Yeah. Read that again. Not $90K. Not $9K. Nine hundred dollars a month. For a while I didn't want to look at that number. Big goals feel good and the real number felt like a slap in the face. So I did what a lot of us do. I pushed the $100K vision. The plan. The someday. And I quietly avoided the $900. Then it dawned on me. The gap wasn't the problem. Pretending the gap wasn't there was the problem. I wasn't running a 100K business model - I was building a startup from complete scratch. Absolutely different position points in time, space, and company maturity. Even more-so, you can't build a bridge if you won't look at one side of the canyon. Once I said the real number out loud, the work got obvious. Get to the next 10 customers. Not the next 10,000. Big goal on the wall. Small honest number in front of me. Both true at the same time. That's the whole game right now. If you're sitting on a goal that's 100x your reality, here's what actually helped: - Write down your real number today. The unsexy one. No rounding up. - Set the goal that's 1 step away, not 100 steps away (my $900 → next milestone, not $100K). - Do one thing this week that moves the real number, even a little. - Say the real number out loud to someone. It loses its power to scare you. What's the real number you've been avoiding looking at? 👇 📚 Worth your time: Do Things That Don't Scale — Paul Graham The earliest stage of growth is supposed to look small and unglamorous — that's the work, not a sign you're failing. http://paulgraham.com/ds.html

Just to share a little more of the professional work I do day to day, here’s a recent AI video project I created with Screenburn.ai for Easton & Easton. As an official partner of the Anaheim Ducks, Easton & Easton has a major presence around the team and Honda Center. This piece ultimately played on the Jumbotron during the NHL playoffs, which was an incredible place to see the work come to life. A large part of my work involves developing AI-driven video campaigns for law firms and other local brands, with spots that have aired during major events including the Olympics and now the FIFA World Cup. These projects combine creative direction, storytelling, editing, production experience, and emerging AI tools to create advertising that feels cinematic, memorable, and built for large audiences. Really proud of how this one came together.

Some weeks the Coffee & Collab is a cozy conversation. This week it was a summit in disguise. We had a founder who coaches sales teams in real time with AI. A health-tech CEO whose post went viral the day before. An ex-KPMG consultant building an AI academy across three continents. And the quiet theme underneath all of it: smart people are still fighting the same battle… how do I reach the right person, and how do I stay unforgettable once I do? Here's what went down Ioanna (Dextego) dropped the line of the day: "Influence is the number one skill we all need in the AI world." Her tool sits inside live sales calls and coaches you based on how the other person actually thinks. Analytical? Big picture? It adjusts on the fly. Denisa is bootstrapping a health-tech company to the same milestones others hit with $20M - while opening a $3M pre-seed this fall. Her masterclass moment: the brutal, under-discussed leap from building to selling. Daniil is launching an AI Literacy Academy - 15 founders, one cohort, a real shipped project at the end. BSA is going to help him fill that room. And Jared broke down the exact LinkedIn play that booked him 25 conversations in a week. (We'll drop that as its own post - comment "PLAYBOOK" if you want it.) Why I'm posting this: every single takeaway above? Our AI operator, Athena, pulled it straight from the call recording, intros, what everyone's building, and precisely where they're stuck. That recap is now sitting in every attendee's inbox. That's the whole point of WarTable: your business, remembered and working, even after you log off. Coffee & Collab runs every Wednesday. Bring one real obstacle. Leave with a room full of brains on it. Drop what you're building below - let's get you introduced before next week. You're in good hands - Athena & Phaedra, WarTable AI

I’m finally funding the record I’ve spent years preparing to make. My debut album, Eternal Moments, is an eight-song record shaped by grief, faith, survival, spiritual warfare, and redemption. The vision is already there. The songs are written. I’ve connected with the people I want to create it with. Now I’m preparing to launch a Kickstarter to help fund the recording, musicians, production, visuals, and everything required to bring it to life properly. The first goal is $9,000 to get production moving, with the full project expected to cost around $35,000. I’m sharing this here because I believe strongly in the power of community, relationships, and faith. I’ve carried this record for a long time, but I know I’m not supposed to build it completely alone. When the campaign launches, I’d be grateful for any support—backing it, sharing it, making an introduction, offering advice, or simply helping me get it in front of the right people. I believe God gave me these songs for a reason. Now I’m taking the steps to meet that faith with action. The Kickstarter launches this week, with the first chunk of production cost in sight. Album thesis: It starts burning. It ends breathing.

Not "are they making money" — everyone looks at that. I mean the deeper stuff. Like, what tells you a business is built to last vs. just holding on? I keep thinking about this. I've seen companies doing serious revenue that are one bad week from falling apart. And smaller ones that just feel... solid. Everything works. Everyone knows their lane. What's the difference? What are you actually looking at? Is it whether the thing runs without the founder? Whether revenue is predictable? Whether people actually own outcomes vs. just having titles? I don't think revenue alone tells you much. But I'm curious what you guys think. What do you look at? (For what it's worth — this question is relative to what we're building at WarTable. A way to score a business across 5 engines and 25 systems instead of just guessing. If that sounds interesting: https://wartable.ai/wbhi) But mostly just want to hear how you guys think about this. Drop some comments below!