Why I'm Shutting Down My 5-Year Startup (Hard-Learned Lessons for Founders)

Don't let attachment blind you to reality.

Why I Stopped Checking My Metrics 20 Times a Day (And Everything Started Working)

Stop checking. Start building. The numbers will follow.

Zero Meetings: How I Run Two Companies Without a Single Recurring Meeting

Stop performing productivity. Start actually being productive.

How I Learned to Learn (And Why It's Your Best Business Skill)

The world will look completely different in 10 years.

Episodes

Why I Ignored 60% of My Customers for 5 Years (Why Every Startup Should Go Global from Day One)

Unless you're solving a problem that only exists in one country, you should be building globally from day one.

Episodes

Why I'm Worried About My Friends' "Successful" Acquisitions

I'm genuinely happy for my friends who got acquired. I hope their deals were better than I fear.

How Guaranteed Payment Turned My Best Partner Into My Worst Nightmare

This expensive lesson cost me five months of payments and a five-year partnership.

Stop Taking Advice From VCs Who've Never Built Anything

Stop following VCs who think they know better than founders. Follow the best builders instead. Learn from people who've walked the path you're on.

Episodes

The Three Stages of Founder Loneliness (And Why Stage Two Almost Broke Me)

The loneliness you feel today is building the independence you'll treasure tomorrow.

George's Takes

My Continued Disappointment with Vibe Coding

September 4, 2025 | George Pu I've been lying to myself for months. Not intentionally. But lying nonetheless. I thought I was 'building fast' with AI coding tools. Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf - the whole arsenal. Felt productive. Felt smart. Felt like I was leveraging the future.

Episodes

Why Your Health is Your Most Important Business Asset (And How a Mentor's Passing Changed Everything)

Real talk from someone who learned this lesson the hard way

Episodes

Why I Built a Business That Can't Scale (My $500K Distribution Mistake)

Published September 1, 2025 • Based on Founder Reality Episode 11 Most founders obsess over product-market fit while completely ignoring audience-market fit - and it's killing their businesses before they even start. I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I spent 5 years building SimpleDirect

Episodes

Why I Went From 14 People to 5 and Made More Money

Published August 29th, 2025 • Based on Founder Reality Episode 10 Also available on: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • YouTube I need to tell you about the most counterintuitive business decision I've ever made - and why it saved my company. Two years ago, I was running a team of 14

Episodes

Why Distribution is the Only Moat Left in the AI-First World (And How to Build It)

Published August 27th, 2025 • Based on Founder Reality Episode 9 Also available on: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • YouTube Listen to the full episode: AI has killed every competitive advantage for software founders except one: distribution. If anyone can build your app in a week, your code isn't your moat

George's Takes

The Data Is In: AI Killed Entry-Level Jobs

Published August 26, 2025 I've been saying this for months on Twitter: AI isn't coming for jobs—it's already here. And it's not hitting everyone equally. Today, Stanford economists released the first large-scale study proving what we all suspected but couldn'

Episodes

Building in Public vs. Building in Private (The Truth About Transparency)

Published August 24th, 2025 • Based on Founder Reality Episode 8 Also available on: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • YouTube Everyone's telling you to build in public. Share your revenue, your struggles, your team changes. Document everything. I'm calling bullshit. Most "building in public" is just startup

Episodes

Stop Learning About Startups and Just Start One

Published August 22nd, 2025 • Based on Founder Reality Episode 7 Also available on: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • YouTube I need to tell you about my three spectacular startup failures - and why they were worth more than every business book I've ever read. Before SimpleDirect worked, I failed three

Episodes

I Tried Vibe Coding for 6 Months and Nearly Destroyed My Products

Published August 21st, 2025 • Based on Founder Reality Episode 6 Also available on: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • YouTube Today I'm going to tell you about one of my most expensive mistakes this year - and why it might save your business from a similar disaster. I fell hard for

Episodes

Simplicity Wins in an AI-First World (And Why Your Complicated Plan is Probably Wrong)

Published August 19th, 2025 • 23 minutes Also available on: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • YouTube Today I realized I was just building expensive complexity that nobody needed. This is the story of how simplicity became my competitive advantage in an AI-first world where everyone can build everything. The $100K+ Quant Trading Disaster

Hit 25K Followers (And Why I Barely Try)

Published August 16th, 2025 • 11 minutes Also available on: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • YouTube Hit 25,000 Twitter followers this week. Feels surreal because I barely put any time into it. I don't even have Twitter on my phone. Have an extension that blocks it so I don'

Episodes

Work Shouldn't Feel Like Work (And Why I Just Said No to $5 Million)

Published August 15th, 2025 • 25 minutes Also available on: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • YouTube I just said no to $3-5 million. Partnership came in last week. Legitimate opportunity. Two years of 'some grinding and minimum work' for life-changing money. My spreadsheet said yes. My gut said absolutely not. For

Episodes

Why Remote Work is Killing Your Startup (And Your Sanity)

Published August 13th, 2025 • 24 minutes Also available on: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • YouTube The Remote Work Obsession Has Gone Too Far San Francisco real estate is back. New York City is back. But the tech community is still obsessed with remote work - "work from anywhere," digital nomad

Episodes

Why Co-founders Are Overrated (And AI Changes Everything)

Published August 11th, 2025 • 19 minutes Also available on: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • YouTube Key Takeaways 1. Co-founders create coordination overhead that can kill startups 2. AI tools eliminate most traditional reasons for needing co-founders 3. Speed of execution is your biggest advantage in 2025 4. Equal equity rarely reflects equal

Episodes

Why I'm Starting The Founder Reality Podcast (And Why Most Founder Content is BS)

Published August 9th, 2025 • 17 minutes Lost a major partnership at 8pm. Pivoted our entire strategy by morning. This is founder reality - not the highlight reel you see on LinkedIn. Also available on: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • YouTube Main Arguments * Most founder advice comes from people who've never

News

Introducing Founder Reality: Building a Community of Authentic Builders

I envision Founder Reality as a place where builders help builders grow. Not through generic advice, but through shared real experiences and open-sourcing our frameworks together.