growth
+5

Aug 25, 2026
•
6 min read
Token spend up, salaries flat, projects shipping faster than ever, and not one line of cost lower. That gap has an explanation, and it changes how you staff a company.

gravity
+8

Jun 4, 2026
•
6 min read
The founder’s real work is building pull, the kind that brings deals, hires, and investors to you before you’ve asked for anything.

tariff war
+10

Mar 26, 2026
•
3 min read
The trade war didn't create China's advantage, it just made it impossible to ignore.

startup
+9

Mar 10, 2026
•
3 min read
The data shows what AI could theoretically do to your career. It says nothing about what humans will choose to hold onto, and that turns out to be the more interesting question.

OpenAI
+9

Mar 3, 2026
•
3 min read
AI gets all the blame for the lack of opportunities for graduates, but the companies now reversing course might be the most important hiring story nobody is telling

startup
+10

Feb 27, 2026
•
4 min read
Why the real threat to your career isn’t the one you’ve been told about, and what a 1960s economist nobody talks about can tell you about where your value is actually going.

startup
+7

Feb 24, 2026
•
4 min read
Why founders who keep tinkering with these tools will be the ones left standing.

sales
+7

Feb 11, 2026
•
9 min read
[New here? Start with this piece first] Building technology has never been easier, but getting anyone to care about it has never been harder.

hype
+6

Feb 9, 2026
•
1 min read
And just like before, the real companies will survive

software
+8

Feb 8, 2026
•
3 min read
We built FOMO.ai around outcome based pricing, and the rest of the industry is likely to follow.

delight
+6

Feb 8, 2026
•
3 min read
When a couple dining at Eleven Madison Park mentioned they’d never had a proper New York hot dog from a street cart, Will Guidara did something that made his kitchen staff think he’d lost his mind.

Hard Part First is a publication for founders who know that tech is a commodity today and distribution is the moat. I’m Dax Hamman. I’ve been a founder three times: at Chango (sold to Rubicon Project for $122M), and now at FOMO.ai, where I’m building AI + human marketing teams for brands like Noom, Minted, and PetMeds.