Justin Welsh

Justin is a former startup executive who helped build two startups past valuations of $1B, teams of 150+ people, and raise over $300M in venture capital. Now he’s building his one-person knowledge business toward $10M in revenue.

Launched a year ago

the saturday essay.

Rich and broke.

Do work you love, earn a living, love your family, stay healthy, help people, and explore the world.

Everything else is just a dog and pony show.

The wealthiest looking people I know are often one financial disaster away from having no money.

When you use your money to create a ceiling, that becomes visible. You might have a nice car in the driveway, a big house, or a fancy watch on your wrist. Life can look pretty grand, especially from the outside. But I’ve come to learn, slowly and usually the hard way, that the happiest people are rarely focused on money as a ceiling. Instead, they use money to build a floor. A floor is what you have beneath you when something goes wrong. Because something always goes wrong, eventually.

Work from anywhere.

Take Wednesday off. Go to your kid's game without asking permission. Tell a bad client they’re fired.

This is the life you're building when you create work of your own.

Great writing comes from exceptional thinking.

But it’s amazing how difficult it is to take a well-shaped idea and translate it into written thought without losing context or nuance.

If you’re struggling to do it well, consider doing it poorly first. Write everything you’re thinking, let it sit, and then rearrange it.

Great writing is like a puzzle, not a steady stream of creativity.

Almost everything great in my life came from making decisions that everyone around me thought were foolish.

Stop listening to other people who don’t know where you’re going. 99.9% of opinions are worthless. Random people on the internet don’t matter. If you try to please everyone, you’ll end up pleasing no one. The only thing that matters is you, your friends, your family, and your community. Stay focused on those. Forget all of the other noise that people try to convince you is important.

Most people make reasonable, logical choices for 40 years and still end up with a life they don't love.

At some point, making an unreasonable choice is the only reasonable thing to do.

The risks you’ll rarely think about are the invisible ones. It’s the reasonable choice you’re about to make, without even thinking, because it’s sitting right in front of you. That choice is easy, obvious, and pre-approved by everyone. And maybe, just maybe, very wrong.