Technical founders

Reading path

• SBIR and STTR as patient capital for research-based companies

  How federal SBIR and STTR awards fund research over years without taking shares, what the 2026 reauthorization changed, and what to ask first.

• A boring first technology stack

  How to choose a first technology stack for a SaaS product by asking about people, documentation and reversibility, with three technologies named as examples.

• A technical founder's blind spots: selling, pricing and saying no

  Three kinds of work a builder can overlook when starting a SaaS company: selling before building, setting a price on purpose, and keeping an explicit no list.

• Answering a security and privacy questionnaire

  What the CAIQ, CCM, OWASP ASVS and NIST frameworks are, how a questionnaire answer relates to evidence, and the questions to bring to counsel.

• API-first products and developer tools

  What it means to build a product around its interface, what developers expect from an API, and the early choices on errors, versions and documentation.

• B2B SaaS: how the model works and what it asks of a first company

  What business-to-business software as a service is, how it earns money, and the reliability, security, contract and support work it asks of a first company.

• Choosing a model provider: the questions that matter

  Questions to put to any language model provider before you build on it, drawn from vendor documentation on data use, retirement notice, limits and terms.

• Climate-tech software: considerations before you build

  Questions to settle before you build software for emissions data and climate reporting, from US federal, California and European Commission pages.

• Customers as capital: pilots, prepayment and design partners

  How pilots, prepayment and design partners can fund a first product, and the terms worth writing down before any of them starts.

• Edtech SaaS: considerations before you build

  Questions to settle before you build education software in the United States: student records, children under 13, school official status and web accessibility.

• Estimating a first release: ranges and what they hide

  Why one number misleads, how a three-point range works with an invented example, and what even a good range hides from you and from the people you tell.

• Evaluating an LLM feature before you ship it

  A method for testing a language model feature before launch: written success criteria, a test set with edge cases, grading choices and re-runs after changes.

• Fintech SaaS: considerations before you build

  Questions to settle before you build software that moves money or holds financial data in the United States, from public agency pages. Not legal advice.

• Founder equity splits and vesting

  How founder shares are issued, what vesting is and how a repurchase condition works, with questions for counsel. It gives no recommended split.

• Founder IP assignment and confidentiality agreements

  Who owns code and inventions made by founders, and what the copyright, patent and trade secret statutes say about assignment and confidentiality.

• Founder-led sales calls: a structure

  A six-part structure for a first sales call run by a technical founder, a note template, and what the U.S. wiretap statute says about recording.

• From client work to a product: productizing a service business

  How a service business can turn repeated client work into a product: what to check about ownership, client data and pricing before the first version ships.

• Funding a first SaaS from customer revenue

  How customer payments can fund a first SaaS, what billing choices do to the timing of cash, what you owe for prepaid service, and the arithmetic to track it.

• Grants and SBIR programs for software companies

  What the US SBIR and STTR programs are, who can apply, how the phases work, and what a software company should check before it writes a proposal.

• Healthtech SaaS: considerations before you build

  Questions to settle before you build health software in the United States: business associates, the Security Rule, breach notice and FDA device software.

• HR and recruiting software: considerations before you build

  Questions to settle before you build hiring software: automated tool audits, selection-rate rules, background checks and the EU AI Act, from public texts.

• Landing page tests you can read

  How a technical founder can plan and read a two-version landing page test using the NIST statistics handbook, with invented numbers and no benchmarks.

• Legal software: considerations before you build

  Questions to settle before you build legal software: client confidentiality, supervision, privilege, e-signatures and the unauthorized practice of law.

• Marketplaces and partner channels: when a listing helps

  How a technical or remote founder can read marketplace documentation to judge whether a listing helps, with each platform's rules attributed, none ranked.

• Meetings, async work and decision records for a small team

  How a small team can decide which conversations need a meeting, what to write instead, and how to keep a decision record, using the Scrum Guide and GOV.UK.

• Metering and budgeting model usage

  How to measure language model usage per feature and per customer, set limits before a bill surprises you, and handle the errors that limits produce.

• Observability for a small team: logs, metrics and alerts you will actually read

  A starting set of logs, metrics and alerts for a two- or three-person SaaS team, built on four signals and one rule: every alert must be one you can act on.

• Open-core and open-source businesses

  How companies build a business on open-source software, what open core means, what licenses allow, and the questions a technical founder should answer first.

• Open-source licenses inside a commercial product

  What the MIT, Apache 2.0, GPL and AGPL license texts say about copying, shipping and offering software, and the questions to bring to counsel.

• Ordering a pre-seed evidence pack

  How to arrange the records behind a founder's claims into one indexed set, in data room folder order, and what to ask counsel.

• Platforms and ecosystems: when a product becomes a platform

  How a software product turns into a platform that others build on, what that asks of your interfaces, permissions and partner support, and why it comes late.

• Pricing a first SaaS: value, packaging and the questions to ask

  How to find where value sits in a first SaaS, package it into plans, and which questions to put to customers, billing platforms and advisors.

• Privacy law basics for a small product

  What the GDPR, the CCPA, the COPPA Rule and the FTC Act say about personal data, from the primary sources, with questions to bring to counsel.

• Prompt injection and the OWASP Top 10 for LLM applications

  What prompt injection is, how the OWASP Top 10 for LLM applications describes it, and the design questions the list raises for a small SaaS team.

• Retention basics for a first SaaS

  What retention measures in a subscription business, how to calculate customer and revenue retention with a handful of accounts, and what to do with the result.

• Retrieval-augmented generation: what it is and where it breaks

  What retrieval-augmented generation is, where it commonly fails in a product, and how to test retrieval and answers separately before launch.

• Revenue-based financing and venture debt: when they apply

  What public sources say about sales-based financing, loans and debt beside equity, and what to ask a provider before you agree to repay money from revenue.

• SAFE or convertible note: how the two instruments differ

  How a SAFE and a convertible note differ, from debt and interest to what happens on a sale, with the questions to bring to your own counsel.

• Security software: considerations before you build

  Questions to settle before you build security software: the frameworks buyers use, secure development, SOC 2 reports and the EU Cyber Resilience Act.

• Shipping safely with feature flags and rollback

  How feature flags separate deploying code from releasing a feature, what rollback can and cannot undo, and why every flag needs a removal date.

• Stock options for early employees: what an option is and what to ask

  What a stock option is, how US tax sources describe the two main types, and the questions an early employee or a founder can bring to counsel before a grant.

• Structured interviews for a small team

  What a structured interview is, as a US federal personnel agency describes it, and how a small team can build one: shared questions, anchors and scoring.

• Terms of service and privacy policy: what each document is for

  A terms of service is a contract and a privacy policy is a notice. What the primary sources say about each, and the questions to bring to counsel.

• The 83(b) election and its deadline

  What the 83(b) election is, what the statute and the IRS say about its 30-day deadline and how it is filed, and the questions to bring to a tax professional.

• The NIST AI Risk Management Framework for a small team

  What the NIST AI Risk Management Framework contains, how its four functions read at the scale of a small team, and what the framework does not say.

• Trials, demos and self-serve: how a customer first meets the product

  The mechanics of demos, pilots, trials and self-serve, what each asks you to build, and what a U.S. statute says about recurring online charges.

• Usage-based, seat-based and hybrid pricing models

  How seat-based, usage-based and hybrid pricing work, what each one asks of your product and billing, and the questions that help you choose a unit of value.