[GUEST ACCESS MODE: Data is scrambled or limited to provide examples. Make requests using your API key to unlock full data. Check https://lunarcrush.ai/auth for authentication information.]  John Rush [@johnrushx](/creator/twitter/johnrushx) on x 104.7K followers Created: 2025-05-25 15:29:10 UTC I built XX startups in XX years. VC-backed, Bootstrapped, Apps, SaaS, B2B, B2C, AI Agents. XX mistakes I regret making: X. Doing consumer apps. The failure rate here is 100x of b2b rates, nearly a lottery. X. Raising VC money too early. It shifted all our focus from "happy users" to the headcount, media coverage, conferences, LOIs, partnerships, networking and the next funding round. X. Hiring too early. Employees and contractors are like an average nanny for your kid. They do the bare minimum, they dont take any risk. But not taking risks means no innovation. Only founders have enough incentives to take risks. SO the founders should do all the work until they gain traction. X. Ignoring SEO. None of the people in my network did SEO. We all thought it was something for later and we kept postponing it forever. Paid ads were easy and predictable and having too much money in the bank basically spoils you. X. Ignoring content marketing. Never took blogging seriously. Big mistake. I thought blogging is a full time job, but it's actually possible to spend an hour a day on it and still do a good job. X. Social Media Marketing. This is my biggest regret. I started using X just X years ago. Nearing 100k followers now. What if I started XX years ago? Could I have 1M followers now? I think so. X. Skipping idea validation. I'd always assume for the audience. Anticipate what they need. It almost never turned out to be true. My best projects were those I thought will fail and failed projects had my highest hopes at the start. X. Hiring managers. I haven't yet seen any useful manager in a startup. They might be useful for corporations, but for startup I should have hired only doers. X. Chasing Investors. For every startup I'd spend XX% of my time fundraising. I'd succeed in most of the cases, but at what cost? I haven't done a single outreach to investors in X years, but I get VCs knocking my doors, because I have good traction and they search for such projects daily. So, don't chase VCs, just make users happy and VCs are gonna find you. XX. Hiring specialized developers. Nothing is less efficient than a team of specialized developers for a startup (frontend, backend, db, devops, design, qa..). Today I have X fullstack dev doing 5x more progress on a project than a team of XX back then. Avoid "teams" at all cost until at least $30kmrr. XX. Hiring people I don't wanna hug. My cofounder, an old Danish man said this to me in 2015. If you don’t wanna hug the person, it means you dislike them on a chemical/animal level. Every time I ignored this rule, I paid the high price later. XX. Betting on partners. I partnered up with large billion dollar corporates many times with different startups. They promise huge stuff, millions of users, but end up just wasting your time, destroy focus, shift priorities, make you spend zillions on ramping up security and compliance, and eventually bring in no users/money. XX. Shiny objects. I fell for crypt0 hype. Got super rich, then lost it all. Years wasted. Almost got depressed by seeing how scammy and greedy humans can be, even saw best friends losing their souls there. XX. Holding on a bad project for too long. I kept believing in projects after years of no traction. I thought that one day something magic will happen and things will go up. It was just a waste of time, money and my prime years. XX. Went to tech conferences. Totally waste of time. Most people there are the “good” employees of corporations who were sent there as a perk for being loyal to the corporation. All decision makers are on the stage and you never meet them as an attendee. XX. Scrum is a Scam. If I had a team that had to be nagged every morning with questions as if they were children in kindergarten, then things would eventually fail. The only good stuff I managed to do happened with people who were grownups and could manage their stuff on their own. We would just do everything over chat as a sync on goals and plans. XX. Outsourced development & marketing. The vendors were good, but the outcome was not good. Startups are so difficult that there is almost no chance someone from outside can do a good job for them, because it's just yet another assignments for those folks and they key goal is to make it look professional, the process and things, they never gonna disagree with your stupid ideas, they will just bow. XX. Started with a free tier in b2b. Free projects attract totally wrong crowd with irrelevant feedback and drive your project away from where it should head. Freemium is okay, at some point. But always start with paid(30day refund no questions asked). XX. Code from scratch. My team would spend first X months coding basic things like auth, admin panel, cruds and etc. It was huge waste of time. The moment I started using boilerplates, the speed went up 10x. Eventually I built my own AI Coding IDE optimized for code reusage, and it was the best decision of my life. XX. Spent little time with my family & friends. I worked way too much. Didn't take holidays at all. Missed so many weddings and birthdays. It was very destructive for my creativity. Once I started having some off(to do other active things), I became way more creative. Quality >Quantity. Most readers won't ever make it to the end, so I'll skip the 21...99.  XXXXXXX engagements  **Related Topics** [money](/topic/money) [rates](/topic/rates) [100x](/topic/100x) [coins ai agents](/topic/coins-ai-agents) [coins ai](/topic/coins-ai) [Post Link](https://x.com/johnrushx/status/1926661831252181193)
[GUEST ACCESS MODE: Data is scrambled or limited to provide examples. Make requests using your API key to unlock full data. Check https://lunarcrush.ai/auth for authentication information.]
John Rush @johnrushx on x 104.7K followers
Created: 2025-05-25 15:29:10 UTC
I built XX startups in XX years. VC-backed, Bootstrapped, Apps, SaaS, B2B, B2C, AI Agents.
XX mistakes I regret making:
X. Doing consumer apps. The failure rate here is 100x of b2b rates, nearly a lottery.
X. Raising VC money too early. It shifted all our focus from "happy users" to the headcount, media coverage, conferences, LOIs, partnerships, networking and the next funding round.
X. Hiring too early. Employees and contractors are like an average nanny for your kid. They do the bare minimum, they dont take any risk. But not taking risks means no innovation. Only founders have enough incentives to take risks. SO the founders should do all the work until they gain traction.
X. Ignoring SEO. None of the people in my network did SEO. We all thought it was something for later and we kept postponing it forever. Paid ads were easy and predictable and having too much money in the bank basically spoils you.
X. Ignoring content marketing. Never took blogging seriously. Big mistake. I thought blogging is a full time job, but it's actually possible to spend an hour a day on it and still do a good job.
X. Social Media Marketing. This is my biggest regret. I started using X just X years ago. Nearing 100k followers now. What if I started XX years ago? Could I have 1M followers now? I think so.
X. Skipping idea validation. I'd always assume for the audience. Anticipate what they need. It almost never turned out to be true. My best projects were those I thought will fail and failed projects had my highest hopes at the start.
X. Hiring managers. I haven't yet seen any useful manager in a startup. They might be useful for corporations, but for startup I should have hired only doers.
X. Chasing Investors. For every startup I'd spend XX% of my time fundraising. I'd succeed in most of the cases, but at what cost? I haven't done a single outreach to investors in X years, but I get VCs knocking my doors, because I have good traction and they search for such projects daily. So, don't chase VCs, just make users happy and VCs are gonna find you.
XX. Hiring specialized developers. Nothing is less efficient than a team of specialized developers for a startup (frontend, backend, db, devops, design, qa..). Today I have X fullstack dev doing 5x more progress on a project than a team of XX back then. Avoid "teams" at all cost until at least $30kmrr.
XX. Hiring people I don't wanna hug. My cofounder, an old Danish man said this to me in 2015. If you don’t wanna hug the person, it means you dislike them on a chemical/animal level. Every time I ignored this rule, I paid the high price later.
XX. Betting on partners. I partnered up with large billion dollar corporates many times with different startups. They promise huge stuff, millions of users, but end up just wasting your time, destroy focus, shift priorities, make you spend zillions on ramping up security and compliance, and eventually bring in no users/money.
XX. Shiny objects. I fell for crypt0 hype. Got super rich, then lost it all. Years wasted. Almost got depressed by seeing how scammy and greedy humans can be, even saw best friends losing their souls there.
XX. Holding on a bad project for too long. I kept believing in projects after years of no traction. I thought that one day something magic will happen and things will go up. It was just a waste of time, money and my prime years.
XX. Went to tech conferences. Totally waste of time. Most people there are the “good” employees of corporations who were sent there as a perk for being loyal to the corporation. All decision makers are on the stage and you never meet them as an attendee.
XX. Scrum is a Scam. If I had a team that had to be nagged every morning with questions as if they were children in kindergarten, then things would eventually fail. The only good stuff I managed to do happened with people who were grownups and could manage their stuff on their own. We would just do everything over chat as a sync on goals and plans.
XX. Outsourced development & marketing. The vendors were good, but the outcome was not good. Startups are so difficult that there is almost no chance someone from outside can do a good job for them, because it's just yet another assignments for those folks and they key goal is to make it look professional, the process and things, they never gonna disagree with your stupid ideas, they will just bow.
XX. Started with a free tier in b2b. Free projects attract totally wrong crowd with irrelevant feedback and drive your project away from where it should head. Freemium is okay, at some point. But always start with paid(30day refund no questions asked).
XX. Code from scratch. My team would spend first X months coding basic things like auth, admin panel, cruds and etc. It was huge waste of time. The moment I started using boilerplates, the speed went up 10x. Eventually I built my own AI Coding IDE optimized for code reusage, and it was the best decision of my life.
XX. Spent little time with my family & friends. I worked way too much. Didn't take holidays at all. Missed so many weddings and birthdays. It was very destructive for my creativity. Once I started having some off(to do other active things), I became way more creative. Quality >Quantity.
Most readers won't ever make it to the end, so I'll skip the 21...99.
XXXXXXX engagements
Related Topics money rates 100x coins ai agents coins ai