A founder recently asked me, “If entire products are built in weekend, what is truly defensible?”

Next time, I’ll just send them this.

Don't file your taxes without running them through Claude Cowork first.

My tax preparer made 11 errors across two drafts this year. Claimed a $1,874 Social Security credit that didn't apply. Missed $6,288 in reportable income. Never filed the $1,200 childcare credit I was owed. Section B of Form 8283 instead of Section A. That last one got my return rejected by the IRS. First time in 20+ years.

Eleven errors. From a professional I pay to get this right.

Uploaded 40+ documents into Claude Cowork. W-2s, 1099s, donation receipts, camp invoices, property tax records, bank statements. PDFs, images, spreadsheets. One prompt: audit every line against the source documents. Waited about 30 minutes. Got back a full audit: 65+ line items cross-checked against source docs, tax math recalculated independently, and checklist of corrections needed.

~$9,300 in errors caught. Pretty sure this is the last year I pay someone to do my taxes.

What does great Series A growth actually look like in consumer tech?

Fresh data pull from Goodwater Capital Sonar...

Takeaway: growing 60–80% YoY with strong retention puts you in the mix. 2–3× YoY moves you to the front of the line.

Get the full founder dashboard with benchmarks, valuation bands by stage, and deck-ready charts: goodwatercap.com/sonar/

Fundraising too early is a massive time sink.

Every week pitching VCs = a week not talking to users or shipping.

But how do you know if you’re actually ready?

That’s why we built @GoodwaterCap Sonar: real consumer tech fundraising data, not outdated SaaS benchmarks.

What h rates at Seed, A, B
💵 Current valuations by stage
🚀 Consumer apps crushing it now
📊 Deal activity vs pre-pandemic

Sometimes the best fundraising move is not fundraising yet.

Link in comments.

Before I was 30 years old, I’d started 2 companies that are each now worth over a billion dollars. And it almost broke me.

Here’s my story.

youtu.be/QKPgBAnbc10

"The ultimate resource is people—especially skilled, spirited, and hopeful young people endowed with liberty—who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefits, and so inevitably they will benefit the rest of us as well."

-Julian Simon, OG e/acc techno-optimist

Congrats to the ten selected @UofCalifornia finalists for the 2021 Startup Innovation Challenge, held in partnership with @ExTechChallenge! Finalists will pitch startups to investors, to compete to take home one of two $50,000 prizes! Meet them here… buff.ly/2KygyjN

Enjoyed it, @BethBechdol!

Join us on 22 July to discuss how tech Innovations can help achieve #SDGs with 👇

🔹 @BethBechdol, @FAO Deputy Director-General
🔹 @BarrettParkman, @ExTechChallenge & @SamsungCatalyst
🔹️Xuemei Germaine, CEO of #MircoGenBiotech

Register here 🖥️ bit.ly/innoventuresla…

Congratulations to @GBioindustries , the #XTC2020 global winner! #pitchforhope

Apply for XTC 2021 - f6s.com/extremetechcha…

Congratulations to the winners of #XTC2020

Catch the announcements of the winners LIVE on YSTV - yourstory.com/video/extreme-…

@geektimecoil Two Israeli startups take home gold at #XTC2020 #GlobalChallenge The prestigious innovation award co-founded by Samsung President saw two Israeli startups win in Fintech and newly debuted COVID-19 award... #startups #germaninnovation

geektime.com/israeli-startu…

#XTC2020 is now LIVE!

extremetechchallenge.org/GlobalFinals20…

Thanks @VivaTech for being an @ExTechChallenge partner!