"I don't ever wanna have this pressure to do something that I don't wanna do just to please some external stakeholder."

Is he an indie-hacker or a zen master — a burnt out CTO or a prominent sh*t-poster?

This week's guest Stefan Wirth doesn't fit neatly into boxes. We dive into the nuance of making business bets and Stefan's vision of building calm startups without the external pressure and control of venture capital.

Together we uncover:

• What's wrong with the funded startup studio approach.

• How the calm approach is still quite a challenge

• The happy team size and value of partnerships to expand capabilities

• And the perfect ratio of value-add to s**t-posting on twitter

Plus Stefan shares his experience with startup acquisition and a lot more.

Oh, there are the products as well — swiftbrief.com for smart and efficient content briefs, tubetranscripts.com for better Youtube subtitles and more.

If you want to learn more, check out calmbusinessos.com or follow Stefan on twitter @NafetsWirth

PS: If you want to hear more from Stefan, check out his chat’s with on the Do it in Public show!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

Sarah Abou Ghaida joins us to describe the inspiration behind her fashion-tech startup Moodahub.

She's one of 2 founders who went through both Nano Grit and the Bootcamp and is now working with her MVP team in the Paralect Accelerator to launch Moodahub soon 🚀

We uncover:

• What pushed her to start working on this solution now.

• Who can learn more about lookin good on Moodahub

• Why sustainability and keeping up with trends can happen at the same time

And how Sarah's family inspires her and supports her journey as a founder 🫶

Along the way, Sarah's built a fantastic following for herself on Instagram (+35K followers) and on a brand new Moodahub Tiktok account 🥳

So you better believe the Moodahub launch will be spectacular. Join the early adopters at Moodahub.com and dress your best, responsibly.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

"You have to be really obvious in your pitch about what is this huge problem that you're tackling. Our deck starts out with 'We are declaring war on poverty' — like, boom, it hits you right off the bat."

This week's guest Daniel Walsh from VeroSkills shares the 3-year journey from the idea to current growth of his mission-driven learning platform.

Along the way, we explore:

🤑 The business model where students complete coding courses for free

📌 How Daniel focused his pitch after 175+ presentations to investorss

⚒️ Why his early attempts to build the product weren't working (and how Paralect helped turn it around)

🤖 Who should join and learn programming skills despite the advancement of AI

And much more — Daniel's been working in tech and leading companies for 13+ years and brings a wealth of experience and insights for founders to the show 🙏

"Every aspect of what we do is an impact-based platform. The companies that are engaged to make a greater impact — to move the needle. The students — they are being taken out of poverty and trained and put into this great opportunity. The tutors are some of the most skilled software engineers in the world — they're making great money already but they join our platform not to make more money, but to make a difference."

Enjoy the show 🚀

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

If there's one person with the perspective to blast open the hood of product discovery in Nano — it's Kseniya!

Now CPO at Paralect, she also joined the first Accelerator batch 2 years ago on team Nudge and still works closely with founder Julie to this day.

But Paralect is change, so the same framework we used in Batch 1 doesn't apply anymore 🚀

'Cause now there's:

⚒️ Nano Grit and

🥾 Nano Bootcamp, so

📈 Founders already have been hustling in public to build a tribe of early adopters 💪

So the new goal is to harness that Momentum into the best damn MVP possible during the Accelerator.

So yeah, that's what we discuss in today's show — enjoy 🍻

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

"I just got inspired by people building from nothing — really leanly, getting traction and accomplishing what they set out to."

Andy's on a mission to solve a straightforward distribution problem — but we all know building simple solutions that delight is rarely a simple process.

In this show, we uncover:

• The pain points that Andy found through problem interviews during Nano Grit in May

• What motivates him to build in public as a founder and connect with the wider startup community

• A few lessons he's learned on his way to gain traction for Fudgify

Andy and the Bootcamp team at Paralect are already cracking away on the MVP of the app, so join the waitlist at Fudgify.ai if you're a Twitter creator who wants to expand into AI-powered video 🪄

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

“The fact is we need more small founders, we need them succeeding — instead of big tech taking away all the money and storing it in tax havens.”

We got into:

• Why interns specifically are a great fit for small, lean startup teams

• How Sachin's Insta brand is different from his brand as Leap Room founder

• What insights he brings to building in public as a result of his creator experience

• Who's a perfect fit to join Leap Room when it goes live.

Head over to leaproom.io to find out more about Sachin's vision for global, intern-powered startups and sign up for the waitlist!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

This is Pasha's story — a young man who dreamed of building rockets but now leads the long-standing product team goLance and launches his own ideas 🚀

From a hasty student decision to apply to the Startup Summer dev program to joining Buildspace and launching Blitz in 6 weeks.

Five years of building, mentoring, leading and teaching — but keeping it fun all along the way.

So how did he answer that first question? Check out blitz.vote to see what he's cookin 👨🏻‍🍳

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

Workouts are all about getting fit or fast or just getting rid of some stress from the day. Then why do so many people spend their workout time glued to a phone screen?

It seems counter-productive to me and Carousel Boxing founder Norris Panton. He's just wrapped up the Nano Grit challenge to gain traction for Carousel's audio-driven training sessions.

Sound like it could get you moving? Tune in to today's show and learn all about it.

Then head over to carouselboxing.com and join the waitlist.

PS: It's going to go way beyond boxing!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

"A lot of these note-taking apps have been implementing AI inside them … I thought it was very interesting, but it seemed like it was implemented as an afterthought or something that's added on. I thought this could be done better — so why not create an AI-first document editor."

Catch the full show to find out:

• What you can make when text and image generation happen right there in one doc

• Why the goal is not to replace your current note-taking system

• How typenotes will help creators simplify their cross-platform publishing workflow

Plus see how Shashank has changed his approach to product validation since joining Nano Grit 🚀

Check out typenotes.ai to sign up for the beta 🙏

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

"I prefer to visualize everything because this is the fastest way to explain the whole idea, to split everything into tasks and to deliver something."

Product Board founder Alexey Yanushkevich joined Nano Grit with the vision to help founders clarify their startup idea as quickly as possible.

Together with clever AI tools, founders can use Product Board to scope, validate, and organize their product roadmap.

Learn why Alexey saw the need for Product Board in his role as a product manager at Paralect and what he's going to achieve in the Nano Grit challenge this month 🤝

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com