kevinjlu.eth 🐧🐧

rebuilding

[kevinjlu.eth 🐧🐧 @kevinjlu]

@iamfakeguru @threadreaderapp unroll

[kevinjlu.eth 🐧🐧 @kevinjlu]

@JasCrypto_ nothing was thoughtful about 1) what

[kevinjlu.eth 🐧🐧 @kevinjlu]

1) what

[Gidwell @gidwell]

Why do we pretend Monad is a crypto superpower when numbers say otherwise?

Sui (the biggest Move blockchain) is worth 4000% MORE than your overhyped VC chain

Crypto prices don't lie

Maybe if Monad spent less time on creating hype and more time building real products, they wouldn't be destroyed by Move tech

Never been more bullish on Sui

[kevinjlu.eth 🐧🐧 @kevinjlu]

@0xbeans so bottom line is everyone is retarded

[kevinjlu.eth 🐧🐧 @kevinjlu]

@simonch00 lets go for a walk together

[0xBeans @0xbeans]

whoever is selling, your moms a hoe

[vittorio @IterIntellectus]

men want this
women want this
every normal person throughout history has wanted this

only people who’ve been brainwashed or that have their hormones fucked up think this is wrong.

[Weffrey Jellington @jeffwellz]

Peak male experiences :

1. Finally understanding your Father
2. Owning your first car
3. Accepting the man in the mirror
4. Randomly realizing this is the woman you will marry
5. Becoming successful with your childhood friends
6. Sports team winning a title
7. First heartbreak
8. Watching your kid grow
9. Giving back to your parents
10. Ending imposter syndrome

[Jeson Lee @thejesonlee]

the hardest part about being a male founder..

in my experience is finding a girlfriend / partner that understands the short term gains that we are forgoing and the long-term optimization game that we are playing.

most women expect to have most dates paid for, their vacations covered and their partner to have the time and emotional bandwidth to support them. somebody they see as a reliable provider. this is completely understandable.

but as founders, every dollar saved is additional runway for the company. we budget down to the cent because our life’s work depends on it. every 100-hour work week slightly increases the odds of success. at this stage of life, we’re both cash-poor and time-poor — betting everything on the hope that one day, it all works out. that one day, we’ll be sitting on generational wealth — the kind most men only dream about.

even for women who understand that they might be investing in their man long-term , it’s hard not to compare. their friends are dating guys with high-paying tech jobs, who work from 10 to 3 and can afford to give them a luxury experience now, not later. optimizing for the short term is human nature — it’s hard to fight against.

to all the girlfriends out there dating early-stage founders — you’re the real ones.

and to all my fellow founders: may you find your person while you still have nothing. Because that’s the only time you’ll know she’s with you for who you are, not what you have.

[kevinjlu.eth 🐧🐧 @kevinjlu]

as long as the dice is still rolling, you will get your 6

[kevinjlu.eth 🐧🐧 @kevinjlu]

g @monad

[Djani @DjaniWhaleSkul]

Just read Kevin’s post about Ai-Mi shutting down, and honestly it might be one of the most real founder write-ups I’ve seen in Web3.

Three years, three pivots, over $1M of founder money, no salaries, no reimbursements. From Friendzone → Blast → Ai-Mi on Abstract, they kept pushing until the runway ran out. But instead of disappearing, Kevin laid everything out what worked, what failed, what he misread, and what he learned.

He owned every mistake: slow pivots, identity tied to the product, over-engineering before PMF, poor communication when things got tough. The biggest line for me was:

When you’re in survival mode, you’re not building something people love you’re just buying time.

The honesty is rare. Most founders just vanish or write vague thanks for the memories posts. This one reads like a proper post-mortem transparent, painful but good.

What do you all think should more founders share stories like this publicly, even when it hurts? Or do you think full transparency like this can hurt future chances to raise and build again?

[Ai-Mi @aimi_xyz]

AIMI Wind Down Announcement
To our community: Thank you for believing in AIMI's vision and supporting us on this journey.

Unfortunately, AIMI has run out of operational funding and we can no longer continue business or maintenance activities. Platform services will cease on November 4, 2025.

🧵 Full details below:

[kevinjlu.eth 🐧🐧 @kevinjlu]

Ai-Mi is shutting down. We've run out of operational funding and can't continue.

I want to share the full journey with you - three years, three pivots, over $1M of founder capital that Andy and I put in (never paying ourselves a salary or reimbursing expenses), and the lessons that came with it.
Here's the journey, what I learned, and why I'm more prepared than ever for what's next.

The Full Journey
This started in late 2021. Not with Ai-Mi, not even with Friendzone. Andy and I spent 2022-2023 building a talent academy and placement program with Hana Securities and our friends at Trinity Venture Studios. We were focused on bridging traditional finance and Web3 talent.

By late 2023, after conversations with mentors we respected, we decided to pivot back into building Web3 products directly. We knew we could create more impact building the platforms ourselves rather than just helping others build.

Friendzone - February 2024
We launched on Polygon. Hit 10,000 users in weeks. Got coverage in Coindesk and Cryptoslate.

But we couldn't sustain momentum. The SocialFi mechanics we built on a product level weren't retentative - and the wider narrative around SocialFi itself - both fizzled out. Users churned fast.

Looking back, we didn't understand our users deeply enough. We built what we thought was cool, not what people actually wanted to use daily. We should have talked to more users, iterated faster, and recognized the weak signals earlier.

That's on us.

Blast - Q1 2024
We won Mobile Big Bang. Rebuilt the entire product for mobile-first. This felt like our second chance. Shoutout to Sao <3

We raised a small extension from people we look up to - Dingaling and Jaden - who believed in us as people, not just the product. But by end of Q1, we were funding operations ourselves again.

Still, we were burning through runway consistently looking to achieve the traction needed.

Ai-Mi - Abstract
We rebuilt and repositioned the product specifically to support Abstract's vision. We believed deeply in what the Abstract team was building and wanted to be part of that ecosystem.

Most of you probably found me during this chapter. We launched - thousands of agents created, millions in trading volume, 10K+ unique users. The product worked. The infrastructure was solid.

But we were seeing a pattern from before: volumes declining, engagement dropping, revenue not covering operations. Our TGE and working with the best Abstract communities was our last attempt to turn things around with the funding we had. It wasn't enough.

It was during this period that I finally recognized the pattern: since early 2024, we'd been in constant survival mode. Every decision was about how to survive another month, not how to create lasting value.

When you're in survival mode, you're not building something people love. You're just buying time. That's not a winning strategy.

What I Got Wrong
Speed. I didn't move fast enough when things weren't working. Each pivot could have happened months earlier if I'd been honest about the signals.

Identity attachment. I put my name and face at the forefront. That made failure feel personal instead of professional. When things got hard, I couldn't separate my identity from the company's performance.

Conviction vs. delusion. I stayed too convicted to ideas that weren't working. Conviction is good, but not when it blinds you to reality.

Team building. I hired fast, too fast. Should have stayed skeleton crew until we had real traction.

Vision. I was too romantic about the original vision instead of pivoting on weak signals.

Fundraising. I kept rolling the cap table forward through pivots, afraid to admit one company failed and start fresh. Should have wound down cleanly and started new companies with clean terms. You can trust your investors' understanding of risk.

Transparency. I didn't communicate challenges clearly enough or often enough. That created information gaps that hurt everyone.

Product. Overengineered for scale instead of duct-taping until product-market fit. Waited for perfect instead of shipping broken and iterating.

Recruiting. Recruited on vision and potential instead of waiting for traction and momentum.

Runway. Let it get too low before addressing it. Should have been thinking about next round at 12 months, not 3.

What I'm Taking Forward
These aren't just lessons. They're life lessons that I would've died for when I first came into Web3 - that changes how I'll build everything from now on.

Move faster. Recognize patterns earlier. Kill ideas that aren't working. Pivot on weak signals, not after burning months of runway.

Less ego. More honesty. Especially with myself about what's actually working versus what I want to work.

Clean operations. Skeleton teams. Duct tape until PMF. Ship broken and iterate. Clean cap tables. Clear terms. No baggage carried forward.

Radical transparency. Better communication. Addressing problems at 12 months runway, not 3.

Most importantly: Build for value creation first, survival second.

When you're building to survive, you're already losing. When you're building to create value, survival takes care of itself.

Hungrier Now Than Ever
This public failure has given me something most founders don't get: complete clarity on what not to do.

I know exactly where I went wrong. I know exactly what I'd do differently. And I know that the next thing we build will be better because we lived through this.

The chip on my shoulder from this journey isn't about proving others wrong. It's about proving to myself that I learned.

What Drives Me
My purpose has always been about creating impact that changes lives for the better. Not building products that get used. Using products as a vehicle to genuinely add value to someone's life in a meaningful way.

That's the work worth doing. That's the legacy worth building.

I didn't achieve that with Ai-Mi. But I will achieve it with what comes next because I now know what it takes.

About Andy & I
@andyteecf and I have been best friends for 14 years. We've built everything together. Over these three years, we put in over $1M of our own capital as co-founders. We never paid ourselves a salary. Never reimbursed ourselves for flights, expenses, or anything else. We believed that deeply in what we were building.

This didn't work out, but it hasn't changed our partnership.

We built Ai-Mi with complete integrity. Never took shortcuts. Never compromised our values. Never gave up until we absolutely had to.

When we build the next thing - and we will - we'll bring all these lessons with us. That's worth more than the capital we invested.

What's Next
First, I'm taking time to process this properly. Inner work. Rebuilding - both confidence and financially.

One thing I realized: as a co-founder, you're a visionary. But how do you paint a vision and measure if you're heading in the right direction when you can't even see where you're headed?

I'm grateful to have incredible people around me from 8 years in Web3. Catching up with friends, investing more deeply in those relationships - that's a priority now.

Being based in Sydney, Australia makes that harder, but it's not an excuse.

I'm also digging deep into on-chain consumer behavior and macro trends. We're undergoing a massive shift in Web3 - it's becoming more institutionalized, harder for dApps to make sustainable impact. I'm looking at where people put their money where their mouth is.

The intersection between liquidity, attention, and genuine value creation. Then, back to building. Different. Better. Faster. Clearer.

The next thing will be different because it has to be. These lessons demand it.

To everyone who supported Ai-Mi: thank you. You deserved better outcomes.

To our investors: I'm sorry we didn't deliver. You took a risk on us.

To the @AbstractChain team: Thank you for the support and belief @Phin_totten @rajpatel. You have something special @0xbeans @LucaNetz .

To our team: Thank you for believing and executing. You deserved better leadership.

Failure isn't the end. It's a foundation.
Three years. Three pivots. One wind down. And one founder who's now better equipped to build what actually matters.

I'm not done. Not even close.
-- Kevin

[kevinjlu.eth 🐧🐧 @kevinjlu]

@cozypront ser please share how to find this alpha

[kevinjlu.eth 🐧🐧 @kevinjlu]

@Phin_totten @Kalshi @gacha_game_ @xeetdotai sir, you forgot about shooting

[Ai-Mi @aimi_xyz]

🚨 $AIMI TGE is LIVE 🚨

Everything changes from here on.
✅ Claim your Season #1 Airdrop
✅ Earn from bonding curve fees with veAIMI
✅ Earn from 1% trading volume fees from $AGENT
✅ ALL graduated tokens bond with $AIMI

[kevinjlu.eth 🐧🐧 @kevinjlu]

@whenlamboBU @aimi_xyz Hey BU, check DMs. If things regarding the points checker, we have confirmed this multiple times on discord

[GemHUB_Protocol @GemHUB_Protocol]

🚀 Newly listed on Coinone (Top Korean Exchange),
SocialFi platform Gemhub ($GHUB) is launching Multichain with a major community announcement at KBW Side Event (Seoul, Gangnam) 🇰🇷✨

Joining alongside top-tier global Web3 & blockchain companies!
👉 Don’t miss it: https://t.co/zGAIg21DKU

#GHUB #Coinone #SocialFi #KBW2025 #Crypto #Web3

[kevinjlu.eth 🐧🐧 @kevinjlu]

@FyleTJX @arcthecommunity dont worry, ill gladly take it off you if you wish hehehe