The Co-Founder Memo

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Happy Monday!

This time a bit later than usual, but Juan here from The Co-Founder Memo as always.

Today:

1. From the Lab: The SaaS strategy of leveraging on the dev community
2. From the Trenches: How to talk about the future of a business
3. From the Chair: Being a tired founder
4. From the Feed: Matthew McConaughey's Greenlights

Let's go!

🧠 From the Lab

The SaaS strategy of leveraging on the dev community

Jason Lemkin shared this online:

He wrote a pretty interesting comparison on 3 public SaaS companies: Shopify, Hubspot and Box, and how they grew completely different from each other.

These 3 businesses are great. They are leaders. And they are still thriving.

But Shopify definitely made a huge difference.

And even though I can't disagree with Lemkin since he's a top SaaS founder and investor (come on, he's the SaaStr guy), I do have a take on something he didn't mention.

There's one thing I've always admired from Tobi Lütke, besides building one of the best ecomm businesses in history:

His focus on the dev community.

Lütke is a software developer first, entrepreneur and business owner second.

He comes from the world of hacking things. Learning tools. Becoming a master at those tools.

Building a business was a coincidence. And I definitely suggest you check out his conversation with Tim Ferriss from 2019.

Lütke never forgot where he comes from. He comes from open source. From learning Ruby on Rails and leveraging on it to build Shopify. From going to Ruby on Rails events. Giving talks. And helping out.

Shopify took the dev community approach really early on in the game.

Yes, it powers millions of small online businesses around the world.

But also, it enables software teams to build on top of it.

Plugins. Themes. Custom ecomms and marketplaces.

There are A LOT of developers specialized on building on top of Shopify around the globe.

This is what makes Shopify different.

I can't go into the analytical details on the impact this had, the same way Jason Lemkin did at the SaaStr blog.

But I can point out the massive impact and differentiator this became for Shopify.

Think about Vercel. Same concept. They are a cloud business. But Next JS and their dev community focused skyrocketed the business in multiple ways.

Even think about DHH and Ruby on Rails. The technology he created not only powers his entire product suite. It also created a name and reputation for himself that came with tons of distribution.

Investing into a dev community will always pay off. Hands down.

If you're able to monetize somehow, you probably have a winning formula in front of you.

🔧 From the Trenches

Jams is turning 2 years.

And what started as a tiny website design & development agency, now turned into a full product team, helping non tech founders ship AI based products.

But where are we going? How are we getting there? And why are we even going there in the first place?

Design is commoditized. Software is commoditized. Building a product isn't.

So I took all these insights into a quick keynote, and sat with my team last Monday for an all-hands meeting to share this vision.

No AI will replace the human capacity to understand a market, a customer's pain and a potential way to mitigate it, and build a real product and business around it.

No AI will replace us on being right in the middle of a conversation to translate visionary ideas into bold products.

So:

• we need to become a top product agency
• we need to be AI first
• we need to execute at a 99% perfection level because we can't do commoditized things in a mediocre way
• we need to detach ourselves from any given technology (like Bubble) and embrace the fact that tech is just a driver, but being top at product design and development is what truly matters

We left the meeting feeling hyper motivated. But now comes the real challenge: give the team proper guidance on how to achieve these things, and execute on them.

Will keep sharing more along the way.

Just remember: in 2025, it makes sense to keep redefining and rethinking your core offer. The market is shaken. Ride the shaky waves.

💭 From the Chair

I'm feeling pretty tired.

It's been hell of a year.

And even though I've had my breaks (holidays on January plus a bunch of 2 day trips to go climb on weekends), 2025 is feeling like an insanely long year.

I look at my todo list and it's just insane.

It's not a long list.

But each task is so much work.

I'm in a pivot moment.

Where things are stable. And good enough.

But in 2 months they won't be anymore.

So now is the time not to back down, but to hit full acceleration mode.

What I'm doing to stay on track and avoid falling into a huge burnout:

1. Prioritize 7 hours of daily sleep, no excuse (not a lot, but good enough).
2. Never stop climbing. It consumes hours I could use for work, but they are non-negotiable. Mental health comes before execution and productivity.
3. A weekly date out with my partner. We see each other everyday at home. But since work is pretty crazy for both of us right now, going out weekly became a must to stay connected and grounded.
4. Keep taking weekends off for micro-climbing trips. Next one: September 20-21.
5. Just dial back and take time off when things aren't working out. If you're not in the zone, shut down the laptop and unplug.
6. See friends and family as often as possible.
7. Plan a short 5 day climbing trip in December.
8. Plan a 2 week full break in January.

This gives me a full 4 month sprint of hyper focused work.

I better stay sharp to make it till the end.

🔗 From the Feed

Interesting stuff I consumed:

Didn't consume much last week (luckily). Finished Alex Hormozi's 100m leads (a must read I'd say).

As you can tell from the previous section, my head is everywhere and my brain is fully exploded.

So I decided to start a biography, and went for Matthew McConaughey's Greenlights.

What. A. Book.

It's just hilarious.

If you can, get the Audible version. Narrated by the man himself.

What a storyteller. What a life story. I'm just devouring it.

Will share some insights next time.

If you want a preview, listen to his conversation with Tim Ferriss. He also did a Modern Wisdom podcast and a Lex Friedman one. Particularly recommend Ferriss' one since they talk about the book.

Thanks for reading.

Until next one,

Juan

P.S. If you know a non-tech entrepreneur who might benefit from reading this, please share.

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