Again in 2012, the yr I left banking, I had a alternative: construct a lifestyle business or construct a venture-backed firm.
I selected the life-style enterprise. After 13 years in equities I used to be burned out and simply needed to be free to benefit from the FIRE way of life. Writing and tinkering 15 to twenty hours per week for mental stimulation beat grinding 15+ hours a day for years for the slim likelihood of an enormous exit price eight figures down the highway.
For a very long time that appeared like the appropriate alternative. Experience the bull market. Go on an journey. Discover new challenges. The factor is, I nonetheless realized lots about scaling a enterprise like a VC-backed firm, simply within the stage and energy I needed.
Seventeen years later, I could have by chance constructed one factor that issues for surviving within the AI economic system. Not a product. Distribution.
Thought AI Was Going To Completely Crush This Website
For all of 2025 and the primary quarter of 2026, I used to be feeling the tip was close to for Monetary Samurai.
AI was scraping my content material and serving it up with no attribution. Search conduct was altering. Why click on by to a 1,500-word submit when a chatbot summarizes it in three bullets? I instructed my dad, “Nicely, it was enjoyable whereas it lasted.” He lamented with me.
Monetary Samurai is the form of way of life enterprise AI threatens immediately. A legacy web site that wasn’t constructed by AI and principally depending on natural seek for progress. A sitting duck. Heck, even Google is cannibalizing its personal legacy search enterprise by revamping its search field with its AI instrument, Gemini.
Nevertheless, ultimately, I lastly turned an AI maximalist. As an alternative of fearing it, I began investing in it aggressively beginning in early 2023. Conventional enterprise capital, public venture capital, and particular person checks into AI founders right here in San Francisco. Upon getting pores and skin within the sport, the worry turns into curiosity.
And someplace in there, the cloud lifted. I noticed Monetary Samurai has the 4 issues AI cannot scrape: authority, longevity, belief, and distribution.
Constructing Is Free Now. Distribution Is Extra Costly Than Ever.
This is what AI truly did. It did not kill content material. It killed the price of constructing.
Anybody can ship a product now. Spend a weekend with Claude Code and you will have an actual app. The barrier to constructing, which used to really feel troublesome, is principally gone.
However here is the half no person warns you about: the barrier to getting customers was by no means the identical barrier. The 2 weren’t at all times linked. You simply could not inform, as a result of they each used to really feel unattainable on the identical time.
I noticed a Reddit submit just lately that nailed it. A man constructed 4 iOS apps with Claude, 5 extra in progress. Actual apps. SwiftUI, StoreKit, widgets, the works. Whole income throughout all of them? Zero. Whole customers? His spouse, and one man in Finland he suspects downloaded it accidentally. Learn this:
Constructing was not his drawback. Demand was. And demand has by no means been extra aggressive. You possibly can create one thing sensible, but when no person is aware of it exists, you do not have a enterprise. You’ve gotten a interest with a server invoice.
That is the good inversion of the AI period. The factor that was arduous, constructing, is now straightforward. The factor that was discounted, distribution, is now an enormous a part of the sport. And distribution is strictly what cannot be vibe-coded in a weekend. It takes years.
Why Individuals Truly Learn Monetary Samurai
So why do tons of of hundreds of individuals nonetheless present up right here each month, in a world drowning in AI-generated finance content material and TikTok movies?
A couple of causes, and none of them are unintended.
All the things right here comes from first-hand expertise. I am not summarizing a research I skimmed. I am telling you what truly occurred after I engineered my own layoff in 2012, or how I received screwed by a life insurance coverage firm that attempted to jack my time period premium from $39 to $720 a month simply because I would visited a sleep heart. The wins and the errors, each.
I spent 10 years in finance earlier than I wrote a phrase right here, so I am not studying private finance in public. I lived it and proceed to stay it.
In 2009, I kickstarted the modern-day FIRE movement and have gone deep into investing subjects to assist of us construct sufficient passive earnings to interrupt free from jobs they hate.
I do not want the earnings. Which means I could be extra goal and write regardless of the heck I need. Being free to talk freely is fantastic. Please do not cross me.
And I’ve proven up thrice per week for 17 years with out fail. That is over 2,600 articles up to now. Belief is not a advertising and marketing tactic. It is a deposit you make each week for nearly 20 years, and you’ll’t faux the steadiness.
That’s the moat. Not the writing itself. The connection behind it.
Which Is Precisely Why I Make investments In Founders
This is the place it will get fascinating, and why I am scripting this now.
I am an LP in enterprise funds and an lively angel investor in AI startups. The longer I do that (since 2006), the extra satisfied I’m that I can add large worth to early-stage startups by my platform. Not solely can I interview founders on my podcast to inform their story, I may write about their product and assist them acquire recognition and clients. Cash is probably the most commoditized factor in Silicon Valley. All people has cash.
What founders cannot simply entry is distribution. Belief with an actual viewers. Seventeen years of sample recognition on what makes folks truly purchase a product and keep it up, not simply join a free trial.
That is what I convey. After I again a founder, I am not wiring cash and disappearing, until you need me to. I can put your product in entrance of a giant, prosperous, high-intent viewers that has trusted me for nearly 20 years. I perceive buyer acquisition, retention, and storytelling.
The perfect founders are professional builders. They’ve that dealt with. They want somebody who can clear up the issue that truly kills most startups: no person comes.
So for those who’re constructing one thing genuinely nice and also you’re staring down that actual drawback, I am in all probability probably the most helpful examine in your cap desk.
You Cannot Fail If You By no means Give up
I am going to depart the founders with the one lesson 17 years has crushed into me.
After I began Monetary Samurai in 2009, I promised myself I would publish thrice per week for 10 years. I hit that goal in July 2019, after which, like Forrest Gump, I simply saved working. “Why cease if I can maintain going?” turned the mantra.
99% of the private finance websites that launched round after I did have shut down or bought. I am nonetheless right here. Not as a result of I am smarter, however as a result of I refused to give up. Apart from, who sells their baby if they don’t seem to be doing it for the cash? No one. Please say within the sport lengthy sufficient for compounding rewards to type.
You possibly can by no means lose for those who by no means surrender. Maintain discovering away across the inevitable partitions that type alongside your journey.
Thank You For 17 Years So Far
Distribution is simply consistency plus time. There is not any shortcut, which is strictly why it is price a lot, and why you must cease delaying and begin immediately.
As I shut out my seventeenth yr and head into my 18th this July 2026, thanks. For studying, for sharing, for the views you allow within the feedback, and for selecting up my books.
The entrepreneur’s journey is filled with ups and downs. The trick is not avoiding them. It is accepting them and appreciating each second alongside the best way.
And to the founders studying this who assume I would be of use, be at liberty to e-mail me. You could find my e-mail deal with on the backside of my About page.
How lengthy have you ever been a reader of Monetary Samurai? Are you a small enterprise proprietor your self? If that’s the case, how has the journey been?
If you wish to obtain monetary freedom sooner, subscribe to my free weekly newsletter and be part of 60,000+ readers. I launched Monetary Samurai in 2009 and helped kickstart the modern-day FIRE motion. All the things is written primarily based on firsthand expertise, as a result of cash is just too necessary to be left to pontification.
