Founder Mode - 13 Aug 2025

Hi there,

Welcome to Founder Mode, every week I’ll keep you updated on the top finds and opportunities for startups, so that to save time and stay in the know.

We are having a community meetup next week and everyone is invited. We will feature a panel session featuring Elev8.vc, Moon Technologies, Tanka.ai and BlackStorm Consulting, discussing how startups can increase their success when working with enterprises. We will have ample time and refreshments for meaningful networking.

Also, if you’re tired of working from Starbucks, we are offering a 1-month free no strings attached access to our community work space in one-north. Sign up here and we will get your access sorted in no time.

🔥 Top Finds

How to Start a Lean AI-Native Startup 
A step-by-step playbook for launching in 2025 with AI at the core. From legal setup and finance hygiene to low-code stacks, marketing loops, and fundraising, it’s packed with practical, tool-driven advice for building faster, with fewer people, and more focus. If you’ve been thinking about starting something, this is the blueprint.

No One Is Really Working
Adam, Brenda, and Carl are archetypes of today’s high-paid early-career professionals, competent, but spending surprisingly little time in deep work. This essay unpacks why companies pay $100K–$300K for roles that may not produce output proportional to the salary and which makes the point why hiring for startups are so hard.

The Ultimate List of Referral Optimizations
This exhaustive playbook distills proven tactics for making referrals a high-conversion, low-churn growth engine: from designing frictionless in-app share flows to structuring incentives, marketing the program, and turning your product into a referral machine. If you’ve got product-market fit, this is how you turn customer love into compounding growth.

🎯 Startup Opportunities

🛠 Tool of the Week

v0
v0 is a collaborative AI assistant for building full-stack web apps. Describe what you want, and it helps you design, iterate, and scale from UI to backend without getting bogged down in boilerplate. Perfect to go from idea to working product fast.

This week’s newsletter is brought to you in partnership with Hubspot

Unlock the Power of AI With the Complete Marketing Automation Playbook

Discover how to scale smarter with AI-driven workflows that actually work. This playbook delivers:

• A detailed audit framework for your current marketing workflows

• Step-by-step guidance for choosing the right AI-powered automations

• Pro tips for improving personalization without losing the human touch

Built to help you automate the busy work and focus on work that actually makes an impact.

Steal the Playbook

💬 Founder Mode Quotes

🙂 Fun Mode

👋  Want to share something or partner?

Got a tip, cool tool, or collab idea? Hit reply and drop it in my inbox. Your note can be as quick as a meme or as deep as a pitch deck. Either way, I read every email.

If this newsletter sparked an “aha,” pass it along to another builder who should be in Founder Mode. Sharing is free and motivates me to help bring you the best finds every week.

- Ray