The practice grew out of the worst year of my life.
At the end of April 2025, I was fired — seven months in, the shortest tenure of my career.
A first-time founder wanted sales to grow faster than it was going to grow, and that was that. I told myself I’d take the summer off, play golf, and figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.
A month later, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
The summer I’d pictured was gone. I knew that if I didn’t do something to distract myself, I’d go crazy. So I made a public goal on LinkedIn: I’m going to meet 100 founders in 100 days.
People responded. Most of them had never sold before — technical founders, building good products, thrilled to talk to someone who’d run go-to-market. We’d talk, and they’d say, can we do this again? Then they’d refer me to someone else. Then they’d post about it. It was the purest form of networking I’ve ever done.
I didn’t share what I was going through at the time. I just needed a distraction. There was no plan for a business.
Somewhere in there, a founder asked if I was documenting any of this. I record every call, so I figured I could. I started turning what I was hearing into a newsletter. The more I published, the more founders came.
The story I could tell was different from most. Not what worked in 2021 when money was free — but what a manufacturing-tech founder in Munich told me this morning, what a prop-tech founder in Boston told me yesterday.
So people started hiring me. And once we got their motion down, they’d ask the same next question: do you know anyone I can hire? So I started building the largest network of founding account executives anywhere.
In August 2025, I had my prostate removed. Knock on wood, I’m cancer free.
I’ve now met with more than 300 founders in over 40 countries. What I learned from them became an article in Harvard Business Review, and it’s the foundation of everything I share here.
I named it 100 Founders after the goal that pulled me out of an uncertain time. I hear that same uncertainty in a lot of the founders I talk to now — and that’s exactly who I built this for.