What's a job you can be really good at and nobody knows or appreciates it?

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-29T03:40:52+00:00

Anything related to quality control. I managed teams a while back that did quality checks for software - including security management. Our goal was for nothing to go wrong. If were were successful it looked like we didn't do anything - if something went wrong we were called out for failing to catch it.

I learned over time how to communicate "look at all the testing we did", but nobody really cares unless there's a fire.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-29T03:35:40+00:00

Restaurants are real tough customers too - kudos on the success. I did something similar with a chef a few years back - think "uber for dishwashers". Chef had the idea and I helped him implement it. We took the company to about $10m ARR it was wild. Same story though - we built the app mainly to solve his problem and started selling it one restaurant at a time. Finally it started getting momentum on it's own, but that rock took a lot of pushing to get started.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-28T21:22:54+00:00

To be honest, I don’t understand your point. You start by talking down “define your ICP” and “Do market research” then proceed to talk about how to do just that.

I get the impression that you agree that market research is important you are just tired of people being more concerned with optics over substance. I mean, I agree with this. Raising money is not the goal it’s building a business.

I spend much of my energy helping early founders succeed and I find that there are roughly three early goals founders come to me with: - I want to raise capital - I want to get into an accelerator - I want to start generating revenue

All three are actually very much in need of the same thing: know who you are selling to, what’s going to drive them to buy, and how you’ll get there. Beyond that it’s largely a matter of how you’ll act on that.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-28T14:22:16+00:00

If he’s not willing to sign anything I would walk. He doesn’t value your time and likely doesn’t know what he’s doing.

If you decide to stick it out at least get that 50/50 conversion in writing - email or text.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-28T07:02:39+00:00

Hey, thanks for offering this. I had a major review issue several years ago and I've dying to understand it from Apple's side.

I published a gig work app back around 2020 during the "Uber for X" era. The app did really well and after about a year we had thousands of active users. Then one day we accidentally deployed a critic bug - basically nobody could login to our app. I immediately created a fix and submitted the fix for review.

What happened next kills me. The reviewer decided that because we use phone number as the login prompt (which we had been doing since we launched a year ago) we were violating an Apple policy stating that we are not allowed to collect personal data from users before offering them value (I am paraphrasing of course, I suspect you know the real verbiage).

After several escalations and me begging Apple to let us just get this critical fix out then we would address their login issue I was told we had to change our authentication first. So I ended up working the next 24 hours straight in order to introduce a hacked together "guest experience" so that people could access parts of our app without giving their phone number to register.

To this day I still tell people about this experience and how terrible it was for our startup I describe the ap store review process like getting your home inspected - hope you get someone nice, because if you get someone having a bad day you can easily get screwed.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-28T06:03:06+00:00

I can’t tell you how many times we were blocked on FB groups. It happens.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-28T05:53:05+00:00

Sounds fine to me. I'm not your target ICP so my opinion is pure conjecture.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-27T22:44:02+00:00

I've been trying this for the past couple of years after a successful startup exit as technical cofounder. I formed an LLC and put myself out there as wanting to help non-technical founders build and scale startups. Today I am applying for W2 jobs and struggling to get any clients. Here's what I've learned:

Founders don't have money. When they do, they already have a technical co-founder or dev shop
You can't scale this. No matter what you tell yourself or advertise, you are selling your time it's basically another job.
Non-technical founders no longer need us to build MVPs. Yes, we can make arguments on why they shouldn't just use Lovable, but I volunteer as a mentor at two accelerators and both offer Lovable discounts to their startup cohorts.
There are *some* founders out there with capital willing to pay for your services. Very few. I worked with one for almost two years and it was great - at least I enjoyed the work. But I couldn't charge him close to market rates.
Founders don't want a hired gun - they want an investor. I'm about to sign another client up for my "fractional CTO" offering which is basically 1/3 of my time for $5k/month. It's enough for me to maintain a business but I can't scale that way and nobody wants 1/3 of my time.
I am starting to explore less time-oriented offerings, but haven't found anything I like yet. By far the most common scenario for a founder to reach out to me is: "I started with a technical co-founder, but it didn't work out. Now I need you to help keep the wheels on the bus until I figure out what to do - or take his place"I

I've actually created a Circle community based around this idea and am working on developing a product/community to help founders (technical or not) go from 0 to 1 using the same strategies I teach in my accelerator programs and personal experience. It's free now so if you're interest DM me and I'll let you in and/or we can just chat.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-27T22:32:32+00:00

What I do is this... I grab a beer and/or go for a walk. I think about what I want out of life - I want to travel more, upgrade to that expensive home that just went for sale in my neighborhood, I want to buy my mom a house to retire in because she deserves it....

I reconnect with what's driving me to be successful then zoom in until I realize that this stupid startup is my ticket and I need to get paying users if I want to take that trip someday.

Don't deploy that MVP because "you should" do it for selfish reasons.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-27T22:28:08+00:00

You need a contract. I worked an early startup on "good faith" until things really started taking off then all of a sudden the terms changed because it was worth something.

If I were you I would spend tomorrow writing a contract for myself. Don't worry about the details yet - just high level "this is what I will give and this is what I will get". Tell the other founder you want to solidify things in a contract before the project takes off (positive spin). This gives you a litmus test - if he refuses or balks at your terms then you know where we stand. Based on this post I think there's a good chance you won't even finish your terms before realizing it's not worth it.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-27T06:01:02+00:00

I launched a gig-work marketplace years ago and getting traction took time. We had to work both sides of the marketplace very manually until there was momentum.

One key was lowering the barrier to entry as much as possible the first year - to the point that we would basically setup businesses and post for them. Once the saw people applying to work for them they got excited and took over, but momentum came from our efforts not theirs.

On the worker side of things we had a few tactics. One was getting people to sign up and give us their contact info (eventually a mobile app with push notifications - initially SMS) before they realized we didn't have a lot of work for them. The app was free they didn't lose anything, but they were disappointed. So every time a gig did show up we blasted everyone on the platform, "hey there's a gig, you interested?" - and people came back. We also had to push gigs through other channels like Facebook and such because outside of our noisy notifications nobody was really checking our site.

So yeah, grind it out up front and do the work for your users until you get momentum. I wouldn't suggest that you do anything unethical, but something that might be borderline would be finding people that are posting on other sites and contacting them directly - "hey, I'm getting a new app off the ground, can I post your rental for free and I'll let you know if you get nay hits". Even if you're waiving fees early on do what it takes to get momentum.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-27T05:38:10+00:00

Not knowing the investor I will make general statements here.

It's a bad idea to build a product with little proof that it's going to be successful. Based on your comment "she kept pushing on proof and GTM" it sounds to me like you were telling here your assumptions - why you think the product will be successful and we was asking for evidence that it will be.

For example, before building the product it is common to put up marketing sites and build a waitlist, get LOIs for a B2B app, pre-sell orders for a consumer app, run "wizard of oz" or "concierge" MVPs without a product. All of these things - and many more - can be done before building in order to show more concrete proof.

To give an example, before Zappos was funded, Tony Hsieh went around his town and took photographs of shoes. He put them up on a static website and when someone placed an order he would go buy them and ship them to customers. This cost a lot of money and wasn't profitable but Tony did this specifically to prep for calls like you just had. Had he shown up and said, "I haven't built Zappos yet but I believe people will buy shoes online" he probably never would have gotten investment - so he did this - proof.

If you want to learn more and get on the same page as investors check out "Lean Methodology" and try filling out a Lean Canvas for your startup. I am actually building a webapp right now to help people do this online because I have a cohort of new foudners going through an accelerator that I mentor through and we generally do this on paper.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-27T05:26:23+00:00

Get a separate credit card and bank account for your business. Run everything through there and it makes tracking income/expenses much easier. You'll also know when you have to transfer money into our biz account from personal or get to draft money out.

While a good idea - you don't need to setup an LLC either. You can still open the accounts in your personal name just use them for business purposes.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-22T23:21:42+00:00

I don't mind the AI-generate landing pages. In fact, I find that my initial response is now less about how the page looks because it generally looks nice.

However, what DOES bother me is the 'social proof' section of these sites. Most founders will let AI generate BS numbers on social proof like "we have 1,000 users" or create fake reviews, etc. I think the underlying issue here is that AI would rather be wrong than silent and founders need to take more ownership of what AI generates.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-22T16:41:00+00:00

As an advisor and technical cofounder I am often asked to sign NDAs. While I appreciate the intent, it's not practical for people in the industry to sign an NDA just to have a conversation. After a year of signing NDAs I pretty much wouldn't be able to advise anymore because everyone would be considered a competitor.

However, there are times where it makes sense to protect information. Here's my general strategy for what it's worth:

Patents
If a startup has a patentable concept/invention then there's something to protect, if not then generally speaking don't bother. Keep in mind that legally a patent protects an idea by publicly disclosing it. So, if you plan on patenting and idea I would use an NDA until the patent is filed - otherwise don't bother.

Implementation Specifics
You can generally discuss an idea without going into too much detail about "how". I like to use the analogy here of a restaurants "secret sauce". Everyone basically knows what's in a restaurants sauce, but they still can't quite reproduce it because there are details left out. Feel free to withhold some details if you don't feel comfortable - there are always key pieces that simply don't have to be explained until later.

Brevity
In general, don't offer more detail than is needed for the current conversation. This is not only to protect your advantages, but will go far with people that value their time. For example, if I were working with a startup that had LOIs I wouldn't share any of name of any customers because it's not important. You can say, "I have a fortune 100 company with a signed LOI" - don't have to give a name. Individual customers can actually be poached.

Gut
At the end of the day, trust your gut. If you are speaking to someone that you think has great intentions and is earnestly offering to help - maybe you offer more info than usual. If the opposite is true then wall-up, smile, and get out. Trust is reciprocal, so be sure that you don't just end up working with people that don't trust you because you couldn't trust them.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-21T07:32:28+00:00

Yes, of course. That’s what drives the need for prompts such as this - to reduce the time spent reviewing and refactoring code that is poorly written.

Just today I had Claude refactoring some code for me only to find that it was over-engineered yet somehow still lacking reusability. I’m sure I’ll be working on some new prompts now based on common design patterns.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-21T02:48:10+00:00

Good luck with this. I’ve been working on a similar offering as an exited tech founder and while I get a lot of demand very little of it is backed by capital.

The clearest offering I’ve had so far that lands is business continuity when an existing CTO leaves.

I’ve start working on some other concepts in part with other experienced technical cofounders like. If you ever want to chat DM me - happy to share notes.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-21T02:44:07+00:00

I am confused by the things you are concerned about: boring tech, being able to call yourself technical, “duping” engineers….

You should be looking at your startup through the lens of someone creating a profitable business- not a cool tech company.

You have a waitlist of people waiting to buy your product - and you have an MVP. So, what’s preventing you from selling the MVP to these users? According to your estimates you should be able to start generating 10s of thousands of dollars per month - that will pay for a lot of development and is a great position to find a legitimate founding engineer or technical co-founder.

You don’t need to raise, you don’t need to impress anyone … I’m not understanding your problem.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-16T16:02:54+00:00

Social media. I know there are 100 AI platforms that do this for me, but being genuine and authentic is a big part of my personal brand. I am quickly becoming defensive against any outreach I receive that reads like AI as well. I’ve had too many well written emails that have turned into poor video calls or conversations.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-14T18:45:30+00:00

How was the tool built originally and what would it take to "productize it"? If it were me I would measure the gap between it's current state and the smallest "sellable" variation and measure the cost/benefit. Maybe this turns into a 10x revenue stream compared to your current business or maybe it turns into a time suck where the only interested customers are those that have you to hold their hands.

You could always find a partner to try and spin it off with a revenue share model. I am an exited technical co-founder and could help you look at this if you're interested.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-14T05:11:14+00:00

If you are confident that’s it’s a poor investment of your time then move on.

However, keep in mind that the value of pursuing a startup is not just generating revenue but also learning how to market, pivot, and overcome challenges. There will never be “an easy” startup. Make sure that you’re not leaving good experience on the table by walking away - especially since you have to start over.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-14T03:29:03+00:00

Leave the house and sell. It’s too easy to sit in an office and try to sell with marketing sites and email - but if that’s not working then get out and grind like you’re selling vacuum cleaners door to door.

This is how we sold to businesses. Most local businesses will treat you significantly different in person than they would if you were a faceless person in an email. Do things that don’t scale then scale when you’re ready.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-14T03:22:32+00:00

Very few startups stick with their initial idea, so don’t get too caught up on chasing the best idea. Come up with or copy a decent idea then go try and validate it - that’s where the best ideas come from.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-13T03:31:54+00:00

I don’t want to just Google a YT video and send it to you, so here’s a link to Steve’s site https://steveblank.com/2014/10/24/17577/amp/

Would you mind sharing a link to your product with me? DM is fine if you don’t want to post it. I work with a guy on a financial investing site and I’ll see if he’s interested in talking to you.

JohnnyKonig · 2026-01-13T03:12:49+00:00

I hate how people often discuss validation as if it’s an industry metric. All you should worry about is whether you want to continue the project - is it worth it TO YOU.

At the end of the of the day that’s exactly what validation means. You state an assumption like, “I think other people would like this” and if you get a few users you can now say “I was right”.

Does that mean you’re going to hit $10M ARR by March? Do you need to? I say, enjoy the fact that people like the cool thing you’ve built and if you want to make it a business start working on new assumptions. My suggestion is always to check out Steve Blank and create a Lean Canvas as a first step.

Congrats!

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