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Aleksei Balchunas
Aleksei Balchunas

Technical founder writing about AI, startups, products, growth, and business models.

Why Is Every App Team Building Its Own Mediocre AI Agent?

Sep 17, 2026

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4 min read

Why Is Every App Team Building Its Own Mediocre AI Agent?

Let users bring the agents they already pay for. Build the capabilities those agents need.

Aleksei Balchunas
Aleksei Balchunas
Venture Funding Update, August 2026: What Should Founders Build Now?

Sep 8, 2026

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3 min read

Venture Funding Update, August 2026: What Should Founders Build Now?

Where investors are placing their bets, and what it means for founders choosing what to build next.

Aleksei Balchunas
Aleksei Balchunas
I Spent Years Buying Startup Courses. There Is No Recipe.

Sep 1, 2026

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4 min read

I Spent Years Buying Startup Courses. There Is No Recipe.

There is no recipe, but a few frameworks can help you make better bets.

Aleksei Balchunas
Aleksei Balchunas
How to Have an Endless Supply of Tokens in Codex

Aug 25, 2026

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4 min read

How to Have an Endless Supply of Tokens in Codex

The exact Codex Router setup I use to keep Sol or Luna as manager and delegate repository work to DeepSeek V4 Flash.

Aleksei Balchunas
Aleksei Balchunas
We Built Shopify's Shop App Before Shopify Did. Then I Killed It.

Aug 18, 2026

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5 min read

We Built Shopify's Shop App Before Shopify Did. Then I Killed It.

My biggest mistake as a first-time founder was treating one weak marketing test as proof that the business model was broken.

Aleksei Balchunas
Aleksei Balchunas
Yandex Bought Our Barely Launched App for $3.1M. I Did Not Get Rich.

Aug 11, 2026

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4 min read

Yandex Bought Our Barely Launched App for $3.1M. I Did Not Get Rich.

Zen's CPO found me on Instagram. We rejected Yandex three times. The product was only about three months old.

Aleksei Balchunas
Aleksei Balchunas
Venture Funding Update, July 2026: SaaS Is Not Dead. Subscription-Only Is.

Aug 4, 2026

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4 min read

Venture Funding Update, July 2026: SaaS Is Not Dead. Subscription-Only Is.

What 63 capital-light startups reveal about how recurring revenue is changing.

Aleksei Balchunas
Aleksei Balchunas
30 Accelerators, Programs, and Funds Before an MVP: A Comparison With Pre-Seed

Jul 28, 2026

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3 min read

30 Accelerators, Programs, and Funds Before an MVP: A Comparison With Pre-Seed

I compared 30 ultra-early-stage offers with US pre-seed benchmarks. The advertised amount often mixed upfront capital, conditional funding, and non-cash support.

Aleksei Balchunas
Aleksei Balchunas
AI Boost Reached About $40K a Month. It Was Still the Wrong Market.

Jul 20, 2026

โ€ข

4 min read

AI Boost Reached About $40K a Month. It Was Still the Wrong Market.

A direct competitor seemed to make ten times more. I blamed execution until I measured the pond.

Aleksei Balchunas
Aleksei Balchunas
For 7 Years I Shipped Consumer Products Instead of Posting About Them

Jul 16, 2026

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6 min read

For 7 Years I Shipped Consumer Products Instead of Posting About Them

Two exits and 10+ launches later, I'm finally opening up.

Aleksei Balchunas
Aleksei Balchunas

Two Exits Later

Teardowns of billion-dollar companies down to the architecture, the real numbers behind my own, and the decision log of what I build next. From a founder who still ships the code.

ยฉ 2026 Two Exits Later.
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