On the heels of my fortieth birthday, I’m back to building—again, with https://sayadios.com/ It’s both easier, and harder, with two companies under my belt, and *very* different than when I launched my first startup in the bay in 2010.
Easier
- We can vibe-code a great looking landing page, set up a payment portal through Stripe, and start creating SEO ready content, in a day using sites like Replit or Lovable.
- Building two companies in the remote hiring space (Zirtual + Avra Talent), and helping a dozen companies (including Calm and Magic) make killer hires, allows me to easily hire great, fully remote people to help do a lot of the heavy lifting.
- From my time in SF, NYC and the entrepreneurial world in general—I am lucky to have a deep network of founders, friends, former investors and colleagues I can tap for feedback and advice; including groups like https://www.linkedin.com/company/postexit/
- I’m finally learning to “fall in love with the problem” versus the solution—and “kill your darlings” mercilessly when you realize the PMF isn’t there.
Harder
- The barrier to entry to building something, especially online, is practically zero. If you have the desire (not necessarily skill) and a few hundred bucks for tooling—you can launch a business online.
- This creates a lot of noise, some of the new businesses, blogs, podcasts, newsletters, will truly provide value to their users, listeners and readers—MANY others will simply be echo-chambers of ai-generated content that parrots the same advice.
- When I was 25, I didn’t know what I didn’t know—that was a bad thing in a lot of ways, but in other ways it was a blessing. I had NO clue how hard it was to start something from scratch, with no background in business or technology. Now, I fully grok the pain that comes with taking anything from 0 to 1.
That’s why I’m going back to “building in public”—something that helped me launch the original idea for Zirtual.com 15 years ago. I’ve found building in public is a great forcing function for:
- Accountability
- Not falling into the trap of perfectionism
- Attracting early adopters, collaborators and the community that all great companies eventually need to succeed
Also, I want to be brutally honest about the process—at a high-level I’m obsessed with the problem of excess and waste, be it wasted time (Zirtual), wasted space or waste created from over-production + consumerism. I hope that we’re on to something with https://sayadios.com/ but from experience I know that what we have now, and what the business evolves into may be unrecognizable from our early, funky start.
But that’s okay, it’s part of the process—creating businesses and bringing new ideas into the world is a messy, artistic process, there are a thousand first drafts that go into the trash can before the script is sold.
——————
On the heels of my fortieth birthday, I’m back to building—again, with https://sayadios.com/
It’s both easier, and harder, with two companies under my belt, and very different than when I launched my first startup in the bay in 2010.
Easier
- We can vibe-code a great looking landing page, set up a payment portal through Stripe, and start creating SEO ready content, in a day using sites like Replit or Lovable.
- Building two companies in the remote hiring space (Zirtual + Avra Talent), and helping a dozen companies (including Calm and Magic) make killer hires, allows me to easily hire great, fully remote people to help do a lot of the heavy lifting.
- From my time in SF, NYC and the entrepreneurial world in general—I am lucky to have a deep network of founders, friends, former investors and colleagues I can tap for feedback and advice; including groups like https://www.linkedin.com/company/postexit/
- I’m finally learning to “fall in love with the problem” versus the solution—and “kill your darlings” mercilessly when you realize the PMF isn’t there.
Harder
- The barrier to entry to building something, especially online, is practically zero. If you have the desire (not necessarily skill) and a few hundred bucks for tooling—you can launch a business online.
- This creates a lot of noise, some of the new businesses, blogs, podcasts, newsletters, will truly provide value to their users, listeners and readers—MANY others will simply be echo-chambers of ai-generated content that parrots the same advice.
- When I was 25, I didn’t know what I didn’t know—that was a bad thing in a lot of ways, but in other ways it was a blessing. I had NO clue how hard it was to start something from scratch, with no background in business or technology. Now, I fully grok the pain that comes with taking anything from 0 to 1.
That’s why I’m going back to “building in public”—something that helped me launch the original idea for Zirtual.com 15 years ago. I’ve found building in public is a great forcing function for:
- Accountability
- Not falling into the trap of perfectionism
- Attracting early adopters, collaborators and the community that all great companies eventually need to succeed
Also, I want to be brutally honest about the process—at a high-level I’m obsessed with the problem of excess and waste, be it wasted time (Zirtual), wasted space or waste created from over-production + consumerism. I hope that we’re on to something with https://sayadios.com/ but from experience I know that what we have now, and what the business evolves into may be unrecognizable from our early, funky start.
But that’s okay, it’s part of the process—creating businesses and bringing new ideas into the world is a messy, artistic process, there are a thousand first drafts that go into the trash can before the script is sold.
👋 If you’re obsessed with solving problems around waste, simplicity, or sustainability—let’s connect.
I’m especially looking to meet others working on similar ideas, or who want to help shape what Adios becomes.