Founder Weekly (Issue 719 February 18 2026)

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Welcome to issue 719 of Founder Weekly. Let's get straight to the links this week.

Ship the message as fast as you think

Founders spend too much time drafting the same kinds of messages. Wispr Flow turns spoken thinking into final-draft writing so you can record investor updates, product briefs, and run-of-the-mill status notes by voice. Use saved snippets for recurring intros, insert calendar links by voice, and keep comms consistent across the team. It preserves your tone, fixes punctuation, and formats lists so you send confident messages fast. Works on Mac, Windows, and iPhone. Try Wispr Flow for founders.

Start flowing free

General

The Opening, Midgame and Endgame in Startups

Why the best founders are “time travelers” who play all three phases simultaneously.

The Lighthouse Playbook

How today's founders make friends and influence people.

Who Gets to Eat?

The piece argues that collapsing costs of AI intelligence are expanding total market value but also commoditizing core services, putting pressure on startups that simply resell cheap AI without durable competitive advantages. It says the real winners in Vertical AI will be companies that build deep defensibility by embedding closely into customer operations rather than competing on price alone.

Marketing, Sales and PR

We stopped forcing the subscription model on our users. Here is what happened.

How and why Lovable introduced ‘top-up’-style monetization.

10 Quick GTM Fixes You Can Ship This Week

The article lists ten practical go-to-market improvements that teams can implement rapidly to boost adoption and conversion, such as clarifying pricing, tightening onboarding flows, and aligning messaging across channels. It emphasizes low-effort, high-impact changes that fix common GTM bottlenecks without major product rewrites.

Money and Finance

2026 Tech Private Markets Analysis

And how you can use private markets to inform your career.

State of the Markets H1 2026

The SVB "State of the Markets H1 2026" report highlights a "tale of two venture industries," where near-record total investment ($340B in 2025) is heavily concentrated in AI mega-deals while traditional early-stage fundraising remains difficult. It notes that the revenue benchmarks for startups to graduate to the next round have reached all-time highs, even as top-quartile growth rates have been cut in half since 2021.