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    A Founder's Friend — Archive Distilled

    Resources

    Everything I've made for founders in one place — frameworks, essays, guides, templates, and the book. A distilled archive of long-form thinking from the Substack, turned into something you can actually search, skim, and use.

    p.s. this archive used to be called Just Thoughts — because the first rule of thinking is “why should I think that way?”, the key question for knowledge workers in the age of A.I. We're keeping the writing going under A Founder's Friend.

    Guided Search is a supporter perk — free with any paid Substack subscription. Browsing the archive stays open to everyone.

    Frameworks & InsightsAssetsLibraryFounder InterviewsSpecial Thanks
    insightFuture of Work

    Megatrends & the Future of Work

    Eight forces reshaping knowledge work and five truths that will outlast them all.

    insightEntrepreneurship & Strategy

    You Can't Control the Wave

    Why markets are oceans, timing beats brilliance, and you can manufacture demand but never inevitability. A surfing analogy for startup founders.

    insightMedia & Entrepreneurship

    AI, Media & the New Launch Playbook

    Why media and startups are converging, what that means for how you launch, and lessons from building a newsletter in public.

    insightAI & Organizations

    Systems of Action

    Why the real leverage isn't in systems of record or engagement, but in minimizing the distance between intent and execution — and why team-first systems learn faster.

    insightLeadership & Identity

    Two Decades of Becoming Yourself

    A twenty-year self-reflection on leadership, identity, and the spinner analogy for balance — told through five versions of the same person arguing across time.

    insightLeadership & Identity

    Know Who You Are

    A personal reflection on identity, diversity, privilege, and bias.

    insightLeadership & Identity

    Intimacy of Violence — Difficult Conversations & Bias

    Why the hardest leadership conversations begin with listening, not solving — on internal community violence, privilege, bias realisation, and the courage to be changed by what you hear.

    frameworkSelf-Reflection

    Calibrating Purpose

    A yearly self-reflection exercise built on Ikigai, identity narrative, and legacy design.

    insightLife & Leadership

    The Synergy of Priorities

    On redefining priorities from Family-People-Product-Finances to Health-People-Learning, finding purpose through curing loneliness, and the paradox of purpose vs. happiness.

    frameworkLife & Leadership

    The Three Forces of a Well-Lived Life

    A compass framework for aligning intent, patience, and presence.

    insightPerformance & Leadership

    Thoughts on Performance

    Eight principles for thinking about performance holistically.

    insightPerformance & Well-being

    The 4-Day Work Week & Why It Matters

    Why shorter workweeks drive performance, the science behind mental health for founders, and why no research supports the 80-hour grind.

    insightEmpathy & AI Design

    Practicing Empathy as a Second-Person Game

    Why the missing perspective in leadership and AI product design is the one you experience through someone else's senses.

    insightCulture & Organizations

    Organisational Maturity & the Power of Choice

    Five levels of organizational maturity diagnosed through language, and why thinking in choices changes everything.

    insightPurpose & Culture

    Creating a Purpose Statement

    Why purpose cannot be dictated from the top, how to facilitate its discovery through shared stories of pride and joy, and why the process matters more than the final words.

    insightOrganizations & Teams

    The Jungle Analogy

    A simple analogy for understanding the three activities every team needs — execution, support, and strategic awareness.

    frameworkFeedback & Leadership

    Feedback & Team Performance

    A three-part framework for building a feedback culture by mastering asking, giving, and receiving feedback.

    frameworkLeadership & Management

    The 1-on-1 Framework

    A nine-grid model for structuring meaningful one-on-one discussions.

    frameworkLeadership Development

    Leadership Development Framework

    A three-part framework for distributing leadership across teams and organizations.

    frameworkOperating Model

    The Heart Beat Hustle

    A simple, scalable operating model that frames any team's way of working into three layers: values, rhythms, and output.

    frameworkPeople & Organizations

    The Finite Employee Lifecycle

    Eleven stages from employer branding to alumni, reimagined through one radical shift: treating every employment relationship as finite.

    frameworkEcosystem Design

    Building Ecosystems

    A four-step framework for designing organizational ecosystems that grow with purpose, illustrated through the Finnish startup scene.

    insightEntrepreneurship

    Founder Mode Decoded

    Why founder mode is not a new operating system but founders becoming better versions of themselves.

    frameworkEntrepreneurship & Identity

    What Kind of People Become Startup Founders

    A 9-grid framework mapping founder archetypes across ego drivers and product approach, grounded in research from Finland's student-led entrepreneurial ecosystem.

    insightEntrepreneurship & Education

    What to Teach Young Entrepreneurs Instead

    Nine human-centred lessons from the Nordic startup ecosystem — an alternative to Silicon Valley orthodoxy for founders in their twenties.

    frameworkGo-to-Market & Growth

    The GTM Master Framework

    A domain-aware framework for Go-to-Market strategy across B2C, B2B, deep tech, and open source — from survival to scale.

    insightEvents & Entrepreneurship

    Why Inspiration Doesn't Belong on Startup Stages

    Who adds value on a startup stage, what their real skill overlaps with founders are, and a five-question filter for program design.

    insightLeadership & Culture

    What Survives After You Leave

    Nine transferable leadership lessons distilled from farewell letters at Slush — on ego, radical candor, communal rituals, and repairing what's broken.

    frameworkInteractive Diagnostic

    US Expansion Compass

    An eight-question diagnostic that maps European and Israeli founders to one of five US-expansion archetypes — with a stage-aware action plan, GTM domain × stage lens, US cost snapshot, hub notes, and legal checklist.

    insightDecision Intelligence

    Decision Intelligence

    How organisations decide what to trust in their product data, when a bad number becomes a costly decision, and five principles for building decision intelligence into how teams actually work.

    Assets

    Guides, templates & the book

    Things I've made to take with you — long-form guides, ready-to-use templates, and the poetry book.

    Guide

    Carry 101 for Founders

    How VC carried interest works, why carry shapes investor behavior, and what to ask before you sign a term sheet.

    Interactive · Supporter

    Passion Compass

    A two-axis lens on passion — harmonious vs obsessive — with money as a vector that bends the curve. 10-question assessment, saved profile, and a research room with stress-tested claims.

    Interactive Diagnostic

    US Expansion Compass

    An eight-question diagnostic that maps your US expansion readiness to an archetype and a stage-aware action plan. Inspired by public research on transatlantic expansion, including Index Ventures' Winning in the US.

    Guide

    Founder Coaching vs Consulting — The Guide

    How to tell coaching, consulting, and advising apart, what each one is for, and how to pick the right one for the stage you're at.

    Templates

    Cold Email Templates for Founders

    Battle-tested cold email templates and tactics for fundraising, sales, partnerships, and hiring — copy, paste, adapt.

    Book

    Just Thoughts — the Poetry Book

    Love, Life & Leadership in an AI-driven World. 30 poem pairs — human vs. AI — with a 3D viewer to read in the browser.

    Support

    Support on Substack

    Unlock more — become a paid Substack supporter and keep this writing going.

    Curated Resources

    Internet Assets & Books

    A hand-picked collection of essays, interactive explorations, and books that have shaped the thinking behind A Founder's Friend.

    Internet Assets

    Go-to-Market & Growth

    The Cadence — How to Operate a SaaS Startup

    by David Sacks

    A rigorous operating cadence for SaaS startups covering planning, pipeline, metrics, and board management.

    People & Organizations

    36 Ways to Hire, Develop, and Retain Great People

    by Brian Armstrong

    Coinbase's playbook for building a world-class team — from hiring to culture to retention.

    Entrepreneurship

    Going Founder Mode On Cancer — Sid Sijbrandij's Story

    by Elliot Hershberg

    The GitLab co-founder's extraordinary care journey — applying founder-mode thinking to the hardest personal challenge.

    Systems & Complexity

    Nicky Case — Explorable Explanations

    by Nicky Case

    Interactive essays and games that make complex systems — trust, anxiety, networks — playable and understandable.

    Entrepreneurship

    Paul Graham — Essays

    by Paul Graham

    The canonical essay collection on startups, thinking, and doing great work from the co-founder of Y Combinator.

    Leadership & Culture

    70 Learnings From Slush

    by Miikka Huttunen

    A distilled list of seventy lessons from building Slush — on culture, leadership, events, and the people behind the scenes.

    Purpose & Culture

    Slush — Why I Do What I Do

    by Aino Bergius

    A personal reflection on purpose, community, and what drives the people who build movements like Slush.

    Leadership & Management

    The Smartly.io Leadership Handbook

    by Smartly.io

    An internal leadership playbook made public — principles and practices for scaling a high-performing organization.

    Entrepreneurship & Identity

    Entrepreneurship Redefined

    by Slush

    Slush's 2020 report on redefining entrepreneurship — what it means, who it's for, and where it's going.

    People & Organizations

    Rewarding Talent

    by Index Ventures

    A comprehensive guide to equity compensation for European startups — from option pools to employee ownership.

    Systems & Complexity

    A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

    by Russell L. Ackoff

    The legendary systems thinker on the difference between analysis and synthesis — and why we must redesign, not just improve.

    People & Organizations

    The Deliberately Developmental Organization

    by Robert Kegan et al.

    A radical reimagining of the workplace as an engine for human growth — where personal development is the business strategy.

    Systems & Complexity

    The Cynefin Framework

    by Cynefin Co.

    A sense-making framework for navigating complexity — distinguishing between simple, complicated, complex, and chaotic contexts.

    Organizations & Teams

    Liberating Structures

    by Henri Lipmanowicz & Keith McCandless

    33 microstructures that replace conventional meeting formats — making it easy to include and unleash everyone.

    Entrepreneurship & Strategy

    Big Venture Studio Research

    by Max Pog

    Comprehensive research on venture studios — models, economics, and what makes them work at scale.

    Entrepreneurship & Strategy

    On 'Scarcity' of Economic Incentives

    by Joseph Jacks

    A first-principles argument on why corporate equity dilution mirrors central bank money printing — and what open source changes about the equation.

    Life & Leadership

    Arm Yourself With Specific Knowledge

    by Naval Ravikant

    On why the most valuable knowledge can't be taught in school — it's built through curiosity, apprenticeship, and pattern recognition in complex domains.

    Product & Craft

    Your Product Needs a Soul

    by Karri Saarinen

    On why great products feel alive — the craft of embedding purpose, taste, and identity into everything you build.

    AI & Organizations

    Top 8 AI-Native Skills Needed in Any Organization

    by Taito.ai

    A practical breakdown of the essential AI-native competencies every organization needs to develop — from prompt engineering to human-AI collaboration.

    Culture & Organizations

    Smartly.io — Original Culture Handbook

    by Smartly.io

    The original internal culture handbook that helped scale one of Finland's most successful ad-tech companies — on values, autonomy, and team culture.

    Culture & Organizations

    Netflix — Original Culture Handbook

    by Netflix

    The legendary culture deck that redefined how startups think about talent density, freedom, and responsibility.

    Leadership & Identity

    Three Clarities

    by Chisom Udeze

    A framework for clarity of identity, clarity of purpose, and clarity of contribution — the foundation for inclusive leadership.

    Books

    Performance & Leadership

    Nine Lies About Work

    by Marcus Buckingham & Ashley Goodall

    A freethinking leader's guide to the real world — challenging the most common myths about teams, culture, and performance.

    Leadership & Management

    The Inspiration Code

    by Kristi Hedges

    How the best leaders energize people every day — practical research on what makes communication truly inspiring.

    Culture & Organizations

    Tribal Leadership

    by Dave Logan, John King & Halee Fischer-Wright

    Five stages of tribal culture and how leaders can upgrade language, relationships, and collective performance.

    Organizations & Teams

    Reinventing Organizations

    by Frederic Laloux

    A guide to creating organizations inspired by the next stage of human consciousness — self-management, wholeness, and evolutionary purpose.

    Leadership & Management

    The Coaching Habit

    by Michael Bungay Stanier

    Seven essential questions that change the way you lead — say less, ask more, and change the way you lead forever.

    Entrepreneurship

    The Startup Handbook

    by Jyri Engeström & Timo Ahopelto

    A practical guide for founders navigating the early stages of building a startup — from identity to execution.

    Entrepreneurship

    The Hard Thing About Hard Things

    by Ben Horowitz

    Building a business when there are no easy answers — war stories and practical wisdom from one of Silicon Valley's most respected entrepreneurs.

    Product & Craft

    Creativity, Inc.

    by Ed Catmull & Amy Wallace

    Overcoming the unseen forces that stand in the way of true inspiration — the definitive account of how Pixar built its creative culture.

    Leadership & Management

    Trillion Dollar Coach

    by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg & Alan Eagle

    The leadership playbook of Bill Campbell, the coach who helped build some of Silicon Valley's greatest companies.

    Organizations & Teams

    Build: Elements of an Effective Software Organization

    by Otto Hilska & Rebecca Murphy

    A practical guide to the elements that make software organizations effective — from engineering culture to team structures.

    Purpose & Culture

    Delivering Happiness

    by Tony Hsieh

    A path to profits, passion, and purpose — the Zappos story of building a company culture that delivers happiness.

    Entrepreneurship & Strategy

    Kasvun Kaava

    by Mårten Mickos

    The growth formula — lessons from one of Finland's most experienced tech leaders on scaling companies and people.

    Entrepreneurship

    Woltin Tarina

    by Katja Boxberg & Merina Salminen

    The Wolt story — how a Finnish startup became one of Europe's most celebrated technology companies.

    Purpose & Culture

    Tarinan Valta

    by Juhana Torkki

    The power of story — why narratives shape leadership, culture, and the way we make sense of the world.

    Organizations & Teams

    Death by Meeting

    by Patrick Lencioni

    A leadership fable about solving the most painful and misunderstood problem in business — why meetings don't have to be boring.

    Organizations & Teams

    The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

    by Patrick Lencioni

    The definitive model for team dysfunction — absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results.

    Entrepreneurship & Strategy

    Loonshots

    by Safi Bahcall

    How to nurture the crazy ideas that win wars, cure diseases, and transform industries — a new way of thinking about group behavior and innovation.

    Feedback & Leadership

    Never Split the Difference

    by Chris Voss

    Negotiating as if your life depended on it — a former FBI hostage negotiator's field-tested approach to high-stakes conversations.

    Product & Craft

    The Creative Act

    by Rick Rubin

    A way of being — the legendary music producer on creativity as a fundamental act of living, not just making.

    Culture & Organizations

    No Rules Rules

    by Reed Hastings & Erin Meyer

    Netflix and the culture of reinvention — on radical candor, freedom with responsibility, and why talent density matters most.

    Leadership & Identity

    Daring Greatly

    by Brené Brown

    How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead.

    Purpose & Culture

    Find Your Why

    by Simon Sinek

    A practical guide to discovering your purpose — the essential follow-up to Start With Why.

    Life & Leadership

    The Infinite Game

    by Simon Sinek

    On playing the long game — why the best leaders think in terms of infinite games, not finite ones.

    Life & Leadership

    Range

    by David Epstein

    Why generalists triumph in a specialized world — on breadth, experimentation, and the power of diverse experience.

    Organizations & Teams

    An Elegant Puzzle

    by Will Larson

    Systems of engineering management — on organizational design, technical strategy, and leading teams through complexity.

    Culture & Organizations

    The Culture Code

    by Daniel Coyle

    The secrets of highly successful groups — how belonging, vulnerability, and purpose build great team cultures.

    Life & Leadership

    Principles

    by Ray Dalio

    Life and work principles from the founder of Bridgewater — on radical transparency, meritocracy, and systematized decision-making.

    Entrepreneurship

    Shoe Dog

    by Phil Knight

    A memoir by the creator of Nike — on the grit, luck, and madness behind building one of the world's most iconic brands.

    Culture & Organizations

    The Open Organization

    by Jim Whitehurst

    On igniting passion and performance — how open principles from Red Hat can transform leadership and organizations.

    Leadership & Management

    Extreme Ownership

    by Jocko Willink & Leif Babin

    How U.S. Navy SEALs lead and win — the leadership principles that apply from the battlefield to the boardroom.

    Leadership & Management

    The Dichotomy of Leadership

    by Jocko Willink & Leif Babin

    Balancing the challenges of extreme ownership — when to lead and when to follow, when to be aggressive and when to be prudent.

    Organizations & Teams

    Team of Teams

    by Stanley McChrystal

    New rules of engagement for a complex world — on transforming rigid hierarchies into adaptable networks.

    Entrepreneurship

    Rework

    by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson

    Change the way you work forever — a simpler, faster, and more productive approach to running a business.

    Performance & Well-being

    Grit

    by Angela Duckworth

    The power of passion and perseverance — why talent alone doesn't guarantee success.

    Self-Reflection

    Insight

    by Tasha Eurich

    The surprising truth about how others see us, how we see ourselves, and why the answers matter more than we think.

    Performance & Leadership

    Great At Work

    by Morten T. Hansen

    How top performers do less, work better, and achieve more — evidence-based practices for mastering your own performance.

    Conversations

    Founder Interviews

    The people whose stories, perspectives, and hard-won lessons helped shape Just Thoughts.

    Product & Craft

    Jarno Saarinen

    Where do good ideas come from — on product intuition, creative collisions, and building things that matter.

    Purpose & Culture

    Pierre Jallow

    Giving back — on purpose-driven work, community building, and the courage to serve.

    Leadership & Identity

    Chisom Udeze

    Being a diversity — on inclusion, identity, and the quiet power of representation in leadership.

    Entrepreneurship

    Rudi Skogman

    The story behind the story — on resilience, reinvention, and the long game of entrepreneurship.

    Life & Leadership

    Juho Nenonen

    A thank you letter to basketball — on gratitude, mentorship and entrepreneurial life after professional sports.

    Culture & Organizations

    Kalle Lindroth

    Working in culture — on creativity, authenticity, and the intersection of art and entrepreneurship.

    Life & Leadership

    Rony Vartio

    Dad life, DJ life — on balancing identity, passion projects, and staying true to who you are.

    Leadership & Management

    Taina Pereenniemi

    Creating with intention — on leadership, empathy, and building organizations that care.

    Product & Craft

    Paramartha Nerendradhipa

    How does OkeyLetsGo work — on building products with soul, from Southeast Asia to the world.

    AI & Organizations

    Jose Sanchez

    Using Lovable and AI — on the new wave of product building and what it means for founders.

    Product & Craft

    Varun Singh

    The voice-first future — on real-time communication, WebRTC, and building the infrastructure of connection.

    AI & Organizations

    Hernani Costa

    Human-centered AI — on ethics, empathy in technology, and leading the first wave of AI movers.

    Entrepreneurship

    Oleg Podsechin

    The legacy of a technical founder — on deep tech and building infrastructure that lasts.

    Entrepreneurship

    Teemu Lemetti

    The first guest — on friendship, co-creation, and the conversations that started it all.

    Media & Entrepreneurship

    Trond Hauga

    The social media frontier — on content, community, and building digital presence that matters.

    Ecosystem Design

    Aape Pohjavirta

    Ecosystems in practice — on nurturing startup communities and the infrastructure of innovation.

    Organizations & Teams

    Max Tkacz

    Junction, n8n, and beyond — on developer communities, automation, and building tools for builders.

    Entrepreneurship & Strategy

    Vas Zayarskiy

    From geopolitical shifts to startup strategy — on navigating uncertainty and building across borders.

    AI & Organizations

    Mari Luukkainen

    Byte-coded vibes — on AI, creativity, and the intersection of technology and human expression.

    Product & Craft

    Peik Lehtonen

    On product thinking and persistent venture building in the harshest environments.

    AI & Organizations

    Kimmo Ihanus & Petteri Jalonen

    Beyond the blue ink — on online discoverability in the age of AI.

    Purpose & Culture

    Ashish Mohite

    Building with purpose — on community, impact, and the human side of technology.

    Entrepreneurship

    Santtu Koivumäki

    How fast can you go — on speed, execution, and the art of moving quickly without breaking things.

    Go-to-Market & Growth

    Richard Makara & Rob Snyder

    Who the hell has demand — on go-to-market realities, demand generation, and the gap between theory and execution.

    Media & Entrepreneurship

    The Storyworld Team

    Pyry Kanerva, Tapani Alasaarela, Pauli Kopu & Raul Martin — on narrative, world-building, and the future of storytelling.

    Acknowledgements

    Special Thanks

    To the countless others not otherwise specifically mentioned — the friends, collaborators, and communities whose influence runs through every page.

    Lars Lydersen

    On VC supercycles and the long view of venture building.

    João Marcos Barguil

    On building across borders and cultures.

    Samu Ruoppa, Jouko Koskinen, Ilpo Pehkonen & Markus Kauppinen

    The army boys — on brotherhood, discipline, and the bonds forged in service.

    Miika Räty & Sebastian Johansson

    From Skyproduction — on creative production and bringing visions to life.

    The Community of Chairbearers

    For life long friendship, venture building, positive change making and Finnish entrepreneurial spirit.

    Teknologföreningen Alumni

    The student union that shaped generations of Finnish builders.

    The Slush Alumni Network

    The movement that proved a generation could build something bigger than themselves.

    Kristo Ovaska & Tuomo Riekki

    And the Smartly.io alumni community — on scaling culture alongside code.

    Singa & Deidei

    The teams — on building products and services that bring people together.

    Shaun Rudden

    At TalentOps Labs — on reinventing how organizations think about talent.

    Roni Ström

    At Ström Capital — on patient capital and long-term thinking.

    Miikka Kataja

    And the Taito.ai team — on AI-native skill development.

    The Paloceras Team

    On non-tech venture building with a soul at the frontier of fashion.

    Ron Bergman

    And the Bergman family — on aviation, precision, and keeping things airborne.

    Matti Jykylä

    And the Sun Effects team — on entrepreneurship with love for the craft, and teaching what it takes to mobilize the best in business, and the entire industry.

    Luciano Dolenc Jr.

    And the rest of our Dolenc family — on roots, resilience, and the foundation everything is built on.