James Clift
@jamesclift
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Lifelong business builder (2x seller). Founded @ https://t.co/lksc4dajoR so everyone can own a business, and AI can run it for them.
Joined January 2010
I’m excited to share that we've raised a $14m Series A at Durable, led by @sparkcapital. It's been an incredible 12 months. Over 6 million websites have been created, and I'm inspired every day by the companies built with Durable. https://t.co/SiRqd1fdo8
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so many of them, they don't hang out on X. busy building great companies. @dennispilarinos
@DanEbs
@ianwcrosby
@igor I'm doing ok myself too :)
name the inspiring canadian founders
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how to succeed in your career: learn valuable skills build valuable things meet really good people try really hard
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We're building a uniquely great design team Durable. Everyone prototypes. We ship insanely fast. We're also solving one of the hardest remaining design problems in AI... Looking for 2 more to join the party.
Looking for product designers and brand designers for @DurableAI. We're building the AI native platform for entrepreneurship. Come build some wild stuff!
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Anyone has the opportunity to “network” with the most successful people in the world. L1 build a cool thing. L2 build a cool thing that’s relevant to them L3 build a cool thing that lots of people use L4 build a cool thing that lots of people use that is relevant to them
A lot of younger people who’re new to the industry ask me how to do “networking”. How do you go from knowing no one in San Francisco to having a network of people that you can do business with, learn from, hire, etc. The trick is I never set out to “network”. Maybe due to
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Most people start businesses to make money. The real upside is agency. Realizing that you are in control of your own destiny is a much more powerful drug.
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The good thing about being a founder is you can usually choose which VCs you work with, or not work with any. If someone believes in you enough to deploy millions of dollars against your idea, you best do your damndest to get them a 1000x return.
Founders should be less public with their contempt for VCs It comes across as a skill issue
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“We’d be happy to lead your seed round” - not a term sheet “We’ll co-lead with that other firm” - not a term sheet “We’re in for $500k” - not a term sheet “How about 5 on 50?” - not a term sheet “We sent you a term sheet” - term sheet
When a VC says they want to pre-empt your round and then asks you to come into a partner meeting and talk to a bunch of customers, they’re not actually asking to pre-empt; they’re asking you to run a fundraising process with one potential bidder.
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Who is the best on X at product/launch videos? Asking for a friend.
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X is the only platform with asymmetric upside. I’ve wasted far too much time here, yet one tweet I randomly stumbled upon 5 yrs ago led to raising $20m and meeting some amazing lifetime friends.
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Never hold a grudge, but always remember.
Founders have long memories. When the chips are down and the times dark, they always remember who was helpful, who was easy to work with, and who was a pain the ass. I think this pattern explains why startup investors tend to be good humans. Bad ones are ejected quickly.
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Founders, Always remember that you're not entitled to anything. Funding, customers, team members, partners. There are thousands of other people fighting for the exact same things. Be excellent. Be grateful. Be paranoid. Don't take any success for granted.
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You should probably aim to make more, bigger mistakes earlier in your career.
Something people don’t tell entrepreneurs: You make so much more later in your career that the mistakes you lose sleep over in the beginning become rounding errors. Just keep going.
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Advice for founders that haven’t yet hit the mark: Work hard to find market pull - don’t work hard for things to continue to be hard. Focus on the relentless pursuit of finding the thing that will grow fast, not forcing the thing that will not.
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The myth that entrepreneurship is some innate quality you are born with is extremely limiting. The other side of it is the assumption that people are innately designed to work mediocre jobs for 30 years. It’s all social norms and lack of reps.
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90% of people should solely focus on revenue for their first few projects. The relentless pursuit of revenue gives you clear goalposts. Otherwise it’s too easy to spend years in the wilderness “building” for no one, and not learning much. Outliers should do the opposite.
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Noticeable shift in the past month that the majority of content I see online is written by AI. Fully embedded in every platform? Models converging? Natural human writing now mimicking AI? Synapses tuned to instantly detect? Less tuned writing will outperform.
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How to get a job @DurableAI... After a call with our head of ops, build an entirely new version of our website generator before your first official interview. Then crush the (very challenging) technical interview process. We love to work with high potential, relentless
I’m thrilled to share that I’m joining @DurableAI as a Junior Software Engineer! Durable is building AI tools that help entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses faster, and I’m really excited to contribute to that mission. Huge thanks to @jamesclift and @_o_s_a_m_a for
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Despite them aggressively bidding on our branded keywords, Shopify is the most important company in Canadian history. Companies simply don’t get to scale here without regulatory capture, govt enabled monopoly, or generational money. We need a lot more of this energy.
@Sean_Speer @harleyf Shopify has definitely the biggest non-quasi government company in Canada for a long time. Also the only 10b+ company that was created in the last 50 years in Canada.
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