namhoang

Build something in 🇻🇳. Maker. Eater. Bookaholic. Coffee lover.

[Noah Kagan @noahkagan]

Marc Andreessen: 281+ investments, 21 unicorns (7%)
Chris Sacca: 80+ investments, 6 unicorns (7.5%)
Peter Thiel: 112+ investments, 10 unicorns (9%)

Over 90% of their bets don’t hit big.

Meanwhile, you try 1 startup and quit forever…

[John Rush @johnrush]

Stop telling you can’t afford bootstrapping:

1. Work for someone for 5 years , eat sh*t, share a room with a friend, save $250k
2. Marry someone, make kids, move to a cost efficient location to live on $2k/mo (10 years runway)
3. Build internet startups for 10 years solo, being fully remote
4. Maybe you gonna make it on your 10th attempt.
5. Even if you fail them all, you’ll be pretty skilled to find a great job, and at least you tried and you know that entrepreneurship isn’t for you.

That simple.

[GREG ISENBERG @gregisenberg]

the optimal startup team in 2025 is 5 people.

1 engineer. 1 designer. 1 product lead. 1 growth lead. 1 ops person

that's it.

the engineer starts the day in Cursor. they paste in a product idea, and Cursor instantly generates the scaffolding. they edit inline with AI, refactor entire files with a single prompt, and navigate the repo by chatting with it. debugging feels like pair programming. documentation is auto-generated. by EOD, the idea is live. no waiting, team is stoked.

the designer doesn’t stop at Figma. they write the copy, shape the brand, talk to users, and launch prototypes in V0/Replit. sometimes they skip the handoff entirely. vibe coding is real, and it’s fast.

the product lead jumps between defining success metrics, community building, replying to support tickets, and building the strategy/tactics to build a big company. they are the glue.

growth lead is a mix of creative and technical. they are vibe marketing by hiring agents, setting up analytics, rewriting landing pages, testing distribution ideas, finding creators to work with and coming up with outlandish ideas to get people on social to stop scrolling on social and "look at me".

ops runs the quiet layer under everything. contracts, support, tools, hiring, money. no chaos. just speed.

you don’t feel the size of the team. you feel the surface area.

ai is everywhere, it's the co-founder to everyone on the team but in the background. it writes, supports, designs, scouts, and summarizes. no meetings about what to do. just people doing it.

instagram sold for $1B with 13 people.
the next $1B company will get there with 5.

this is how it plays out now.

not theoretical. not future.

already happening.

[John Rush @johnrush]

It’s a first time founder,
just don’t do this:

- b2c
- Quit your main job to go all in with your startup
- Expect to make profits in your first 3 years
- Look for cofounder
- Build before you validated the idea
- Waste time designing your landing page
- Outsource
- Hire
- build and hope you’ll just pay for traffic once released
- try to make it prefect
- Move to SF
- Build 12 projects in 12 months
- be hype driven and jump from one shiny object to another
- Learn from coursebois who never successfully applied their own advice

Do this instead
- keep your main job or part time job to pay your bills
- Live cost efficient life
- Start with simple challenge first, e.g. a web directory or a micro saas
- Validate your idea first (by cold DMing or by building an Audience first)
- Don’t hire, try to do it all by yourself, even if you fail, it’ll be easie to hire people for this job later since you’ve tried
- Don’t chase cofounders, finding one is as difficult as finding a good wife. If it happens, good; but don’t depend on it, go solo
- Use nocode for your marketing website, it’ll simplify the marketing, e.g. @unicornplatform works with @seobotai out of the box. But if you handcode your site, you can’t easily connect SEO and marketing tools to it
- instead of outsourcing the whole thing, outsource fixed priced small gigs
- Focus on organic marketing channels until you see it converts well and only then go for paid
- Focus on one product for at least one year. (don’t do 2 or more products simultaneously)
- learn from people who have achieved what you wanna achieve
- see it as a marathon, up to 10 or even 20 years

[namhoang @namhoangmn]

Vibe of the “job”

[GREG ISENBERG @gregisenberg]

Remember how VIBE CODING (replit, bolt, lovable) transformed 8-week development cycles into 2-day sprints? The same 20x acceleration is hitting marketing teams RIGHT NOW

It's called VIBE MARKETING (I'll explain what it all means).

The old world - marketing teams with 10+ specialists - copywriters, designers, analytics people, media buyers - all working in silos, drowning in meetings and Slack threads, taking weeks (and thousands of dollars) to launch anything.

The new world - a single smart marketer with AI agents and workflows testing TONS of marketing angles in real-time with hundreds of AI agents running the show launching in days not weeks.

I'm seeing stuff that sounds like science fiction:

• A CRM that autonomously finds prospects, analyzes their content, extracts data, and crafts personalized messages - all from a browser extension

• A tool that captures competitor ads, analyzes them, and auto-generates variations for your brand (free competitive intelligence)

• A system that runs IG giveaways automatically, from entry to winner selection

• A service company that built an AI-driven map showing customer segments and conversion flows using census data

• A platform that literally generates entire digital product launches - sales pages, VSLs, email sequences, ads - in 24 hours

I got introduced to vibe marketing via my co-founder @boringmarketer. You can follow him for all things vibe marketing in your feed. Our holdco will be investing ~$1M+ (of our own personal money, not VC cash!!) into vibe marketing tools because we're so bullish through @boringmarketer.

"Vibe marketing" is happening because 3 things converged at once:

1) AI got good enough at marketing tasks
2) Vibe coding tools made automation accessible to non-engineers
3) Custom tool-building costs collapsed

The cool thing is a single marketer with the right stack can now outperform entire agencies or internal team. The leverage is absurd.

This fires me up. Because there is an arbitrage opportunity right now to be 10x more efficient than the competition. That means more engagement, better ads, more automation if you play your cards right.

Where is this heading?

Marketing teams are going hybrid - humans handle strategy and creativity; AI agents handle execution and optimization.

We'll see thousands of specialized micro-tools built for specific niches. Not big platforms, but purpose-built tools that do one thing exceptionally well.

The winners will build systems that work across channels, continuously testing and adapting without human input. Set it up once, then watch it improve itself.

Want to get started? A few tools worth playing with…

• Workflow Builders: Make, n8n, Zapier
• Agent Platforms: Taskade, Manus, Relay, Lindy,
• Software (lead magnets, microsites etc): Replit, Bolt, Lovable etc
• Marketing AI: Phantom Buster, mosaic, Meshr, Icon, Jasper etc etc
• Creative tools: Flora, Kling, Leonardo, Manus etc etc

What are you building in this space? I want to hear about the tools and workflows you're creating. Granted, it’s early days. But, vibe coding was early days a year ago and look at it now.

This is a complete paradigm shift in how marketing works.

In 12 months, the gap between companies using vibe marketing and those still doing things the old way will be as obvious as the gap between companies with websites and those without in 1998.

While everyone was distracted by AI's impact on software, marketing departments are being replaced by single marketers with the right AI stack.

The $250 billion marketing industry is about to change forever. Vibe coding just demolished software development costs. Now vibe marketing is doing the same to marketing teams.

VIBE MARKETING IS THE NEW MARKETING.

[Andrew Wilkinson @awilkinson]

The Brutal Truth No Entrepreneur Wants to Admit

You're probably doing it all wrong.

There are two types of entrepreneurs: Talkers and Doers.

I spent 15 years fighting the truth before I finally admitted it to myself.

I'm a talker.

And chances are, you might be too.

As a talker, your superpower is vision. You see possibilities others don't. You inspire. You strategize. You connect with people.

But here's the uncomfortable truth: you're probably terrible at execution.

Your brain isn't wired for it.

Sure, you can force yourself to execute when deadlines loom, but you drift into rabbit holes, chase shiny objects, and secretly resent the mundane work that actually builds businesses.

The most painful lesson I've learned as a successful entrepreneur?

Accept your limitations or watch your business suffer.

It took me 15 years to surrender – to accept that I shouldn't touch 99% of what happens in my company. My only responsibilities should be strategy, capital allocation, key people, and storytelling.

Everything else I touch turns to chaos.

The wake-up call came last year during our Entrepreneur's Operating System (EOS) implementation. As we mapped out responsibilities, I kept volunteering for tasks.

Our implementer finally stopped me cold:

"No Andrew, you're what we call the 'visionary'. The visionary shouldn't be responsible for any key processes or roles within the company."

It felt like a public execution of my ego.

But after weeks of seeing the system work without my interference, I embraced this "cheesy" title and something magical happened.

I'm at my best dreaming up vision and strategy. Setting culture. Choosing the right people. But I've never been a strong executor – and accepting this limitation was my breakthrough.

This revelation is the hardest pill any entrepreneur will ever swallow.

But god, has leaning into it changed everything.

I finally have a machine.

I invented it. I own it. But I am not a part of it.

I tweak it and maintain it. I decide what to do with what it generates. I am the engineer, not the technician.

My journey required a little ego death at each stage:

Year 1: Realized I needed systems just to function (GTD by David Allen)

Year 2: Admitted I couldn't do every task and started delegating (The E Myth by Michael Gerber)

Year 5: Stopped hiring individuals and started hiring leaders who could build teams ("Hire 1 To Hire 10")

Year 7: Delegated the entire company to a CEO who outperformed me

Year 10: Shifted from operator to owner

Year 15: Found myself doing tasks I hated again in the holding company (managing CEOs, investor relations, operational improvements)

Year 19: Hired a CEO for Tiny and narrowed my focus to only what I do best (dealflow, storytelling, vision/strategy, key people/culture)

With each surrender, I went from dreading my workday to rediscovering the joy that made me start businesses in the first place.

I'm now more engaged and effective than ever – but only after letting my ego take a brutal beating.

If any of this hits too close to home, you have a choice to make.

Continue the exhausting charade of being "good at everything" or embrace your true strengths and build systems around your weaknesses.

I recommend starting with Entrepreneur's Operating System (EOS). I can recommend a great implementer if you email me :-)

Your business is waiting for you to get out of its way.

[Denislav Jeliazkov @DenisJeliazkov]

I'm obsessed with design.

I've spent 6 years breaking down HUNDREDS of apps — and @Airbnb sets the gold standard for UI.

Here’s why it’s one of the cleanest, most user-friendly apps in the world (and what you can learn from it) 🧵

[lynk @lynk0x]

Real

[Kyle Anthony Miller @kyleanthony]

Beautiful new websites that have dropped recently

[John Rush @johnrush]

If only someone told me this before my 1st startup:

1. Validate.
I wasted at least 5 years building stuff nobody needed.

2. Kill your EGO.
Make your users happy instead of yourself.

3. Don’t chaise investors; chase users, and then investors will chase you.

4...

[GREG ISENBERG @gregisenberg]

my notes on getting rich and finding peace, in 1 page

[namhoang @namhoangmn]

True

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

Everyone needs to hear this…

[Silent Strength @SilentStrengtth]

I came across a book that said:👇💯🔥

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

The Complete Formula for Getting Lucky:

[Nikunj Kothari @nikunj]

First time founder focuses on product / second time founder focuses on distribution is common lore.

But, here are some other notes I’ve taken over the years..

What’s missing?

[Brett @BrettFromDJ]

Want design clients? It's easier than you think.

1. Design a subscription site (like Designjoy).
2. Design 10 concepts in Figma (this is your portfolio).
3. Build site in Framer or Webflow (use Stripe for payments).
4. Set up a simple 3 column Trello board for clients to submit needs through (backlog, current request, approved).
4. Make your starting price $2,500 per month (the key is starting low to attract clients towards trying you out).
5. Distribute your site however you can (Twitter, ads, groups, etc.). This is the only hard part & may take time.
6. Do this until you land a few clients.
7. Do the work and get used to the system.
8. Replace concept work in your portfolio with the real work you've done for previous clients.
8. Once you've established yourself a bit, add $1k/m to your price tag.
9. Repeat last step until you're satisfied with the amount of work/clients you have.

This is the EXACT formula I used for Designjoy.

Sure, it's far more nuanced this what's described above, but generally speaking, this the way.

[Fiona | The Millennial Money Woman @The_MMW]

7 money skills everyone should know by age 30:

[Dan @danmurrays]

12 Golden Rules of Life.

[Fiona | The Millennial Money Woman @The_MMW]

6 finance rules

(everyone should know by age 30):