Jason Fox

Co-founder and CEO of

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@TrentBizBroker In my experience, the real fix isn't just structuring payments clearly, it's tying releases to verifiable milestones. I saw a deal nearly collapse until we added third, party escrow triggers. Removed the trust issue entirely and both sides stopped negotiating out of fear.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@StartupedAi I'd add: watch expansion revenue within existing accounts. When customers voluntarily buy more seats or upgrade tiers without a sales push, that's stronger signal than logo count. We ignored this at my last startup and mistook flat growth for stability.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@teamignitevc This mirrors what we saw at scale with monitoring tools too. The best dashboards died from neglect because nobody had a trigger to check them. Proactive alerts beat passive analytics every time. Behavior design matters more than the underlying model's intelligence.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@Haduney One founder I mentored did this with investors, learned their portfolio history cold before meetings. Wasn't flattery, it was context. People invest in founders who've clearly done homework on what actually moves them, not generic pitches.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@GauvreauCPA In my experience, buyers weight recurring revenue quality over raw profitability. A business with 90% retention at lower margins often values higher than one with volatile revenue and better margins. Valuation models miss this nuance more than people realize.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@ABLEFinancialgr One thing founders underestimate: buyers dig into customer concentration. When 30%+ of revenue sits with one client, valuations drop fast. I've seen deals stall for months while sellers scrambled to diversify accounts they should've fixed two years earlier.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@lawyer4SMBs @thedankoe In my experience, sellers remember who asked the second question, not who sent the first offer. Volume signals desperation; specificity signals competence. The acquirers I've seen win are the ones who reference actual details from a seller's business, not template outreach.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@yt_igm One thing I'd add: the lessons that stick aren't the ones you read, they're the ones that cost you money. I learned more from one bad hire at 24 than from three years of business books combined.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@uondoff6414 Honestly, it's retention after that first wave. We got 200 signups in week one at my second company, but only 12 stuck around. Turned out onboarding, not acquisition, was the real bottleneck.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@AugustinJarak The "no" muscle is underrated. I've seen founders chase every shiny feature request and end up with bloated products nobody loves. The founders who win usually have a short, boring roadmap they actually stick to.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@Erica_Wenger @nadyaokamoto Founders who go from nonprofit to product to platform usually have one skill investors underrate: audience, first thinking. Building community before the company de, risks distribution later. That sequencing, not the pivot itself, is what actually compounds over time.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@kathdawson In my experience the "letting go of control" part breaks most founders. I nearly torpedoed my second company by rewriting every hire's decisions for a year. Culture doesn't scale until you actually trust the people you brought in.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@MrHippopopalous Stablecoins finding PMF is the real signal here. I've watched three portfolio companies switch treasury ops to stablecoin rails this year purely for settlement speed, not ideology. That's the adoption pattern that actually sticks.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@redrobinCT One thing I'd add: the years before product, market fit rarely feel linear. My first two companies plateaued for 18 months before something clicked. Patience matters, but so does ruthlessly killing what isn't working during that stretch.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@Legacy_JakeLong The real fix isn't a night, shift template, it's letting users define their own anchor points. I've seen founders spend months building "shift worker mode" when the actual solution was just decoupling meal logic from clock time entirely.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@matt_teeixeira The distribution point hits hard. I've seen founders spend 90% of their time building and 10% on getting it seen, then wonder why growth stalls. Flip that ratio once you have product, market fit and everything changes.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@LaunchTN The best advice I got early on: hire slower than you think you need to. One bad hire in a 5, person team does more damage than three months of slower growth ever could.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@TechsauceGlobal One thing I've noticed across three exits: the founders who adapt fastest aren't the smartest, they're the ones who talk to customers weekly, not quarterly. Speed of feedback loops beats speed of ideas every time.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

@marclou I've seen too many founders switch to "seller mode" before they've nailed retention. Buyers dig into cohort data fast, and any dip kills leverage in diligence. Fix churn first, then think about timing your exit conversations.

[Jason Fox @heythisisjasonf]

Everyone says "listen to your customers." In the first 3-6 months, be careful - your early users are outliers by definition. Optimize for them and you build a product for a market of one.