Max Tolmachev

I've mentored 100+ founders. Built an AI/speech tech startup backed by Nvidia. And I've discovered something that changes everything about how we evaluate founders. It's not about the pitch deck. It's not about the business plan. It's about the voice. Let me explain 👇

@thestefanl let's connect!

goal of the day 1400 followers, 32 to go. looking to connect with people who are growing their x accounts and are into tech👍🏻

@annarmonaco @paradigmai "Never to tack AI onto existing spreadsheets." That clarity of vision from day one is the thing that separates founders who build categories from founders who build features. You can hear it in how they describe the problem. Congrats on the launch.

Today we’re launching the newest version of @paradigmai When we started Paradigm, the goal was never to tack AI onto existing spreadsheets. It was to build a new type of interface that does the work for you. Now we’re pushing that vision much further. Workflows turn Paradigm into a system that runs research processes for you. Connect your CRM, existing spreadsheets, Slack, email, and internal data, and let Paradigm continuously run the research workflows your team already does. Same intuitive interface. But now a system of action. If you tried Paradigm before, try it again. Manual research is now a competitive liability.

@suhasasumukh No equity, no strings. This is what early-stage founders actually need: breathing room, not another cap table line. The founders who burn out fastest are the ones who trade equity for resources they could've gotten cheaper. Smart model.

a few people asked about the community fund. it's more like a grant. it's not investment. it's a shared pool -- $300,000 deployed across a community card that founders in the program can actually use. no equity. no strings. just resources when you need them. that's it.

This is the talent identification problem at its core. EF spotted him through a hackathon. But for every Ethan who surfaces organically, there are 50 equally good founders who never get noticed. Scaling founder discovery from "one name kept surfacing" to systematic screening is the next frontier.

During our Defense Tech Hackathon in El Segundo, one name kept surfacing: @ethanbarajas11. At the time, he was still at Caltech, not yet graduated, and already had no shortage of options in front of him: NASA on his resume, work in a lab with a professor, even the chance to spin technology out of the university. He still chose to found. Today, Ethan is building Icarus Robotics: the robotic labor force for space. Right now, that means dexterous mobile robots to augment astronaut crews in tasks like taking out the trash or unpacking cargo. Over time, it means enabling research, manufacturing, and everything else that makes a real space economy possible. Icarus came out of EF, pitched at Demo Day in San Francisco, and shortly after raised a $6M seed round. Now they are working with major players in the space industry and getting closer to testing their technology in space. Now it is easy to see why his name kept surfacing.

@danshipper The founders who'll thrive aren't the ones fighting AI. They're the ones who use it to see what they couldn't before. A model can flag stress patterns in your pitch voice. Only you know what that stress means and what to do about it. Tacit + AI = unfair advantage.

How to never lose your job to AI: Just surf the models. Frontier models outclass humans at any form of knowledge that can be written down. But people who use frontier models in their field of expertise generate new, tacit, situational expertise that the models don't yet have—because the models can't be trained on how they will be used in the future. Humans can learn to use new models faster than new models can be trained that absorb what they find out, so you can continually "surf" on top of the model's intelligence to generate new expertise. This is a fundamental limitation of LLMs because they don't learn past their training data. Even few-shot learning doesn't account for this because whatever can be codified into a few shot prompt needs to be used in the correct situation—and this will always stay uncodified in the general case. Just surf the models. Reap the benefits of a totally new world.

The nuance point is key. Everyone builds AI agents for the easy stuff (scheduling, email). The real opportunity is the messy, judgment-heavy workflows that humans currently do badly because they're tired, biased, or overwhelmed. Healthcare. Due diligence. Founder evaluation. That's where AI earns trust.

Healthcare software was designed for humans. Multi-step, nuanced workflows: prior auth submissions, EHR note creation, eligibility verification. The kind of work that can't be reduced to an API call. That's what AI agents in healthcare are being asked to automate. And the infrastructure to do it reliably doesn't exist off the shelf. We build it: A coding agent to generate automation scripts, fully managed infrastructure to run them at scale, and a maintenance agent to keep them working as portals and EHRs change. Today, we're announcing our $5M seed round, backed by Floating Point, @MeridianStCap, Twine Ventures, @refractvc and angels like @zacharylipton (CTO, Abridge) and @dps (fmr. CTO, Stripe). If you're building AI agents that need to operate payer portals or EHRs, we'd love to talk. And we're hiring!

@ycombinator @beparallelhq 12 months to millions in ARR. That execution speed is only possible when a founder knows exactly which problem they're solving and attacks it with zero hesitation.

Congrats to @beparallelhq on their $20M Series A! Parallel's AI agents integrate directly into hospital software to automate administrative workflows. In less than 12 months, they've deployed across dozens of hospitals, reached millions in ARR, and recovered tens of millions for clients—with a team of just over 10 people. tech.eu/2026/03/19/par…

@EU_Commission Hmm, I wonder when this will actually come into force given the Euro-bureaucracy)

We are introducing EU Inc. To make building and growing a business across the EU faster, simpler, and smarter. 🔸 Start a company in less than 48 hours 🔸 No minimum capital requirement 🔸 Fully online and borderless

The brutal part? Most founders walk into investor events performing a version of themselves they think VCs want to see. The real ones, the ones you'd actually want to back, get filtered out by the transactional format itself. Building for people first is the only way to catch them.

Most investor events focus on transactional networking. Camp Hustle focuses on people. Why? We've found building real relationships is better for longer term outcomes - introductions, partnerships, referrals & investments. Come hang out -> camphustle.co

@rbelopolskiy go ahead bro :)

what a 4-person team can ship in one day looks very different now. Building in public, day 1 update: -pos integration with timed sync to the backend -core data model: tenant, branch, waiter -upsell detection engine -bonus payout engine -manager dashboard -auth -logging for all key events everything is already deployed on a vm in gcp and working via direct ip. Tomorrow we have big plans

@KaiXCreator let's connect!

I started as a reply guy with 0 followers. Now I’m at 5.1M and guess what? I’m still replying. If you’re building too, drop a reply and let’s connect 🔒

@brockpierson 🤟

I am blowing all super small accounts Reply if you're under 5k and I will boost you 🚀

Something I've noticed after years of working closely with founders: the burnout doesn't announce itself. It starts quiet. You stop texting back friends. Weekends blur into weekdays and you tell yourself it's discipline. You catch yourself staring at a Slack message for 10 minutes without reading it. Your partner asks how work is going and you say "good" because explaining the truth would take an hour you don't have. Then one day you're on a call with an investor and your mind just... leaves. You're talking but you're not there. And the scary part is, nobody notices. Because you've gotten really good at performing "fine." I've sat across from hundreds of founders in pitch sessions. The ones running on empty sound different. The pacing gets mechanical. The pauses disappear. They stop using "I" and start using "we" for everything, like they're trying to distribute the weight of their exhaustion across people who aren't in the room. If this sounds familiar, the worst thing you can do is push harder. The second worst thing is pretend you're okay. Take the call off your calendar. Go for a walk without your phone. Talk to someone who won't judge and won't offer a productivity hack. Building something great requires being around long enough to finish it.

The average VC spends 3 minutes and 44 seconds reviewing a pitch deck. Founders spend 4 months building it. 80% of decks get rejected without a meeting. That math should terrify every founder who thinks their slides are the product. Your deck is a door. Your voice opens it (or doesn't).

@Lilyjadei Hi, If you raise, send me the pitch deck + 2-minute audio pitch, and I'll give you a report you've never seen before.

@Deconotron Hi, this is interesting. would love to know more.

I've mentored 100+ founders. Built an AI/speech tech startup backed by Nvidia. And I've discovered something that changes everything about how we evaluate founders. It's not about the pitch deck. It's not about the business plan. It's about the voice. Let me explain 👇

@CiprianiRanieri It's more like a NRR (yes) :) We are currently off the radar, haven't launched yet, and are conducting the ICP JTBD validation.

@Deconotron cool max, have you got Mrr so far?

8.5k impressions crazy. We are creating an incredible community of builders who support each other, lets goo!!! Will check every project and give my honest feedback

@rbelopolskiy @4sellAI Build in public ;)

is it actually possible to launch a new product in 2 days with today’s tech? we’re about to find out. starting an internal challenge Goal: by monday, launch, test, and deploy a lite version of our core product at @4sellai Details👇

I'm currently building an agent system for startup founders in the mental health niche, and the first product is a pitch deck analysis + a 2-minute voice pitch, and we generate a report on how the founder currently appears to the investor. We sell this for $50 (pay-per-result). The same goes for investors - if they need a very quick overview of the startup, something their analysts can never produce, it costs $100. What we did yesterday was customize the agent on the fly for your needs. I can create a calculation just for you if you give me more information about your desired outcome.

@Deconotron how much does this analysis cost? how can I know more?

I processed all 129 starter story interviews to find what founders actually agree on the result: 👉 19 patterns lead to success still wip, but curious what you think - tmaker.io/advisor feel free to roast it (without hurting me 😅) and tell me what's missing

I took Mike's video and analyzed it, then I compared his quotes with the recommendations from your website, and – voila! I'll send you the results of my analysis of all the quotes in a DM, as there are some tricky points :) But the main takeaway is that when you listen to how people speak, not what they say, you get real insights that you can confidently rely on!

@Deconotron that would be incredible fyi, all content is here: @starterstory/videos" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">youtube.com/@starterstory/… 👀