Founder Decisions
Why operators made a move, what changed in the market, and what it means for companies in adjacent categories.
Market Intelligence
The market intelligence briefing for founders who build.
The Founders Report covers the decisions, market shifts, and industry patterns that practicing founders, operators, and investors need to track. Published every Tuesday. Always free.
Edition
Vol. 01 / Spring 2026
Coverage
Briefings, profiles, signal essays, data notes
Market Signals
The pricing shifts, hiring patterns, partnership moves, and category indicators worth acting on before they become obvious.
Editorial Analysis
A point of view on what is happening, not a summary of what was reported everywhere else already.
Lead Story
Product
The Real Signal for When to Build a Second Product
SaaStr says wait until $100 million ARR. Samsara says $10 million. The gap between those two numbers proves neither is the real signal, and here's what actually is.
Publication Formats
- Weekly BriefingEvery Tuesday
- Founder ProfilesTwice monthly
- The SignalMonthly
- Data BriefsMonthly
What We Cover
- The founder decisions and market moves reshaping categories in real time.
- Pricing shifts, hiring signals, and partnership patterns worth tracking early.
- Original analysis on what is actually changing, not a recap of what everyone already reported.
Editorial Positioning
Not news. Intelligence.
The Founders Report is for founders, operators, and investors who need more than headlines. Every issue covers the decisions that are actually moving companies, the market patterns worth tracking, and the analysis that turns information into a point of view.
Founder Decisions
Why operators made a move, what changed, and what other companies should learn from it.
Industry Movement
The shifts behind pricing, hiring, partnerships, launches, and the companies quietly changing a market.
Category Signals
How categories shift, which companies are defining new ones, and the signals that show up in coverage before they show up in valuations.
Publication Formats
Five formats. One publication.
The Founders Report publishes across five recurring formats, each designed to earn a different kind of attention and deliver a different kind of value.
Weekly Briefing
A recurring issue built around market movement, founder decisions, and the few developments that actually matter.
Founder Profiles
Decision-led interviews and features that show how serious operators think under pressure.
The Signal
A sharper editorial essay when the market shifts and the audience needs an angle, not just a summary.
Data Briefs
Structured evidence, pricing clues, hiring movement, and category indicators translated into readable intelligence.
Intelligence Indexes
Roundups, rankings, and curated lists designed to map a category and name the companies worth watching.
Recent Coverage
From the desk.
Weekly Briefing
The First Sales Hire Is a Systems Test, Not a Revenue Milestone
The Signal Desk
August 18, 2026
Weekly Briefing
Why a Three-Day AI Hackathon Beats Training for AI Adoption
Paul Worrell
August 15, 2026
The Signal
The First Non-Engineering Hire Most Startups Get Wrong
The Data Desk
August 13, 2026
From The Archive
01Aug 11, 2026
The Signal
Vertical AI SaaS Just Killed the Per-Seat License
Sierra, Decagon, Salesforce, and Intercom have all moved off pure per-seat pricing toward usage and outcome based billing, and the data shows why: outcome tied pricing grows faster, and accountants are now writing rules to book the revenue.
Pricing4 min
02Aug 8, 2026
The Signal
The Busy Founder Reads Your Cold Email for Nine Seconds. Write for That.
Founders and owners reply to cold email more than any other title, but only if the email survives a nine second read. Here is what the data says actually earns the reply.
GTM4 min
03Aug 4, 2026
The Signal
The Vertical SaaS Moat in 2026 Is Proprietary Data, Not Agent Features
As Salesforce's Agentforce ARR hits $1.2 billion, vertical software incumbents like Veeva, Procore, and Businessolver are betting that industry specific data, not general agent capability, is what keeps horizontal platforms out.
Strategy4 min