In 2012, the year I left the bank, I had a choice: build one lifestyle business or build a venture-backed company.
I chose the lifestyle business. After 13 years in stocks, I was burnt out and just wanted to be free to enjoy the FIRE lifestyle. Writing and tinkering 15 to 20 hours a week for intellectual stimulation beat 15+ hours a day for years on end for the slim chance of a big eight-figure exit down the road.
For a long time it seemed like the right choice. Ride the bull market. Go on an adventure. Explore new challenges. The thing is, I still learned a lot about scaling a business as a VC-backed company, just at the level and effort I wanted.
Seventeen years later, I may have accidentally built something that matters to survive in the AI economy. Not a product. Distribution.
I thought HE was going to suppress this site forever
For all of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026, I was feeling that the end was near for the Financial Samurai.
The AI was scraping my content and serving it without any attribution. Research behavior was changing. Why click on a 1,500-word post when a chatbot can condense it into three bullet points? I said to my dad, “Well, it was fun while it lasted.” He cried with me.
The financial samurai is the type of business lifestyle that AI directly threatens. A legacy site not built by AI and mostly dependent on organic search for growth. A sitting duck. Heck, even Google is cannibalizing its legacy search business by revamping its search box with its AI tool, Gemini.
Eventually though, I finally became one Max AI. Instead of fearing it, I started investing in it aggressively starting in early 2023. Traditional venture capital, public venture capitaland individual checks at the AI founders here in San Francisco. Once you have skin in the game, fear turns to curiosity.
And somewhere there, the cloud lifted. I realized that Financial Samurai has the four things that AI can’t scratch: authority, longevity, trust and distribution.
Building is free now. Distribution is more expensive than ever.
Here’s what HE actually did. It didn’t kill the content. It killed the construction cost.
Anyone can submit a product now. Spend a weekend with Claude Code and you’ll have a real app. The barrier to construction that once felt difficult has essentially disappeared.
But here’s the part no one warns you about: the barrier to user acquisition was never the same barrier. The two were not always connected. You just couldn’t tell because they both felt impossible at the same time.
I saw a post on Reddit recently that revealed it. One guy built four iOS apps with Claude, five more in progress. Real apps. SwiftUI, StoreKit, widgets, the works. Total revenue from all? Zero. Total users? His wife and a son in Finland he suspects fired him by accident. Read this:
Construction was not his problem. The request was And demand has never been more competitive. You can create something great, but if no one knows it exists, you don’t have a business. You have a hobby with a server bill.
This is the great revolution of the AI era. What was once difficult, construction, is now easy. The thing that was discounted, distribution, is now a big part of the game. And the delivery is exactly what can’t be vibe-coded in a weekend. It takes years.
Why do people actually read Financial Samurai?
So why do hundreds of thousands of people still show up here every month, in a world drowning in AI-generated financial content and TikTok videos?
Several reasons and none of them are random.
Everything here comes from first-hand experience. I’m not summarizing a study I hijacked. I’m telling you what really happened when I I designed my layoff in 2012, or how I was thwarted by a life insurance company that tried to raise my term premium from $39 to $720 a month just because I had visited a sleep center. Wins and mistakes, both.
I spent 10 years in finance before writing a word here, so I’m not teaching personal finance in public. I lived it and I continue to live it.
In 2009, I started The modern FIRE movement and have gone deep into investing topics to help people create enough passive income to break free from jobs they hate.
I don’t need income. This means I can be more objective and write whatever I want. Being free to speak freely is wonderful. Please don’t crucify me.
And I’ve been showing up three times a week for 17 years without fail. That’s over 2,600 articles so far. Trust is not a marketing tactic. It’s a deposit you make every week for almost two decades and you can’t fake the balance.
This is the gap. Not the writing itself. The relationship behind it.
Which is exactly why I invest in founders
Here’s where it gets interesting and why I’m writing this now.
I am an LP in venture funds and an active angel investor in AI startups. The longer I do this (since 2006), the more convinced I am that I can add tremendous value to early-stage startups through my platform. Not only do I get to interview founders on my podcast to tell their story, but I also get to write about their product and help them gain recognition and customers. Money is the most commoditized thing in Silicon Valley. Everyone has money.
What founders cannot easily have is distribution. Trust with a real audience. Seventeen years of model recognition of what makes people buy a product and stick with it, not just sign up for a free trial.
This is what I bring. When I support a founder, I’m not taking money and disappearing, unless you want me to. I can put your product in front of a large, affluent, high-purpose audience that has trusted me for nearly two decades. I understand customer acquisition, retention and nurturing.
The best founders are expert builders. They have dealt with it. They need someone who can solve the problem that actually kills most startups: no one comes.
So if you’re building something really cool and looking at that exact problem, I’m probably the most useful check on your hatch table.
You can’t fail if you never give up
I will leave the founders with a lesson that has been beaten into me for 17 years.
When I started Financial Samurai in 2009, I promised myself that I would publish three times a week for 10 years. The it reached that target in July 2019and then, like Forrest Gump, I just kept running. “Why stop if I can keep going?” became the mantra.
99% of the personal finance sites that started when I was closed or sold. I’m still here. Not because I’m smarter, but because I refused to quit. In addition, who sell their child if they don’t do it for money? No one. Please say in game long enough for rewards to form.
You can never lose if you never give up. Continue to find away the inevitable walls that form during your journey.
Thanks for 17 years so far
Distribution is just consistency plus time. There are no shortcuts, which is exactly why it’s so worth it, and why you should stop procrastinating and start today.
As I close out my 17th year and go into my 18th this July 2026, thank you. For reading, for sharing, for the views you leave in the comments, and for receiving my books.
The entrepreneur’s journey is full of ups and downs. The trick is not to avoid them. It’s accepting them and appreciating every moment along the way.
And for the founders reading this who think I would be helpful, feel free to email me. You can find my e-mail address at the end of my About the site.
How long have you been a Financial Samurai reader? Are you a small business owner yourself? If so, how was the trip?
If you want to achieve financial freedom faster, subscribe to my site free weekly newsletter and join over 60,000 readers. I started Financial Samurai in 2009 and helped start the modern FIRE movement. Everything is written based on first-hand experience, because money is too important to leave to the pontificate..
