Brian Bourque

6 years ago I joined a 20-person startup. I wanted to quit after my first week, but didn't. Now our company is worth over $1B and has 200+ employees. Here's what I've learned about succeeding at a startup:

@hwbhatti Lemon, Hassan! Looks great.

Think it. Say it. Done. The average person spends 3 hours typing + switches 1,000 tabs per day. That ends today. Meet Lemon: The first voice-to-action AI agent that turns your voice commands into finished tasks. RT + Comment "Lemon" to get free access for 30 days. (must be following so I can DM you)

@JeremiahDJohns Made my day.

One of my all-time favorite type of videos is pre-fame bands playing their extremely famous songs to a tiny room of people, because they're not yet known. A thread of some examples: Bastille playing Pompeii in what looks like someone's living room:

@matt_gray_ Brand

If you don't build your personal brand intentionally, someone else will build it for you accidentally. That's why I'm sharing my 2025 Personal Brand Authority Template. Follow & comment "Brand" and I'll DM it to you for free.

@jspujji GrowthAssistant

A $3000 / month assistant added $5 Million ARR for me. I never revealed this before. I already had an audience on X and LI, but I wanted social to be a real marketing channel for GrowthAssistant So I created a playbook: • Turn my marketing experience into content that helps marketers • Look through comments & followers for my ICP (marketing leaders, CEOs, etc) • DM only my ICP to see if they need global talent This brings in $5M/year, but I only spend 1 hour a week on social. How? I use AI & SOPs to delegate the whole process to overseas Growth Assistants. I made a guide so my portfolio companies could copy this process. Comment “GrowthAssistant” to get the guide in your DMs.

@lukesophinos Congrats! Huge milestone Luke

Some big news today. After a decade of building, I'm excited to announce a major growth equity deal with PSG. I founded CourseKey in my college dorm room nearly 10 years ago. We made A TON of mistakes, but we were supported by an incredible customer, employee, and investor base that worked with us through the good and the bad. I’ll be forever grateful and indebted to every one of them. The good — >We built one of the largest software companies in our industry supporting hundreds of enterprise customers — folks like Paul Mitchell, Lincoln Tech (Nasdaq: LINC), and Legacy Education (Nasdaq: LGCY) are all powered by CourseKey’s operating system. >We’ve helped hundreds of thousands of students attend a trade school, get an incredible skill set, and attain a high paying job. Many of Americas welders, mechanics, phlebotomists, medical assistants, barbers, cosmetologists, truck drivers, etc were trained with CourseKey’s software. How cool is that? >We started with a wedge product, added a few more products, became a platform, added payments, and much much more. >An absolutely incredible and supportive investor group and board including Steve Altman who saved the company MULTIPLE times, supported me through it all; personal challenges, professional growth, the highs and lows, you name it. The most stand up guy I've ever known both personally and professionally. Someone I look up to in every regard. Mike Stone who I learned so much from in such a short amount of time and the most sophisticated investor I've ever come across. Wayne Hu who was always there for me, his ceiling is so so high. Dennis Yang who was my CEO coach for ~5 years and made me better every day. Mark Blackwell who is a vertical SaaS guru and will do huge things. And Larry Rosenberger, who got his hands dirty and helped us build out our data & BI offering. And many others that wrote checks into a young, hungry, ambitious, kid who really didn't know much :-). THANK YOU. The bad — >Two big headcount reductions (and one very painful one during the Q4 2024 SaaS crash that took us from nearly 100 to 40 employees) >Having our money locked up in Silicon Valley Bank during the 2023 bank run >A lawsuit the same day I got my first investor term sheet (can’t make this sh*t up) >A bunch of challenges with debt (be so so cautious of debt my friends) >Very important customers churning and very important employees and co-founders leaving >Financing term sheets that got pulled at the final hour > Less than 30 days of runway >And a lot of other seriously near death experiences But man, we preserved, and we made it happen. And all this started from a little scribble on a notepad in my college dorm room. Crazy. So damn grateful for the ride. Truly. Some other incredible folks that this would have NEVER HAPPENED without — Fadee Kannah, Marc Barron, Ryan Vanshur, Luan Nguyen, Ming Zhong, S. Craig Anderson, Tina Tran, Peter Trennum, Cathy Pucher, Todd Northup, Jackson Batchelder, MA, my mom and dad, Tim Collins, Mallory & Winston, OUR INCREDIBLE TEAM, and many many more I don't have enough characters here to name :-). Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. But the next ten years may be even more exciting than the last ten. Earlier this year I pitched PSG on rolling up the trade school software space. They eventually bought in and three companies have come together to build the largest player in the trade school software space. I’m excited to support the achievement of this vision in any way I can. Let this be a reminder that you can overcome anything. You just have to give it everything you’ve got over a long period of time. Just. Keep. Going. Thanks for the ride. May the next chapter be as beautiful as the last. Onwards.

@denk_tweets @beehiiv Big desk energy

tired of your email company talking about their logo for 6 months? disappointed they ship updates slower than LA traffic? wish the platform didn't look like it was built in the 90s? don't worry — we @beehiiv are here to help 🤝

@levelsio I do stuff like this all the time and it's insane. We're so lucky...

All this stuff wouldn't be possible without ChatGPT I simply ask it how to set up an email server on Ubuntu Copy paste most of the code Then edit some configs And it just works! Wouldn't be able to do all this server stuff without AI

Airbnb founder Brian Chesky on how to design a product for a million people “How do you make something for a million people? I don’t know where to start. But if you pick one person, study them, and take their journey, you can actually build something really personal. You can design something and keep iterating until they love it. Don’t stop improving it until that person loves it, and you’re not allowed to move to the second person until the first person loves it. Then you get the second person and keep iterating until they love it. And so on.” Video source: @StanfordGSB

@MarketingMax Powerful example of using a competitive advantage strategically. Felt anti consumer at the time but the tech is so good.

Apple's 2016 decision to ditch the headphone jack wasn't just about AirPods. It was a chess move that reshaped the entire tech industry. Here's how Apple's "mistake" became a billion-dollar masterstroke:

@matt_gray_ 🐐

I’ve made $21M in revenue in 3 years as an entrepreneur. I’ve built a team of 82 people, across 5 continents, without a single office. Steal my homework. Here’s exactly how I built my automated empire:

@heirsjournal Provocative and contrarian ideas that make you think. Thanks for sharing.

@sotulana Must be a big shift in mindset.

Life after an exit is optimized for caretaker CEOs who will keep the engines running efficiently post transaction. That’s not what a lot of high-growth founders are looking for. Hence, they struggle to transition from a role of risk-taking, creativity, and problem-solving to an operator CEO. It’s a mindset shift from Builder and Risk-Taker → Caretaker and Efficiency Manager The founders who navigate this transition well maintain the spirit of a builder while delivering the operational efficiency their new partners want. Adopting this mindset doesn’t happen overnight. It requires: • Systems that make it easy for you as a founder to be a better operator or work with operators • Mapping and measuring exact value creation metrics in collaboration with new partners • The team that will take you through to the next exit To do this, you need to answer two crucial questions: 1. What does your business look like now? 2. What will your business look like at the time of your next exit event? Connect those dots collaboratively with your partners. Map out your risk-taking activities vs efficiency optimization activities while keeping everyone’s eyes on the exit path. The more intentional you are about this, the more you’ll enjoy the journey.

@AustinTunnell Was just reading about city startups. Cool idea.

Las Catalinas might be the most beautiful town built in the 21st century. And my guest today, Sara Bega, has stewarded its evolution as Town Architect for a decade. Las Catalinas is a car-free, kid-friendly, multi-generational community in Costa Rica. Their goal is to create a pedestrian-first environment that maximizes kid freedom and allows for independent exploration and discovery. The town is built on 20% of the 1200-acre site, with a mix of houses, flats, hotels, and shops. We discuss Sara’s professional journey, and the principles and practices behind developing such a stunningly beautiful and human neighborhood that serves as an inspiration and example for what is possible today. Catch the full episode on The Building Culture Podcast available on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcasting platform. Spotify: lnkd.in/gNWRvK4u Apple: lnkd.in/gJ_iBJdK

@smartasset Impressive ROI and a great case study for how young advisors can improve their sales skills and build a client portfolio profitably.

Meet TJ Tamura from Capitol Planning Group, who's hit the ground running with SmartAsset 🌟 With our platform, TJ reports he has achieved 3-3.5x ROI in client acquisition! Read about his journey as a financial advisor and learn how you can grow your practice too: shorturl.at/HSO5y #SmartAsset #FinancialAdvisors --- Disclaimer: The testimonials are provided by financial advisors that have ongoing business relationships with SmartAsset. They are individual experiences, reflecting the real-life experiences of those who have used our services. The testimonials are not 100% representative of all of those who will use our products and/or services, and we make no admissions of such. SmartAsset may extend free products, discounts, promotional support, or other indirect or direct financial incentives to these sources. These incentives may or may not influence the nature of the testimonial. In this case, compensation was provided.

@adrian_horning_ crunchbase

I just scraped 2.8 million companies from crunchbase 🤯 Name, website, semrush stats, etc. I'm giving the entire thing away in the next 24 hours Comment "crunchbase" and I'll send it to you. Make sure DM's are open

@Tim_Denning Inspiring. Thank you

This is Kevin Kelly. The close friend Tim Ferriss goes to for advice. He taught him a philosophy for life that made Tim stop giving a f*ck. Here's the philosophy:

@daniel_eckler 👀

Squid Games ⭕ Trump vs. Kamala 🇺🇸 🔪

@matt_gray_ So good.

The best way to build an online business in 2024? A personal brand. I went from $30k in debt to making $1.1M/month by using a bulletproof system. Here's how you can do it too:

@daniel_eckler 🤯

MARK’S MAKEOVER 14 slides from the leaked Meta deck 🧵

@aliniikk @DanWestgarth @seanrad @companyonvc @foolventures Really cool to watch this evolve

Latest update on micro1’s AI Recruiter + $3.3M raised at an $80M valuation. We’re building the greatest AI recruiter to 100x every human recruiter on the planet. Huge thank you to @DanWestgarth, @seanrad, @companyonvc, and @foolventures!