Founders

playing /bracket, assisting /bracky, talking /greatbooks

thanks for the continued support, and to the whole FC community for always sharing great feedback!

we often talk about 10x devs, but not enough about the "10x user" which are FC users!

New FC value prop unlocked: “the 10x user.” 

Not all users are created equal. 

Would you rather 1000 users, or ten 10x users?

Books

Economics

Here’s a sober, non-partisan analysis of Trump’s tariffs.

Trump’s new tariffs aren’t a trade tweak—they’re the first move in a full-spectrum reset.

$9.2T in debt matures in 2025. Inflation lingers. Alliances are shifting.

One announcement just set a dozen wheels in motion.
Here’s what’s really happening—and why it matters 🧵 https://t.co/yPOO1RP4hE

Tanvi Ratna

Here’s a sober, non-partisan analysis of Trump’s tariffs.

https://x.com/tanvi_ratna/status/1907880105369845865?s=46

crossroads

Focus is very challenging, because it involves:

- making hard decisions (eg, deprecating features you really love when it’s clear they aren’t working)
- saying no & disappointing your possibly passionate users
- not working on [shiny new thing] when it’s so much more interesting than [grindy thing to get to pmf]
- deliberately ignoring [thing on fire] because it’s only slightly important and not extremely important 

100% agree with Dan here - startups have a fixed number of shots on goal before they die. 

Need to always be aggressively prioritizing & focusing on what will get you closer to pmf.

excited to announce the @hypersub v2 mini app is now live! 

give them a try 👇

frames-v2

a guide on how to build viral mini-apps on farcaster 👀

less about complexity, more about tight loops, social moments, and dopamine triggers

sharing what we learned from building /farville, /betttr, and helping other teams ship during /just-frame-it

(also: if you need help building yours, dm's open 🫡)

We're hiring Staff Engineers. Tight-knit team of 3 people, writing Swift, Rust, React, and Python (for data science). We work Eastern timezone hours.

Everyone codes. Nothing is dumbed down. Choose what is most important to work on.

Offering NYC salary with standard founding team equity >0.5%.

DC me or @erica!

Great opportunity to join an awesome team.

Diving deeper into @circle’s S-1 today. Some good tips for founders:

1. Walk through regulators’ front door.

2. Build a platform / ecosystem others can build on.

3. Meet users where they are, not where you want them to be.

4. Compliance can be a competitive advantage (though this is eroding).

5. Play long-term games (it took 5+ years before USDC was born).

finance

Lots to unpack in @circle 's S-1. 

If you want a "quick" high-level version, read: 
- Founder's Letter (p.1)
- Prospectus Summary (p. 10 - 24)
- Summary Consolidated Financial Data (p.32 & 33)

Inspiring start to an S-1 filing. Well done @jerallaire and @circle team.

After a month on Warpcast, I have decided to stick around and keep posting here. Here's why:

1. The community is politically diverse, civil and curious

As a reporter, posting on X and Bluesky can feel repressive in that both platforms are filled with people who want their biases flattered and take offense when their priors are challenged. Many of you here seem earnest, intellectually omnivorous, and willing to engage with viewpoints respectfully without assuming bad faith when opinions diverge or being performative.

2. It feels like an older version of the internet

Maybe it's the cartoon avatars or the anonymity, maybe it's the fact that so many of you work on stuff I couldn't begin to understand how to code. But there's this pre-Facebook vibe here that is really cool. It's even made me appreciate crypto's potential beyond scams and crime.

3. Friends! Fun!

I can't remember the last time I forged bonds with people I don't know IRL about things other than work. And what can I say? I'm a loyal guy.

“There’s a pre-Facebook vibe here that’s pretty cool”

At Crossroads, we’re committed to ecosystem education - especially around how investors evaluate opportunities.

We’ll be sharing bite-sized snippets from the write-ups we do before deciding to back a startup, beginning with @ponder.

Startups like @ponder evolve fast, so it’s always fun to look back at the original thesis and see how far they’ve come.

Crossroads aims to encourage the next generation of angel investors across Farcaster as much as we do the next generation of founders.

Both are essential to building a vibrant, onchain ecosystem.

Will how you post on X change now that its owned by xAI?

Emerging conviction, loosely held:

Written long-form helps clarify your own thinking, but it’s not how most people prefer to consume.

Written short-form (like casts) is better for public iteration - and how people prefer to consume ideas.

aichannel

Whats one thing ai agents can do in web3 social that they can't do in web2 social?

BAE - Ben’s Channel

Operator turned investor. Work in TradFi. Exploring the future of social investing @crossroads.  🟪