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Founder Reality with George Pu. Real talk from a technical founder building AI-powered businesses in the trenches. No highlight reel, no startup theater – just honest insights from someone who codes, ships, and scales.
Every week, George breaks down the messy, unfiltered decisions behind building a bootstrap software company. From saying yes to projects you don't know how to build, to navigating AI hype vs. reality, to the mental models that actually matter for technical founders.
Whether you're a developer thinking about starting a company, a founder scaling your first product, or a technical leader building AI features, this show gives you the frameworks and hard-won lessons you won't find in the startup content circus.
George Pu is a software engineer turned founder building multiple AI-powered businesses. He's bootstrapped companies, shipped products that matter, and learned the hard way what works and what's just noise.
Follow along as he builds in public and shares what's really happening behind the scenes.
New episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
George Pu (00:13.614)
For those of who are listening, you're listening to the first bonus show, Weekend Bonus Show for the Founder Reality Show, where I'm going to just break down a few rumbling thoughts that I have for about like 10 minutes or so. So it's more about lifestyles, more about like just general thoughts. There wouldn't be that stress about, you know, topics. For both you, the audiences and me, we'll share a few.
achievements or milestones and also do office hours. So whenever someone asks me a question on Twitter, if it's really interesting, I'll be reading that off. So not today, but starting from the next one, we'll be reading off some notes, some emails I've been getting from different folks have questions. I think some of the questions are really good. So we'll be go through them together as well. Just like really authentic, transparent way, like, you know, no BS, that sort of thing. And I'll also share a few more about just like what's happening, you know, in my my founder journey or whatnot, and just
offer a few perspectives. So the first thing I think I've reached sort of like a content milestone this week. So like on Wednesday, I reached 25,000 followers on Twitter. And to be honest, like, it feels quite surreal to me, because I'm not really a heavy poster on Twitter at all. So I've been posting, I guess, only I've already been posting like more aggressively, I think, maybe like two months, three months ago. So before that, it was just general generally, like, every day, I was sure thought, and then, you know, I'll see people liking it. I was like, okay.
people are resonating with another takes, which is like most of that thing is like sort of contrarian. It's like whatever I see or VC thinks, I kind of disagree. I have my own ways of doing things, building in public and, you know, building my startup and stuff. It's like, I don't really listen to kind of conventional wisdom, not because they don't work, right? I'm sure they do work. It's just like, I have proven with my bare hands that it works in other ways, you know? So I think, I think it was, it was a humbling moment for me just because I
Never thought I would get this far with content. When I think of content creator, first thought came to mind is actually like this cringe TikTokers. They just think, okay, it's cringe, you know, but it's humbling, right? Like having more people liking your posts and interacting with you, I think it does make a difference for even a full-time founder. think it does make sense. And I can see exactly why the tech community loves it. So I think the lesson is like sometimes I barely put any time in it. And that's like, just very honest, I barely put any time in it. I don't have to turn on my phone. You know, I have, I have.
George Pu (02:26.031)
have an extension on my phone. I forgot the name of I have an extension on my phone so I don't get addicted to Twitter. So I actually just check it once in a while. have it my desktop. So I check on my desktop, recline my desktop, I like it on my desktop. And I don't really check my phone. So I do check it once in a while. So if you're replying to me or something, I don't reply to right away. That's because of that. So I really don't spend that much time. And I think sometimes it's crazy. It's like the thing that you don't think is that important that you spend the least of your time on.
actually does turn out to be a success in some way shape or form, right? Like with my main software business, the matrix, if you look at it, it's like revenue. If you look at that, I don't think it's actually like, it's actually not breaking out for quite some time. You know, that's why we pivoted it, right? But before the pivot, it wasn't breaking out anything, right? It was just better at keeping the lights on. So nothing crazy, nothing spectacular. But on content,
I was able to break out a little bit and I was okay. Let's see how it goes. Right. Let's try out different things and see how it goes. Part of the reason also I'm doing content is also as you probably have heard from that last episode, it's more about the pressure from, you know, just the AFers world, right? I think for me, at least creating content makes more sense just because we're all going to be facing a very competitive software market and my company, some putter act is building the software.
in the open world, you know, like we're facing a lot of challenges, obviously, just like every other software companies out there. Let's try to do things and but fear in the competition. I think that's it. It's something I'm trying out. And I told you I'll stick through it. I am going to stick through it. So I'm going to spend a lot of my time on it this journey with you all. So you'll see you'll see me grow. I'll see you grow. You know, it's all community, right? That's all that matters. So I think that's like a first thing. It's just like something that you actually don't care about.
initially for a very very long time but you keep it consistent you compound it does help wow and i think i think my trade is the best example for someone who doesn't barely spend any time on it so that's that and then some real thoughts i think about i was just thinking about this week and i was telling my friend about it is that i think i think in the ai first world which i'd love to call it
George Pu (04:36.449)
It's more important than ever for everybody to have an alternative source of income or different income streams. And I think it's good for a weekly weekend content because if we're thinking about it, so for me as a founder, obviously also generate, or my company ANC also generates revenue through consulting and my company, SimpleDrives, generates revenue through SaaS and through, you know, the normal technology company revenues. So those are two income sources that I have. And, you know, I'm also just very, very recently, I think a few months ago, I think in April, I started to doing,
investing personally as well, just just get into it very, I'm a very passive investor, right? I'm not like an asset trader or anything. So I was in a quant space many years ago, but didn't really like it. And think that was the right decision, because right now using quant, you're not gonna get anywhere anyways, without, like, can't compete with big guys anyways. So I'm passive. And luckily enough, I guess, I guess it's doing quite well. And so I'm not obviously looking to get wealthy or get rich from investing. However, I do think it's an interesting approach.
you take, right? So before that, was like, I was like, okay, I'm gonna be like Travis Kalanick, who aside from his income from Uber, he'd never sold a share for like 10 years or something, right? He never sold a share until until he got kicked out and many years after after the IPO. So he's launched a brand, he's loaded his company, and he thinks probably thinks that if I sell anything, then it's like, I have to be loyal to my company. So I was basically thinking about the same thing. And I haven't well, we don't have that.
shareage to worry about, but I have basically not buying stocks because I thought that was be a big distraction. And I think and I think looking back, it's something I probably should have rethought about earlier is just like, okay, because I thought about buying thing, it would just be making making me feel like I need to check every day how the stock performing and how everything is doing and all that stuff. But I guess the reality is that it's not I'm not really checking. You know, I'm not really checking every day. I just let it grow up because like once I understand how compounding works.
And once I see the past data for myself, even though obviously it's not indicative of future results, well, I think the US stock market has been doing quite well over the past two decades, momentum clearly wins. So understanding part of it, I think I am comfortable at basically putting funds into the CUs and obviously I have emergency saving funds, so I don't have to worry about stocks going down 50%, 60%, I don't have to worry about the rock or something. So I don't have to worry about that.
George Pu (06:53.968)
So that's also an income stream, quote unquote, income stream, or maybe it's like a hobby I'm exploring as of this moment. I'm not really looking to make income stream, but it is income stream. So I have three, I guess, income streams, if you call it. And then for content, obviously, I'm not looking to make anything out of it, right? But obviously never say never. So sometimes perhaps in the future, there'll be opportunities. So that will be my fourth income stream, right? So that's sort of how I think about it. And I think I recommend it for everybody. even as this thing about example where
you're like a Hollywood producer or you're like a Hollywood actress, right? That you make millions per movie, for example. But then what happens when AI gets so advanced that it's basically able to replicate, you know, know, Avatar movie, Avatar two, and people are like making Avatar three by themselves using Sora. And Sora is not even the best model using Google, I think has VO three and there are a few, there are a few other models are really good. There's also Ernie three, I think just came out.
by Google, basically stimulates a real world environment where you can basically stimulate anywhere in the world or imaginary and click like forward, backward, left and right. I was so amazing just to just to seeing about it. think that transforms a film industry. Right. So basically you would think this industry is safe. But then if I'm an actor actor, I wouldn't be feeling safe. I will probably need multiple different revenue sources. And some people are doing it, but most people are not. Right. So, so even for the industry, it's true. If you're a truck driver, it's true.
Right? If you're an office worker, no matter what you do, marketing, sales, product engineering, like you have to think about some other ways to basically supplement your income. Even if you're a high earners, you know, it doesn't really mean anything anymore. I guess hiring, it really depends on how much you, uh, you spend, you consume, right? How much is your, are your expenses? And I think that matters more. Well, my advice I'll have it's like, reduce your expenses, drop your expenses. think everybody's different. So for me, I'm trying to, I'm not trying to save money, I guess, but I'm trying to reduce my expenses.
So I actually check at the end of the month what where am I spending my money, where I spend my money and check my credit card statements and drop the unnecessary costs, right? For example, like my bank fees, like 17 bucks a month. I was like, what the heck? Why am I 17 bucks a month for like what, you know? So obviously I'm, I'm fixing that and you know, like some people are gonna say that's stingy, but I think that's progress. It's like actually taking an approach to solve that problem. So that's pretty important. So like for income sources, it really makes sense to
George Pu (09:19.255)
diversify and think about like how you can, you know, spend, like find other income sources. And it doesn't have to make money at first, I guess. That's the, that's the key point. It doesn't have to make anything. It can just be something that you have hobbies on. And then all of a sudden that you explore, okay, this is my interest and I'm interested. And maybe I will make money at first many, many years or maybe months, but I'm okay with doing that. And I think that's amazing. Just think about, so for me, I'm kind of exploring that as you, as you guys have heard, I have like four different approaches on income already. So, so yeah.
I think that's it for the bonus show. So it wouldn't be long. just said, I think it would just be 10 minutes of rambling about different topics. I really think about different topics. guess sometimes it comes to my mind. So just tell you as it is. And I think today's takeaway, just to recap is first of all, it's like, you will always do things. Some things that you actually don't care about actually performs better than the things you do care about, which is like, I guess the universe laws. So that's pretty important. And the second is like diversify your income and
especially in first world, you need to diversify, you need to find new things. And that's a super, super important. So as a founder, that's the this weekend's bonus show. Hope you liked it. And starting with next bonus show, we'll be reading the questions from our audiences and on Twitter. So if you're interested, write to me at george at founder reality.com, or you can find me on Twitter or x at the George Booth. So as always, I look forward to all your notes and starting probably next weekend, we will be getting together and get to those notes. So
Thank you, have a great weekend.