- Diary of a Founder Newsletter
- Posts
- Don’t Find the Wave. Create the Ripple.
Don’t Find the Wave. Create the Ripple.
Tool to help your startup: Typedream


Hey y’all - Great founders don’t wait for trends to validate their ideas. They build early, act small, and ship fast. Instead of chasing the perfect wave, they drop one intentional product pebble and let the ripple expand. It’s not about being loud, it’s about being consistent, useful, and real.
This week, focus on micro-leverage:
→ One tiny feature users love.
→ One community post that sparks engagement.
→ One beta test that uncovers a breakthrough.
Because sometimes the smallest ripple starts the biggest wave.
Here’s today at a glance:
Opportunity → AI-First HR Layer for <50 Member Teams
Framework → The “Can I Sell It on a Call?” Test
Tool → Typedream
Trend → Google Sheets Is the New Backend
Quote → Build something you want
PS - Become a member to get access to my founder membership including an engaged community, fundraising support, fireside chats and more.

🔗 Mohit’s Picks
My favourite finds of the week

💡Opportunity: AI-First HR Layer for <50 Member Teams
In the world of early-stage startups, traditional HRMS tools often feel bloated and overbuilt. What founders really need is lean, lightning-fast support that handles the essentials, without layers of red tape.
👉 Opportunity: Build an AI-first HR co-pilot for small teams, something like Notion meets ChatGPT, but designed specifically for People Ops.
Here’s what it could include:
Smart document generation (offer letters, rejection emails, NDAs)
AI-powered 1:1 feedback summaries and pulse checks
Pre-built workflows for exits, onboarding, and contractor compliance
Anonymous WhatsApp-based feedback collection, where your team already lives
🎯 Why Now?
Most startups delay hiring an HR professional until the chaos is already in motion.
Founders want clarity, not complexity, they want to know what’s happening with their team, not run HR dashboards.
Current HR tools cater to enterprises with 500+ employees. Startups with 10-50 are left cobbling together Notion docs, Google Forms, and Slack threads.
This is a blue ocean, where there’s plenty of pain, but no tailored solution yet.
The right tool could quietly become the operating layer for India’s next 10,000 startups, saving founders time, improving team health, and turning chaotic growth into calm scale.
🧠 Framework: The “Can I Sell It on a Call?” Test
Before investing time in landing pages, marketing assets, or pitch decks, try this zero-cost, high-clarity validation: imagine you're on a 1-on-1 call with a potential user, no slides, no visuals, no fluff.
Ask yourself:
Can you explain the core value in 15 seconds?
Will the person nod because they feel the problem?
Can you get a genuine “That sounds interesting, I’d try it” without showing anything?
If the answer is no, the issue isn’t your product, it’s your clarity. You’re likely solving too many things, using too much jargon, or lacking a sharp emotional hook.
The real test of product-market fit isn’t whether you can make a landing page look good, it’s whether your idea lands in conversation. Selling on a call strips away polish and forces you to get raw, real, and relevant.
Founders often chase GTM hacks: ad spend, SEO tricks, viral loops. But the best GTM hack? Clarity. If you can sell it with just your words, everything else becomes easier, landing pages convert better, cold emails hit harder, and referrals flow faster.
So, before you build, pitch it. Out loud. To a human. That’s how you know you’re onto something real.
🛠️ Tool: Typedream
Typedream just launched a new AI feature that lets you generate beautiful landing pages from a single product description.
Perfect for:
Weekend projects
MVP testing
Personal branding / “I’m building this” pages
Why it works:
Mobile-ready out of the box
Customizable with zero design skills
Fast enough for founders who ship fast
If it takes you longer to describe than to deploy, you're doing it right.
📈 Trend: Google Sheets Is the New Backend
In the age of MVPs and rapid experimentation, early-stage founders are turning to an unexpected hero: Google Sheets. Once just a spreadsheet tool, it’s now quietly powering real products as a live backend.
More and more builders are pairing Sheets with no-code platforms like Glide, Stacker, Tally, Make, and even WhatsApp bots via webhooks. The reason? It’s simple: Sheets is fast, familiar, and incredibly flexible.
Unlike complex setups with Firebase or Airtable, Google Sheets requires zero onboarding. Your entire team likely already knows how to use it. That means you can test flows, validate features, and make real-time updates, without needing an engineer to push code.
Here’s the key insight: the more time you spend explaining your tech stack, the less time you’re spending talking to users. Google Sheets flips that equation. It lets you build something live, gather feedback instantly, and iterate with minimal friction.
For founders in the zero-to-one stage, it’s not about choosing the most scalable backend, it’s about choosing the one that gets you in front of users fastest.
Hire an AI BDR & Get Qualified Meetings On Autopilot
Outbound requires hours of manual work.
Hire Ava who automates your entire outbound demand generation process, including:
Intent-Driven Lead Discovery Across Dozens of Sources
High Quality Emails with Human-Level Personalization
Follow-Up Management
Email Deliverability Management
💬 Quote: Sahil Lavingia
“Build something you want, charge for it, and keep going.”
This quote might sound deceptively simple, but it’s a masterclass in early-stage execution.
Founding isn’t about overnight virality or flashy launches. It’s about creating something you genuinely want to use. That personal alignment fuels consistency, even when no one’s watching. Charging for it forces you to think about real value, not just vanity metrics. And “keep going”? That’s the hardest part, and the most underrated.
Sahil’s insight reminds us that most startup wins aren’t the result of brilliance, they’re the result of not quitting. Survival is strategy. Those who stay alive long enough learn what the market really needs. They adapt. They grow. They ship better.
In a world chasing hacks and hypergrowth, this is your anchor:
Build. Charge. Stay in the game.

Learn how to make AI work for you
AI won’t take your job, but a person using AI might. That’s why 1,000,000+ professionals read The Rundown AI – the free newsletter that keeps you updated on the latest AI news and teaches you how to use it in just 5 minutes a day.
