got a lot of new followers recently, figured i'd do a intro about myself: - went to waterloo for cs + finance - first year, played dota 24/7, almost dropped out to pursue it professionally - ranked top in canada, but not globally - didn't see a way to make a living if you aren't top top - decided i want to get into investment banking after graduation - but have 50s in every course, can't just apply directly - networked in canada with a spreadsheet of almost every analyst at every bank (there are only 300+) - struggled with finding my first coop as the financial crisis just happened - got a coop at a bank doing back office tech - got a coop a bank doing treasury at - got a coop doing sales & trading - got a coop doing equity research sales - got a coop at a pension doing private infra investing - got a coop at a pension doing private equity - yes, waterloo has 6 coops and i turned it into 8 so i could get into banking - became ceo of waterloo's student-led investment fund - represented the school's CFA competition and won #1 - grinded so hard during this last school term for anything BUT school, went to hospital for wrist problems - finally got a full time offer to work in investment banking on wall street - got screwed by h1b, was told to wait for the lottery - didn't just sit still, networked my ass off again with the canadian banks - ended up joining CIBC's M&A group in a week - had some of the best 3 years of my life grinding, truly learned so much so quickly - left to do private debt investments at the biggest pension fund in canada - a year later, hiked the highest peak in europe in russia and almost died - completely changed my perspective on valuable life is, and how much i've been wasting it - decided to quit with nothing lined up, friends said nice things but deep down thought i was a write off - removed all irrational constraints in life and wanted to find roles that had no ceilings (i hate ceilings) - thought hard about sales and somehow came across startups - joined a 5-person startup in canada as VP finance, literally working in the founders house, taking calls in the washrooms, just like HBO's silicon valley - then joined a series A us-based insurtech startup but still in canada, leading finance, then promoted to also do operations - after that, joined wrapbook around series A to as director of finance - witness the company 13x in a year, helped raise series B, also built the entire data analytics function - started to realize starting a company isn't impossible - always thought you needed to be a genius like elon - but after working with so many founders, realized the common pattern is just risk-tolerance and determination, which i think i'm very good at - faced with the ultimate choice: do i want to 1) stay at wrapbook, best case scenario take it public become cfo and make something like $50 million? or 2) try my own thing for the next [5] years, not succeeding (yet) at all but i'm giving my 120%, making no money - realized it was a simple choice: i would regret going with 1) when i die, but not 2) - quit again without anything lined up - did EF in toronto to look for a cofounder, but the ecosystem is so bad in canada - applied to YC a week late, somehow got an interview - was told i need to come back with either a co-founder or a product - drive to various cities to meet with potential cofounders same day - picked up programming courses (this was just before chatGPT launch) - realized the best cofounder candidates, vcs, and customers are all based in SF - convinced my wife to move to SF with me, she was hesitant but wanted to support me - on Dec 31, 2022 5pm, we started our 5 day drive from toronto to SF, getting to our first stop at chicago by 2am on new years day - by day 4, somewhere salt lake city, i got to interview with YC again - presented them with a working prototype i coded in google sheets appscript - 30 minutes later, got a call from yc partner "ok, we want to let you in, but batch starts in 2 days, are you willing to move from toronto?" - my reponse: "jared, i've already left. GPS says i'll be there in 13 hours, i'll make it" - got into YC - went through demo day as a non-technical solo founder but ended up raising what an average round is - hired a founding eng and founding designer - heads down building for 2 years - grew mostly organically from word-of-mouth and referrals - started off with solving accounting for startups - but realized the taxes space also sucked, and no one wanted to solve it as it's not a vc-fundable size - but it could work really well for my gtm, and it's a founders top finance problem day 0 - studied over hundreds of hours to get a tax license, manually filed taxes for the first 100 customers - became profitable, but not by intention - fall 2025 founding engineer leaves, panicked as we don't have anyone to ship anymore - forced myself to pick up cursor and ship - forced my designer to also ship - also sponsored ruby conferences and intensely recruited - ended up hiring a founding eng anyway - today team is 9 people with a few co-ops from waterloo - ~1k customers, many have been using finta since day 1 - seen dozens of customers go on to raise series b/c+ and helped many get acquired by faang or the labs - i ship 3-4k prs per month, still thinks i'm "non-technical" - constantly changing the way we work because our tools are improving at a rate faster than we can use them - feeling more motivated and determined than ever to solve the problems users face in accounting, taxes, and finances

I tried everything, they all suck except... ardia.dev/ from @barre_of_lube I would pay to see it maintained

We look for this more than technical capability

It feels so weird but so right when you have someone great reporting to you Power: they have more power over you because they’re so good they can get a job anywhere they want, you have to give them more scope and ownership Satisfaction: you unblock them every once in awhile by answering the simplest decision and feel so satisfied, but they did all the work for you to make that happen

tried @AsideAI and the UX is just nowhere close to @ArcBrowser then i tried @diabrowser... brb bleaching my eyes

One of the biggest mindset shift unlocks for early-stage founders is to go from building a product to building a company

me at: 9am: gpt-6.1 Sol extra high 1pm: opus 5.5 extra high fast 7pm: jev choice 11pm: jev noul 1am: fable 5.1 max fast

Cool milestone for @finta: One customer just acquired another customer Both of their books and taxes will be handled seamlessly

2 days later... iykyk

hange freed up 45%+ of our risk space from legacy code that stored useless webhooks also messaged render human support to schedule an upgrade

watari replaced our entire support infra to @plainsupport automatically creates support channels and broadcasts my social posts on product updates

they're working too well together...

Wow just found out my @openclaw posted this on @moltbook the day Dots launched

Finta is now widely available for your agents!