Founder Fridays No. 127
5 Stages of AI Agents -- Founder Personal Branding -- Why Stealth Mode Is a Bad Idea
Happy Friday. Check out my February playlist.
5 Stages of AI Agents
What starts with a friendly chatbot ends with artificial intelligence (AI) running your entire company. Here are the five stages of the AI agent revolution. Generalist Chat (Level 1): Foundation models like ChatGPT and Claude — general-purpose AI tools that require human guidance and prompting. Subject-Matter Experts (Level 2): AI specialized in specific industries or domains, like legal AI that understands legal language and can generate professional materials. Agents (Level 3 — Current Stage): AI that can actually execute tasks autonomously rather than just assist via chat, like code generation and other specific job functions. AI Agent Innovators (Level 4): AI systems capable of creative problem-solving and strategic thinking, exploring new directions and enhancing solutions beyond initial requirements. AI-First Organizations (Level 5): Collections of AI agents that can handle complex decision-making and run entire organizations with minimal human oversight — the "three person unicorn" where humans mainly supervise AI teams. NFX (11 minutes)
Founder Personal Branding
Most founders face a constant tension between heads-down product development and the seemingly "fluffy" work of personal brand building — but the smartest ones do both. While your primary focus should absolutely be on building an incredible product, dedicating even a small amount of time to authentically sharing your journey creates compound returns in access to customers, talent and investors. The reality is that great products rarely win on their own — they need distribution channels you control, and your authentic voice can become one of the most powerful ones. Even starting with an audience of zero, consistent content that genuinely reflects your mission becomes a unique asset that grows alongside your company. Adamant (6 minutes)
Why Stealth Mode Is a Bad Idea
Most founders believe coding in stealth mode while perfecting their product is the path to startup success, but this common wisdom is actually a recipe for failure. Real traction comes from launching embarrassingly early, gathering customer feedback obsessively and spending more time on distribution than development. The most successful startups typically started with crude MVPs that barely worked, but they got those MVPs into customers' hands quickly and improved rapidly based on real usage data. The harsh reality is that phenomenal code and features mean nothing without distribution — incredible products fail every day because founders hide behind their integrated development environment (IDE) instead of facing the uncomfortable work of sales, marketing and customer development. A Smart Bear (7 minutes)
Founder FAQ: What Should Be Covered In an Independent Contractor Agreement?
Before early-stage startups have funding to hire a team of employees, the team usually consists of the founders and a number of independent contractors. Since these contractors are building the minimum viable product and laying the foundation of the company, it’s important to get the contract right. Every startup should have a solid independent contractor agreement. These agreements can take many forms, but below are the bare minimum terms that your startup should include in its independent contractor agreement: 1) Scope of work. 2) Payment terms. 3) Confidentiality. 4) Intellectual property rights. 5) Timeframe. 6) Termination rights. 7) Independent contractor status. Westaway (7 minutes)
Startup Funding Guides
I’ve put together a series of guides to equip founders to excel at fundraising. These guides break down the deal term by term and give you negotiation tips so that you can speak to investors with confidence.
Convertible Note: Guide / Video
Control Legal Spend
Startups suffer from unpredictable legal bills under the billable hour system. Fees fluctuate month to month without warning. Law firms drag out billable hours, but startups foot the bill. Even basic work can lead to surprisingly high legal bills. This unpredictability cripples financial planning. Budgets rarely match actual spend. With utter uncertainty around legal spend, startups cannot forecast or manage burn rates effectively. The antiquated billable hour system fails them. Our General Counsel flat, monthly fee service gives startups cost certainty. Legal spend becomes predictable with bundled services and no surprise overage bills. By switching from hourly to our flat-fee model, startups finally get confident budgeting, accurate forecasting and predictable legal spend. If you’re sick of getting surprise legal bills and are interested in controlling your legal spend, let’s talk.