🤠 Howdy Founders,

Let’s start this one with this week’s…

Friend Corner

Back in May of 2024 I wrote about why I write this newsletter and why I’ve never turned it into a sponsor-driven business, even though I seem to have a new venture every couple of months. I said then that I keep doing it because it creates amazing opportunities for me. That’s still true.

I basically admitted I’m a terrible “content creator” by internet standards. I don’t publish on a tight schedule, I miss weeks at a time, and I refuse to treat this like a business. There are ~11,000 of you here and I still assume exactly zero of you are refreshing your inbox on Thursday mornings to see if I showed up.

Connection = Opportunity

The whole point of that essay was: I write this because it lets me connect with cool people and create unfair opportunities, not because I’m trying to squeeze ad dollars out of every send.

One of those opportunities: my buddy, Ethan Brooks.

Whenever Ethan connects with a new founder, the first thing he asks is whether they write a personal newsletter. Most of them say some version of, “Not yet, but I plan to,” or “It’s in the works,” or “Soon.” Not because they don’t see the value, but because starting feels fuzzy and overwhelming.

So Ethan built a simple “no more excuses” product called:

“Newsletter In An Hour”

It’s actually a two‑hour, 1‑on‑1 working session with him where you sit down and, together, you:

• Set up your subscribe page

• Import any existing readers

• Draft your first newsletter (he literally interviews you and pulls the ideas out of your head)

• Get a clear next‑steps plan so you can keep publishing without overthinking it

You walk away with a functioning newsletter, your first full email drafted, a day‑by‑day content plan for the week, a full year’s worth of ideas tailored to your business, two custom AI workflows (turn voice notes into drafts, and turn your newsletter into LinkedIn posts), plus a recording of the whole session for you or your marketing person to revisit.

This is the kind of leverage I was talking about back in that May 2024 issue. I’ve seen firsthand how having a simple, consistent newsletter can open doors, attract customers, and put the right people in your orbit. It’s one of the few things I’d recommend to basically every founder.

Ethan’s testing this with just five spots at $500. ←SIgn up before they’re gone.

If you’ve ever thought “I wish I started that thing years ago”, don’t let your newsletter be another “Thing”. Start it now. Go sign up with Ethan and guarantee yourself a started newsletter.

Future Proof Your Life

Episode 2 of the currently titled “Founders Only Podcast” is out now and potentially contains the answers to your “What next” questions.

Jeff is a Houston‑based founder who used to live in the software and payments world. Today, he’s building a $10k+/month “legacy” business in concrete leveling with Texas Slab Guys—without a blue‑collar background, without venture money, and without any illusions that SaaS multiples will save him.

This is a full one‑hour conversation. It’s not a sizzle reel. There are natural pauses, “ums,” and “uhhs.” I didn’t run it through a click‑bait editor or have AI rewrite our personalities. But if you’re wrestling with what to build for the next 10–20 years, I think the texture of this episode matters more than a hyper‑polished highlight reel.

(That being said, I DO need to ask your forgiveness for the silly thumbnail…..just something I wanted to test)

Here’s why it’s worth your time:

• Jeff walks through how he went from “I want to buy a real business” to scraping every service company in Houston, cold‑texting owners, and narrowing down a shortlist of serious sellers—until he landed on concrete leveling.

• He explains why concrete is such a weird, under‑served market, how concrete leveling lets you save slabs instead of pouring new ones, and why that’s both a strong economic pitch and a stealth “green” win.

• He breaks down the actual path into the trades as an outsider: shadowing jobs, flying to HMI in Wisconsin for hands‑on training, and validating the model before committing to a $100k rig.

• We get into how he quietly uses AI and simple software behind the scenes to modernize an old‑world industry, without trying to turn it into another over‑engineered SaaS product.

We also zoom way out into founder philosophy. Jeff shares why he’s “all in on AI and on things AI can’t touch,” how he runs his life with the “in‑laws arrive in 15 minutes” rule instead of hiding in planning docs, and what it looks like to sell jobs before you own the equipment, learn in production, and let customers—not whiteboards—tell you what matters.

If you’ve ever thought:

• “My SaaS probably has ~2 years left, now what?”

• “Could I actually make real money in something like concrete or trades without a trade background?”

• “How do I use AI in a way that normies actually adopt?”

…then this episode is a concrete roadmap for what a future‑proof, real‑world business can look like.

It’s not optimized for YouTube retention graphs. It’s optimized for founders who want to get off the wrong train, stop over‑intellectualizing their next move, and see how a real person is quietly building a durable, boring‑on‑the‑outside, fascinating‑on‑the‑inside business.

If that’s you, queue up the conversation with Jeff Price, give it the full hour, and see what ideas it shakes loose for your own “legacy” business.

I Would LOVE to Hear From You

Are you doing anything to future proof your income?

Or are you at least thinking about what the near-ish future might hold for someone with your skill set? Is your business future proof if “Single User Software” becomes the norm, where corporations just build their own version of everything?

Do you think I’m being irrational? I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this.

I’m thinking about writing a separate weekly newsletter with the sole purpose of getting people to think about future proofing their business or income.

I’d love to interview you for that or the podcast if you have thoughts on this!

THE END

Thank you for 3 awesome years!

I Love You,