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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 (00:00)
Today, let's take a deep breath and talk about something that entrepreneurs, founders, and business owners don't really talk about that much, which is your health and your body and your life. And I thought about this episode quite a lot and I wanted to share with you because it is the part that's human in us. And I do firmly believe your health is the most important asset you have for your life. And not only for your life, but for people around you.
I'll share a little bit my personal experience, which is like still a little bit painful But I do want to share that with you guys so you know my perspective where I'm coming from So about a year ago, I remember he was probably also like sometime in August I I was going to a bank for an appointment with an advisor and I was just waiting for my advisor to call me in to the room when I got an email on my phone That says one of my you know favorite mentors Rob has
Unfortunately passed away due to health reasons. And I still remember how blacked out my brain was when I got that email. And I just, you know, like he, that my bank and was a call me in and I just like my brain was just not functioning. And then I just realized how distressed I was at the time to get that news because he was in his early sixties, you know, not old, you know, and the thing that really hit me around that time was not just about.
that he's gone, which is like so sad, but also how unprepared I was, you know, to face that reality. And I've been working with him together. He's my mentor for more than four years, right? Maybe five. and the two weeks before he passed away, he told me he's going on a trip. He's going on trip and he's coming back and then we will reconnect a month after the trip. Right? Obviously that has never happened. And, and it's still, it's still haunts me just to share that because like,
I was just expecting coming back, he will come back from his trip and we will have a call, you know, about like my business progress and just getting some advice from him. But he's gone, right? He's gone. And, and it took me a few days to really process that I think as well, just because when someone's gone, it just takes, it takes a lot out of you. And especially when you know that person really well. So I started thinking about, ⁓
the finite side of things, right? We always think about infinite things, side of things, but I don't think we ever thought about something that's like finite. For example, like our life is finite. think all the founders and including including myself knows that, but that's not something that we think about. I still remember, I was like 20 year old, at a time or 21, 22 when COVID hit.
And I was, I was like forced to come find to my home at a time in a university dorm room. gyms are closed. Everything else is closed. It was just super distressed and stressful. And I started eating takeout food and, I started doing that from 2020, 2021. And then even lockdown has lifted. I still wasn't taking my health seriously. Right.
It is only, I guess, like, and then I started doing something on the performance side, just like, going to gym every day or going to gym, like, you know, three or four times a week is cool. So it's more like performance is more like goal hitting, right? It's more like, you know, like successful people or like everybody else or my friends, they're all doing it. Let me just do it too. and that death has changed everything for me. ⁓ and also, also like a few months ago,
Someone in my family has been diagnosed for ⁓ really, really late stage cancer as well. It's someone who's not as close to me, but I've spent a lot of years in my childhood with them. it's always also a huge shock, know, just from, and it's a huge shock. wasn't like, she wasn't aware that ⁓ she has it until they were doing the routine check. She hadn't done the check for many years and then she did the check and it's late stage, late, late stage cancer.
So then the doctor said you probably have six months to 12 months left. You know, so that was surprised. I was like, that was a shock for everybody, including myself, you know? So all these things combined, I just want to share my personal thoughts that I think our lives are finite. And I think, your health is probably the thing that's going to make you appreciate yourself when you're older. Right? I think, always think about like what happens when I'm in my eighties, seventies, or if I'm fortunate enough, nineties.
Right. And it's just like my brain just, think naturally wants to turn that down and throw that out that thought, because I, as someone who's in, I'm still in my twenties, obviously. I, I find it so incredibly difficult to think about the finite end of our lives at the end, you know, and, and my brain just wouldn't want to process it. Right. And I'm sure many of you guys are feeling the same. However, I really want to discuss today about like as entrepreneurs, business owners, whatever you're doing. Right. ⁓
I want to talk about our mortality, our health, and what it really takes to not burn out our bodies while we're building companies and businesses, right? Let's be real about where I was before Rob died. As I said, I was doing something just purely for the performance sake. I wasn't prioritized breaks at all. I'd work 10 to 12 hours days and feel guilty about taking lunch, going out for lunch, or even like being on the bus, being on the subway. I would think entirely that was a total waste of time.
And I'll try to do things everywhere, everywhere i went Right. And I thought breaks are for people who aren't, I guess, you know, really serious about building. Right. And then for food, as a founder, I, I have to be honest, I was just eating whatever was convenient to optimize for time, you know? So that was a habit I got from the pandemic, about ordering out, but I just kept doing that after as well. So I've got takeouts, random stacks. I don't really keep track with sugar levels.
I'm just eating whatever I'm putting in my body. And I feel like we're just fuel, you know, just to keep going, right?
And working out, I said, I was treating it like a performance. was just like seeing my friends are going and there was an app that blew up. I think it was like something to the opposite of Instagram, like True Truly or something like that. And then what's about people posting about their lives in a certain day, a certain time in the day. And many of my friends were just posting about they're doing gym during that time. So I thought it was really cool. So I was doing a lot.
you know, about what others founders do. I was like, my body was like, I'll just do whatever my body can handle. I'll sleep whenever I want to sleep. I'll wake up whenever I want to wake up and I will eat whatever I want. All right. My focus was about, basically revenue and future prospects of my company, which I obviously is very important to me. And I'm sure every one of you guys can also relate to, looking back, and that was the time when
Rob's passing has hit me, right? When he passed, he was someone who was really influential. He has many successful businesses. He owned many successful domains for marketing, right? And he has also has a consulting company. He also has his own things around, right? Obviously he's someone that's like truly important to me. but also nine obvious mentor way he shared his thoughts, that will stick with for months about how to be a person, about how to be good in business.
and he was building something meaningful. He has a long-term vision, right? And no one would have thought, you know, I would get that email. And I still just like been dreading about that email. Someone could just be gone without warning and without getting to finish, you know, what they're building. And I think that is a thing that has hit me the most. And I started thinking about my life in the days and weeks after, which is like a year ago, you know, what if I just, you know, for example, disappear tomorrow?
Right? Would it be okay with however I'm treating my body? Would I be okay with I'm leaving behind? Would I be okay with the fact that I basically be ignoring my health for years? You know, what hap, what's going to happen to my company? It's probably going to just like fade away, collapse, you know, reborn, like things like that. Right. it would just go away, you know, when the founder is not here and well, everything I've spent my whole life on a whole, our life building, right. We just be in an instant. It will be gone.
because I'm not taking care of my health. And that is not talking about the emotional tolls that if that were to happen, how that would do to my families, due to the people that I love, to people who love me. So the answer for me about whether I want that to happen is no, absolutely not. And a year ago I was starting to think about it. Still.
That is why I think your health is the most important thing in your life. And it became even more real when my family member got diagnosed for LASAGE cancer. This is not theoretical. Like I started to realize this is not theoretical. It's happening to people I care about. It could also happen to me one day.
And I feel like what happened after it was like, was thinking, okay, if I don't really take care of my body, no one else is going to take care of my body for me. And so I started doing what I started doing. the, the weeks and months after is I started block out a certain time, to actually learn about health, to actually learn about how to be more healthy. And this is something I'll be open sourcing to you guys as well. on my website and also, you know, on Twitter, for the, for the coming days, weeks, months to come. Right. But.
Basically, I was spending a majority of my time just reading business books reading business journals reading business things, know reading tech reading like the things I loved about and I wasn't retaking a priority of health So I basically why it is I started taking blocking a time. I bought this book called bigger, leaner stronger So it's a really simple book that she talks about, you know like many of the ⁓ misconceptions we all have In life about working out and being healthy, right and building muscles
And I'm thinking as well, like in our, in our life in North America, for example, there are so many misconceptions about how is it like to be healthy? have tech talks, we have Instagram people telling us that you need to keep the best body ever. And you can keep eating protein. You need to keep eating this and to do carbs, you need to do less carbs and do it on that. And I think part of my reason why I wasn't really focusing on my health at a time or even like being fed was because I genuinely believed.
It would have taken so much time and efforts in order for me to be fit. would have, I would genuinely believe I need to be an expert on health, on fitness and learning everything I could. Right. And also be good at diet, be good at working out, be good at time management and taking care of tracking everything I eat. Right. If I have breakfast, I need to write down what I eat when you're putting the fitness power up, whatever. I just couldn't find a time to do it right. To be very honest, I just, brain rejects it because I had thought.
That is so much work. do not have that much time in my day in my life to do about this. And that has changed when I got that book and that book, I'm sure there are many other books out there, right? It's not necessarily about that specific book, but it taught me about the importance that everything I was wondering about, was dreading about, it's actually false. It's a false narrative. It's actually not true. So I'll share a little bit more about my current routine, right? And then I'll talk about like how I got here.
So right now, I guess in 2025, I work out about five to six times a week. so I take breaks on Monday and then every other day I do spend at least 40, 45 minutes, at the gym, or I'll be jogging outside. Right. And that is something that's non-negotiable for me. So I keep doing it. Even if my days get busy, I'll find out the time. If my weekend got busy, I'll do it on Monday. you know, things like that. So I keep, I keep it consistent.
And, ⁓ my family and other people had been noticing that I look ⁓ more fit, you know, especially in the recent, I think, recent two or three months, they've been noticing that more and more. So I think that's part of it, but more importantly, I think it's about the things that eat. Right. And, if you're a founder or if you're business owner and you've been working out and you're not getting the results that you want, really that was me many years ago. And I think how it helped really was just like the food that I was consuming. So, for example, the food I was consuming.
then I didn't really care. would eat out. would have like, you know, snacks. I'll have like fast food, I'll Popeyes, or McDonald's or whatever, right? So now I'm generally more conscious about what I'm eating, but I just personally use a very simple scale. So like understand your body's maintain status for calories, right? So everyone's different and there's a formula for it, which you can look at online. So look at the calorie ⁓ formula.
right on Google or whatever, and that will tell you exactly how much calories are roughly burning every day. So for myself, that number is 2,500 calories, right? So if basically, if I eat less than 2,500 calories, I will lose weight. If I eat more than 2,500 calories, I would gain weight. And if I keep it the same, right, or roughly the same, I will not gain or lose weight. So it's actually just as simple,
And then on top of that, right, if I go to the gym and I burn 560 calories, obviously I'll add that to the number. So I basically I'm allowed to consume a little bit more calories for that. But on top of that, I don't really keep track of my calories. I think for my food system, I don't eat that much ⁓ at night after dinner as well. I keep snacks to a minimum. And I think most, most importantly, I keep sugar to a minimum. I will use to get sugar in my coffee.
⁓ and sugar malaté and the Starbucks I will give like five pumps of syrups for my Starbucks drinks. in our society especially like in the States and other Western countries, it's so easy to consume sugar and it's been like just about everything in our daily lives. Sometimes you couldn't even notice when you're consuming sugar. So for myself, I cut sugar as much as I can. If there's something sweet like chocolate or something, I don't eat it. I do not...
I try to not eat it right as much as I can. ⁓ That's not to say you cannot eat it at all. Right. I still eat it from some time to time. It's just like being more aware of it. I do not keep track of calories. I think that's a complete waste of time. I do think you can understand mentally ⁓ you can keep a mental note about how much you've eaten and you can also feel about how much you're eating. Right. So from scale to zero zero is extreme hunger. Ten is full. I usually maintain mine at about like seven, I think seven eight.
I never, ⁓ get myself like fully full, like stuffed, right? I never do that. whenever I feel like satisfied about, I've, I've consumed enough food. So that's why I do. And also obviously I keep a lot of emphasis about protein and I keep tracking my progress once in a while in my very own ways. I also just to add that with chat, gpt with claude with all those AI models, you're actually making a workout plan, making a diet plan that works for you.
has been extremely, extremely easier. Right. And, and even for myself, I started using chat gpt to help me plan different days of workouts. Right. So I do pull for a day. do push for another day and I do full body for another day. And then very, very quickly I've been running out of those workouts. I've been doing the same workouts every day. So I asked AI to help me plan different types of workouts. Right. So I'll have pull and push, but also have pull alternative push, alternative one.
⁓ and then I'll turn to alternative two, right? And then for my full body, I even have alternative one, alternative two. So that gives me enough of workout options to choose from for my days. And I'm sure just tell AI how you want to do it. It's able to help you do that pretty successfully. as for diet, I, I try not to eat out as much. I think personally, that's not even something I'm doing that well at the moment, but I keep taking out to a, probably like a limit of like two to three times a week at maximum. And even when I do work.
do take out, try to use something that's like genuinely a little bit more healthier on a healthier side. like Chipotle, know, like, well, subway sometimes I really don't like subway that much and firehouse subs. All right. So all those different things, they're genuinely on the healthier side, right? If your takeout is like Popeyes or McDonald's, you know, those things can, can really like impact your health if it adds up and that's not to say you shouldn't eat it.
So I limit, I limit my takeout, quite a, I, I limit like eating out as much as well. try to keep it like two, one to three per week maximum. And then for the rest of time, I'll cook myself. I'll make the proteins for the food I make. Fortunately, I know exactly how much, you know, roughly calories I'm in taking, right? How much protein I'm in taking and just be real to my body. being real to like say no to sugar as much as I can and I'm consuming protein. So if you want to be fit, I do consume protein. ⁓ I do have a protein shake,
So I do drink that before my workout. And I think that's been working out for me. So that's just a really simple, you know, workout myth. I think the myth I was trying to let you guys know is that if you have never thought about something in fitness and you thought about, okay, that's going to take up too much of my time to do it is really not about time, right? It's really not about time. It's really about your own health and the people around you, their health. And for me, taking care of my health is, it's basically a non-negotiable.
for me at this time. take it very seriously. I think I will take it seriously for the rest of my life. It's really not something to joke about. And the weird thing is even for meditation, like I used to do meditation every day for like 10 minutes. But ever since I started working out very consistently on an almost a day basis, I'm working out has replaced meditations for me. I used to do those apps like meditation, but I meant my mind would just race about the business stuff. I find it very hard to turn it down.
But now when I'm doing pushups or I'm doing like my pull and push days, my mind actually just gets quiet for the rest of the day. I think I did the hardest thing in the morning, right? Sometimes also in the evening. I did that. That's the physical side of meditation. My body is working, you know, so my brain can rest and my sleep is also better, way better, you know, ⁓ for sleep, I generally keep at least like seven to eight hours. So I have my Apple watch. My last Apple watch broke down when I was swimming.
So I haven't had Apple watch for a while, but I really enjoyed wearing the watch to sleep as well because just because it keeps track of your sleep. know it's not for everybody, but for me, I started doing that as well. Just be more cautious about sleep, right? For sleep. ⁓ so for, for Apple watch, for example, it tells you how many minutes you are for deep, deep sleep, ⁓ REM sleep and, know, other types of sleep. So for myself, I've even noticing that I'm not spending a lot of time in deep sleep, right? What is that? Why is that? Right. And is that healthy?
you know, does that impact my recovery? Right. So I think being a little bit more just aware of your health in many, many different sides of things. And if you have close family members, you have a partner, you have kids, obviously take care of their health as well. Make sure you're keeping track of not only your health, but also their health. You know, so for me keeping track of my health, let me understand like, especially sleep. Let me really understand which days I'm not sleeping enough, which days I'm actually more tired.
And for me as a person, when I get less than like six, six and a half hours of sleep, my brain actually couldn't function. And to be very frank, yesterday was one of those days, right? I didn't sleep all night. that's very rare by the way. ⁓ but you know, during the day, just think I'll take, I'll take time. You just think about vocabularies about what to see, what to speak and talk about. Right. And then that was yesterday while I was doing the podcast, I was not doing the podcast because I just like, okay, I cannot, cannot do it. Let me just be honest with myself. so.
Be honest with yourself of where you're at. think also the last advice I'll give you guys is like, don't be too hard. Don't be too hard to yourself. You know, like I think this is like true for whoever's listening to this. ⁓ just don't be too hard for yourself, right? If your friend comes to you and tell you the same problem you are facing, but your friend is telling me instead of you're telling yourself, think about what you're going to tell your friends about it, right? Think about what you're your friends about it.
For example, if your friend comes to you and I say, you know, I'm really stressed, George. I'm really stressed about my life. I haven't been sleeping well and I've been just being like working too hard on the business. And I'm just afraid of my business is going to fail or not work out. I spent 10 to 10, 12 hours a day just on my business. Right. And now everything else is kind of falling apart. What would you tell that person? What would you tell your friend? Right. And right now think about that for a sec. What would you tell your friend? And.
Also just think about what would you tell yourself if yourself is telling yourself that, right? And I can answer for myself because back in the days I would tell myself to go F off because I wouldn't care because I think building something is, you know, requires relentless energies. And I was, and that is so true today, but how can you have relentless energy where your body is not catching up when your health is not catching up when your sleep is not catching up? How is that even possible? Right. So
I think, to end on this topic, I really feel like we all have this toxic relationship with health as entrepreneurs. You know, like I get it, like we all think taking care of ourselves is selfish or weak or distraction from real work. Right. But Rob's death made me realize if I burn out my body, I don't really get to finish the work myself. Right. If I ignore the warning signs, I will not be able to see probably about my company succeed. One day I could be gone. And I'm hoping that you could feel the same way about.
Things and this is not to like fear monger or anything But just to think about that like if you're gone Wow happen to the things you're working so hard to build right and the crazy hard part is I think the past year I think being healthier in general has made me better at almost everything else I'm able to think clear I make better business decisions, which is super super important for whatever you do Your decision is the most important thing and the crazy thing is after I finish work. I still have energy
For everything else that matters, right? It's not just about being perfect. It's really about being sustainable. And, you know, I'm not really a fitness guru. ⁓ so to speak, I still eat pizzas sometimes. I still work too late. Occasionally, I still ignore my body for one day or two, just like yesterday, I didn't sleep well but differences I'm paying attention, right? I'm treating my body like it really matters for me in a longterm vision. And it's not just mattering for the next deadline or for whatever it's due.
And when I think about Rob, I hope that he'd be proud that his death wasn't just, you know, sad for me, which it is really, really sad, but it's also a wake up call that actually led to change. And I hoping that I can pass this on to you guys as well, to really take a moment to focus on your health, your family's health. And if you're listening to this, treat your body as, as I was right. Like if you were treating your body, like it was invincible, like health can wait.
I can understand, but see where I am now, right? See where I'm now, see what I'm actually building. See what you're actually building, right? See where we are at. And if I can do it, I really think you can do it as well. And I think paying attention is the first step of many things. Start paying attention, start using your AI to make like an imperfect plan because there's no perfect plan out there and your future self, thank you. know? So I'll see you next time and please take care of yourselves.