tech companies from the rest is how fast they learn, adapt, and turn insight into advantage.

Good News For Startups: Enterprise Is Bad At AI

The video explains that 95% of enterprise AI projects fail because big companies struggle to build effective AI products internally. However, startups succeed by creating practical AI solutions that deeply integrate with business processes, filling a gap that enterprises cannot bridge on their own.

When Should You Stop Clinging to Product and Hire Your First PM? Advice From a Founder and CPO

Saumil Mehta outlines a framework for early-stage founders on timing the first product manager hire.

We raised $2.5M for a database gateway and failed: Postmortem

Quesma was founded in October 2023 to build a database gateway and raised $2.5M quickly, but ultimately failed due to incompatible co-founders, mistaking validation for urgency, and being perceived more as a feature than a standalone product. The technology was acquired by their biggest customer, Hydrolix, and the team pivoted to continue their startup journey.

Marketing, Sales and PR

How to Earn LLM Citations to Build Traffic & Authority

Learn what makes content citable, which factors matter most, and how to optimize for ChatGPT, Perplexity, and more.

Traffic is no longer a reliable growth metric

How Webflow is adapting to AI search, which converts 6x better than Google.

Money and Finance

Philz Coffee: When Venture Capital Leaves Nothing for the Little Guy

Read about Philz Coffee’s journey and how the mechanics of venture capital led many employees to buy into a dream only to watch it dissolve into nothing.

The Taste Stack: How We Pick Winning Consumer Brands Before the Data Proves It

Why cultural intelligence beats financial analysis in early-stage consumer investing.

The Board Meeting Blueprint

How to Lead Investors, Structure Decisions, and Run Your Board Like an Operator.