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Finer Live

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by Eli Finer

13 episodes

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Live coaching sessions with entrepreneurs and founders. We pick a tough problem and tackle it together to find a solution. <a href="https://finereli.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">finereli.substack.com</a>

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Recent Episodes

December 24, 2025

Eli & Paul - Building features to avoid rejection

Paul left his job at Dell 4 months ago.He’s been building Quizlink, an AI-powered learning tool, for less than a year total.On launch day, two complete strangers - consumers - paid him money.Real customers who had never met him before.But Paul still doesn’t have a single enterprise client.That’s his target market now - companies with compliance requirements and actual budgets for training tools.He’s spent 2 months planning this pivot.Building admin dashboards in his head.Researching cold email tools and LinkedIn outreach strategies.But there’s something Paul is avoiding.Something scarier than building features or writing cold emails.What happens when I challenge him to face it today?FULL RECAP“Hold on, are you talking about adding features before you’re talking to clients?”Paul had just explained his plan to build an admin dashboard for cybersecurity companies before approaching them with his learning platform, Quizlink. As a software engineer he was doing what felt natural: building.“We procrastinate by building software. We procrastinate by adding features. We procrastinate by planning things. We procrastinate endlessly, because the act of selling and especially the specific circumstance of being rejected is very, very unpleasant and scary.”“Thing is, you need to get rejected. You need to talk to people who will tell you, ‘Listen, we will never buy this in a million years because you’re not SOC 2 compliant, or some other b******t.’ But you need to hear them say that, and then you need to ask them, ‘Hey, and if we’re SOC 2 compliant next month, let’s hypothetically assume that we get this done. Are you buying?’ ‘Oh, no, not this year, not this budget.’ That means the SOC 2 is b******t. That’s not the reason.”Paul nodded along. Like most technical founders, he was replacing the scary, valuable work of customer discovery with the fun, less valuable work of feature development.This is the central tension in technical entrepreneurship: the skills that make you an excellent engineer are often the very things that prevent you from building a successful business. Code is logical, predictable, controllable. Customers are none of these things....“The biggest challenge I have right now is niching down,” Paul had told me at the start of our conversation. His learning platform could theoretically help anyone learn anything - a classic problem for most startups.“When we started, we were trying to target students, that’s really not a good target market,” Paul explained. “When we started talking to a lot of students, we realized that yes, they want to study too, but more than anything, they just want something to help with homework. They don’t want to learn more, or know more, they want to pass things with less effort.”Based on advice from Neil, a cybersecurity entrepreneur who’d reached out on Twitter, Paul was now considering pivoting to cybersecurity training. It made sense on paper - constantly changing compliance requirements, companies with budgets and legal obligations to train their people.“You haven’t got your first cybersecurity client, right?” I asked.“Yes, that’s why I’m not sure about the niche of cybersecurity because we haven’t been able to secure any deals in that space.”This revealed the deeper issue. Paul had identified a promising niche two months ago but hadn’t truly tested it. Instead, he was planning features and researching tools like Apollo for cold email outreach. The engineering mind wants to prove the niche is working, but the scientific approach is to disprove that it’s not working - to get to a definitive yes or no as quickly as possible....“How do you get the first cybersecurity customer?” I asked.“LinkedIn and... Apollo, that we’re trying to use for email outreach, and then even with LinkedIn, we’ve got a lot of tips on how to approach leaders or decision makers at companies, like how to warm up, how to before you even approach them, just make sure the couple weeks leading up to you connecting, you’re posting content that’s close to what they’re doing...”“It’s a long-term thing, it’s a slow thing, and it’s absolutely unnecessary for your first client.”“How many people do you know who are engineers?”“A lot. Most of my friends are engineers.”“Right. How many people they know, that’s like to the power of two of whoever you know. That’s a lot of people. That’s a lot of reach into the industry. All you need to do is figure out who of these people works for a company that has some cybersecurity requirements.”This is where I see the biggest missed opportunity with technical founders. They’ll spend weeks setting up complex cold outreach systems, learning about exponential back-off sequences and A/B testing subject lines, when they’re sitting on a goldmine: their existing network. Paul knew dozens of engineers, each of whom knew dozens more. That’s not 2-3 contacts - that’s potentially hundreds of connections into companies with cybersecurity needs.“I don’t think reaching out is... if it’s your first network, like someone you know... I think most of the people I know aren’t really at the decision-making level.”“Yeah, no, of course everybody you know are individual contributors, and they do the groundwork. That’s cool. But they work at companies where they themselves needed to pass, perhaps, needed to pass a security certification exam or thing. Therefore, you can talk to them about what was it like, how did they prepare, was it easy, was it hard, who administered it, and who’s the team lead who actually runs these things? And can they connect you to the person?”I watched Paul’s expression change as this clicked. “Now you mention it, I actually think I might... someone just popped in my mind that might be good to...”“Probably somebody like that.”“Yes. And she’s not even an engineer. I think she works at HR for the company.”...The conversation had shifted from complex automation strategies to simple human connection. But Paul was still thinking small.“I’m just thinking maybe like 5, but I’m sure if I reviewed and went through LinkedIn, especially recently, because I’ve been going out for a lot more events now...”“Why are we talking about 2 or 3 people? When you’re talking about 20, or 30, or 40, now we’re starting to talk about a surface area that should create something.”This is the mathematics of early-stage sales that most founders miss. Cold outreach might get you a 2-3% response rate if you’re lucky. Warm introductions through your network can get you 50-80% response rates. The difference isn’t just efficiency - it’s the difference between getting definitive market feedback in weeks versus months.“I’ve been discovering, to my deepest surprise, that outreach and this kind of business activity has this completely weird dynamic. You don’t get the contacts through the people you reach out to. But suddenly, people start finding you. People that you need from completely different areas. It’s like you have a garden, and you water one spot, and a tree sprouts in a completely different spot.”“It’s the algorithm, right?” Paul said, understanding immediately. “It just notices that these are what your interests are, and then it learns from that, and next thing you know, it comes to you, and you start attracting it, and after a while, you don’t have to go look out for it.”“Exactly. And therefore, the more you put out the thing that you... this should start happening to you today. Because it can, because you have the entire day in front of you.”...“This is not a tremendous amount of work. This is a today kind of thing. And since this is a today kind of thing, then by the end of today, you will be in a different spot compared to the spot you’re in right now.”Paul had gone from planning features for hypothetical customers to realizing he could validate his entire cybersecurity niche in a matter of weeks, not months. The shift wasn’t just tactical - it was philosophical. Instead of hiding behind code, he was ready to have the uncomfortable conversations that would tell him whether his business was viable.“Yeah, for sure. I mean, we already have a product, we’ve already decided that this is the direction that we’re trying to move in, and it doesn’t cost a lot to accomplish.”“Okay, well... I’m going to get you off this call right now so you can go and use the time we have left. You can go and do that, because it takes 20 minutes to send all these messages.”This is the moment that separates entrepreneurs from hobbyists. Paul had all the tools he needed - a working product, paying customers as proof of concept, a clear niche to test, and a network to tap into. The only thing standing between him and definitive market feedback was the willingness to reach out and risk rejection.As we ended the call, Paul committed to spending the rest of the day reaching out to his network. Within hours, he’d know whether cybersecurity was a real opportunity or just another engineering distraction. By putting himself out there, he’d trigger what we jokingly called “the algorithm of the universe” - the mysterious way that focused action attracts the exact opportunities you need.Sometimes the biggest breakthrough isn’t building the right feature. It’s having the right conversation. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://finereli.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">finereli.substack.com</a>

December 18, 2025

Eli & Akash - €20 is all you need

TL;DR160,000 monthly users.€0 in revenue.Akash built a thriving Urdu poetry platform that became a massive success in his niche community.Hundreds of thousands of engaged users.Strong social media following.Zero clue how to monetize it.Now he’s in Berlin with one month of savings left.He’s juggling three different business ideas - an AI agency, a home services marketplace, and desperately searching for freelance work to pay rent.But there’s a pattern emerging that he can’t see.When it comes to finding clients, he won’t spend €20 on a premium platform membership because “too many people are competing.”This is the same entrepreneur who built a community of 160k users from scratch.The disconnect is staggering.And it reveals something deeper about why talented people stay broke.What does it really take to go from survival mode to success?FULL RECAPSometimes the most obvious advice is the hardest to take. Last week, I had a conversation with Akash, a 20-something entrepreneur from Berlin whose story perfectly illustrates why most people stay stuck despite having all the tools they need to succeed.Akash: “I am a product designer. I’ve worked in design for about five years now. I did my first startup in 2019 when I was in college with my friends. It was a poetry platform, a UGC platform, so it has about 160k users still monthly visiting, more than a million Google events happening still, more than 140k on Instagram.”Eli: “Is it making any money? Because the numbers are great.”Akash: “There’s a bit of a gap there. It’s doing well, but the only way we could figure out to make money was advertisement, and Google doesn’t pay that much if your audience is from a certain country. We were targeting very niche poetry, Urdu poetry, which is called Shayari, which is like a dying art.”Here was my first surprise. Akash had built something remarkable - a thriving community around Urdu poetry with serious engagement numbers - but he talked about it like a failure. In the world of online entrepreneurship, getting 160,000 monthly active users in any niche is extraordinary, especially on a first attempt.The conversation continued as Akash explained how he’d burned out from juggling the platform, a full-time job, and freelancing, eventually discovering he had ADHD. He’d handed over his shares to his co-founder and moved to Berlin to start fresh. There, he’d launched an AI agency and planned a home services marketplace called HealthWell, modeled after India’s successful Urban Company.But now he was running out of money.Akash: “I realized we are running short on money, and investor money is not going to give us runway. We need to prove some traction before we raise money. So I posted on Reddit, and I actually took advice from people which says you need to freelance, build up a stable income and then look out for these ventures in your free time.”Eli: “How badly do you need freelancing gigs? How long can you live without it?”Akash: “To be honest, it’s very urgent. One month, one and a half months.”This is where things got interesting. I offered Akash three paths forward: figure out how to monetize his existing poetry platform, focus on getting his marketplace to the 200 bookings he believed would attract investors, or solve the immediate crisis by landing freelance work. He chose the third option.Eli: “Look, you’re a talented, well-spoken, and very experienced developer. What’s the problem? What’s going on? Why aren’t you overwhelmed with opportunities right now?”Akash: “I tried going on to different platforms, and I see there are already so many people competing from Brazil, India, Pakistan, Vietnam. I cannot compete with their prices. So I tried niching down on European platforms for freelance, like Malt.de, Freelancer Map. But they also want me to upgrade to premium, to apply to more jobs. They just let me apply to one job, and they want me to upgrade. One job is nothing.”Eli: “How much is the platform fee?”Akash: “It’s 20 euros per month.”Eli: “And you’re telling me that with your back against the wall, you apply to one project because to apply to more projects, you need to pay €20 and that’s too much?”I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Here was someone who’s obviously an entrepreneur in spirit, one month away from financial disaster, refusing to spend €20 - less than what he probably spent on food in a few days - to access more job opportunities....Eli: “If a platform allows 10 people to apply for free, then anybody who’s offering a project on that platform is going to get a lot of low-quality applications. The moment you pay 20 euros for this, you are in the top 1% just through the willingness of taking the risk. And if you then apply to 500 projects and you do it 8, 10 hours a day until your fingers bleed, you are in the top 0.01% and you’re guaranteed to get something.”Akash: “I think it’s also inside me a bit of fear that what if I get the membership of the platform and there’s no new jobs posting regularly. Like I just see two jobs, I don’t get any.”Eli: “That means you take a risk and it doesn’t pan out. Man, you’re a month away from being out on the street. What are you talking about? You’re an entrepreneur. This is what entrepreneurial life is like. You do many, many things and most of them don’t work out. That’s the point. If you wanted things to work out, you’d get a job.”This moment crystallized something I see constantly in my coaching work. Akash was willing to spend €60 on a cold email automation tool - something with much lower odds of success - but balked at spending €20 on a platform where people were actively looking to hire someone with his skills. The psychology was backwards.Eli: “What you get paid as an entrepreneur for is your capacity to take risk. Not your work. Not the hours you put in. How far are you willing to stretch out your neck under the knife? That is what you get paid for. And right now, you aren’t pushing it far enough to spend 20 euros.”Akash: “Yeah, that’s a very interesting point. And the only thing that I think that’s like a brick in my head is like so many people like me, 100, 200, 300 people are applying for the same thing.”Eli: “They are not, because most people are exactly like you. They don’t want to pay €20. The question is not how to do it as cheaply as possible. The question is, how do you do it as quickly as possible? If you apply to 500 jobs a week, because you’re all in, and you pay all the platforms whatever they need to get paid, and it’s sweat, blood and tears, and it takes a week, then that’s it. And you start to make money.”I realized we’d hit the core issue. Akash wasn’t really willing to be uncomfortable, even when comfort was no longer an option. This is the fundamental misunderstanding most people have about entrepreneurship - they want the upside without the downside, the freedom without the risk, the rewards without the uncertainty....By this point, I could see the conversation was more valuable as a wake-up call than as strategy session. We talked briefly about his other ventures - I was genuinely impressed by what he’d built with the poetry platform and offered to connect him with people who might help him sell it or the marketplace. But the real work was simpler and more urgent.Eli: “In fact, I want to end this call early so you could go and do it. We can talk here for an hour and it will not provide the same benefit as you going and doing it. And then in a couple of months, we can do another podcast and you’ll tell me how wonderfully overwhelmed you are with freelance work and how much money you have to invest in your startups.”Akash: “Yeah, it makes sense. Let’s get off the call. You will hear a message from me like whenever I do this. I did it, and fingers crossed, now I’m going like 10, 20, 30 applications every day, and let’s see how it goes.”After we stopped recording, I reflected on the pattern I see constantly in my work. We want something, but we don’t actually go the distance to get it. We let procrastination, fear of small failures, or simple discomfort distract us from taking the actions we know we need to take. Especially when our backs are against the wall.The truth is, Akash already knew what he needed to do. He didn’t need strategy or advice or coaching - he needed permission to do the uncomfortable thing he was already avoiding. Sometimes the most valuable thing I can do is simply voice the inner wisdom someone is already ignoring, and give them the push to listen to it.And in this case, its’s about investing €20 in his future. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://finereli.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">finereli.substack.com</a>

December 5, 2025

Eli & Ignacio - The 23,000 connections goldmine

In this episode, I sit down with Ignacio, a former product manager who was fired a couple months ago and is now trying to build an AI automation business for small companies.He’s got the skills and is already making some money, but he’s stuck on finding customers and scaling up.The real issue?He’s sitting on a goldmine - 23,000 LinkedIn connections - but he’s too afraid to use them because he doesn’t want to hurt his chances of getting another corporate job if his business fails.We dive deep into why holding onto backup plans can actually hurt your chances of success, the power of commitment in entrepreneurship, and how fear of failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.By the end, I challenge him to do something that could change everything... This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://finereli.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">finereli.substack.com</a>

13 total episodes available

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What is Finer Live?: Live coaching sessions with entrepreneurs and founders. We pick a tough problem and tackle it together to find a solution. <a href="https://finereli.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">finereli.substack.com</a>
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Where can I listen to this podcast?: This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
Does this podcast accept guests?: Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.

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