Jason Cohen (@asmartbear) / X

Jason Cohen

57.6K posts

Jason Cohen

@asmartbear

Keyword, buzzword, half-truth, adjective, hey look at me! (𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘯𝘴: WPEngine.com, SmartBear.com)

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longform.asmartbear.com

Joined December 2008

Pinned
Jason Cohen
@asmartbear
Apr 29, 2025
List everyone you know who started by launching a startup every month, and the ninth one was really successful. List everyone who has 1 really good idea / year, and obsessed over it, and was successful. The second is 100x more common. We can all list the people in the first
119K
Jason Cohen
@asmartbear
Nov 2, 2024
Replying to @jdnoc
You also pay for the fire department even if your house doesn’t burn down. You could make this into a good civics lesson for your kids.
187K
Jason Cohen
@asmartbear
Mar 5, 2022
Excited to unveil a new, long-form article! Please enjoy. The Elephant in the room: The myth of exponential hypergrowth longform.asmartbear.com/docs/exponenti…
Jason Cohen
@asmartbear
Jul 13, 2025
Unless you have 10,000 customers: Approximately no one knows who you are. Approximately no one knows your brand. Approximately no one knows your product. You can change everything, any time. Take advantage of that.
38K
Jason Cohen
@asmartbear
Sep 17, 2024
“We’re in stealth mode.” Yeah, no shit. That’s the default mode. What, you thought TechCrunch set up surveillance outside your home office hoping to catch a glimpse of what’s on your screen? No one will care about you even after you “launch.”
48K
Jason Cohen
@asmartbear
Mar 31, 2023
Wow, I think Substack is trying to say this chart is good, but it's terrible for revenue growth. The unit isn't monthly revenue, it's _cumulative_ revenue. Which means they're not growing in revenue, or very slowly.
1M
Jason Cohen
@asmartbear
Jul 30, 2024
Replying to @dvassallo
Collect all 27!
40K
Jason Cohen
@asmartbear
Nov 5, 2025
Investable startup: 1. Founder is unstoppable force of nature 2. Founder seeks disconfirming evidence, and changes 3. Serves niche inside a large and growing market 4. Customers genuinely love the product (high retention) 5. Employees genuinely love the company (high retention)
21K
Jason Cohen
@asmartbear
Jul 27, 2025
Just published a new article! 👇🏾 Your company will stop growing sooner than you think. The "Max MRR" metric predicts revenue plateaus based on churn and new revenue. Many thanks for pressing 🔁 and ❤️!
longform.asmartbear.com
Max MRR: Your growth ceiling
Your company will stop growing sooner than you think. The "Max MRR" metric predicts revenue plateaus based on churn and new revenue.
147K
Jason Cohen
@asmartbear
Aug 9, 2025
Paid advertising increases organic growth. I know that sounds wrong, and you can’t really measure it directly. But it’s true.
47K
Jason Cohen
@asmartbear
May 20, 2025
Two founders A and B start a company with 50/50 ownership. Two years later they raise $1M at $5M post from investor C who now owns 25%, and they create an ESOP (employee stock option pool) with another 20%, so (fully-diluted) the ownership levels are A=B=27.5%, C=25%, ESOP=20%.
88K
Jason Cohen
@asmartbear
May 1, 2024
Reddit’s business model is weird: $800M revenue - wow! > 80% GPM - efficient! 55% revenue spent on engineering salaries - why? what features? -17% profit - WTF??? Something seems wildly off.
205K
Jason Cohen
@asmartbear
Jul 10, 2024
How do I 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 that it’s 100x easier to make software than to understand customers, get their attention, and sell to them? Because I know 100 engineers who can build software for every 1 founder who got 100 people to buy something.
47K
Jason Cohen
@asmartbear
Jun 28, 2023
Replying to @asmartbear
So, the first thing is still the main thing. It's just that leveraging that can be more creative than you might think. n/n
33K