Samuel Culman
writes for moinaki
Samuel covers work, business, startups, and career change for people who think a little differently.
Articles
Asking for ADHD Accommodations at Work — Productivity Over Deficit
JAN framework: frame as productivity move, ask for specifics not labels. Six common accommodations (written follow-up, prioritized lists, quiet space, flexible hours, milestone breakdown, response-time expectations). Disclosure decision tree. Legal protections routed to employment lawyer.
6 min readBusiness & StartupsMVP Without the Perfectionism — Ship the Test, Not the Polish
Ries's Lean Startup: MVP is the smallest test of the riskiest assumption. Six shapes (landing+ads, concierge, Wizard of Oz, pre-order, borrowed audience, single-feature). The four-line doc (question/success/kill/deadline) starves perfectionism of ambiguity. ADHD founder case.
5 min readBusiness & StartupsFounder Finances with Irregular Income — Structure Eats the Math
Michalowicz's Profit First: separate accounts + fixed percentages + scheduled moves. Five accounts (income, taxes, owner-pay, operating, profit). Owner-pay fixed monthly regardless of inflow. ADHD case: present-bias + lean-month panic both removed by structure.
5 min readBusiness & StartupsMicro-Business Ideas That Actually Fit Alongside a Day Job
Guillebeau's '$100 Startup': pick by shape, not by passion. Six shapes (productize skill, teach learned thing, buy-and-sell, retainer service, digital one-time, local service) sized to your actual hours + risk budget. ADHD case for feedback-cadence over discipline.
5 min readWork & CareerDon't Quit Your Retraining Mid-Way Through
Ibarra: month 3-6 is the trough where novelty decayed, old field looks rosy, new identity isn't anchored. Strongest quit-impulse hits here, mostly mistakes. Five system moves (external anchor, sunk-cost rephrase, monthly deliverable, peer-ahead, pre-decided criteria). ADHD case.
4 min readWork & CareerSalary Negotiation Without the Anxiety Spiral
Voss's framework: preparation eats anxiety. Five moves before walking in (market data, three numbers, opening sentence, mirrors/labels, silence after the number). Why ADHD/RSD pays double — and how preparation removes in-room calculation.
5 min readWork & CareerStarting Over From Zero at 40 — Anti-Shame Edition
Karlgaard: high-impact careers launching after 40 are common, under-reported. Honest costs vs. realistic upside. Six moves (reframe prior decades, two-year arcs, runway, peer ahead, results not CV, accept identity wobble). ADHD case.
5 min readBusiness & StartupsContent Marketing When You Have No Time
Pulizzi / CMI: durable small-operator content is one source → five derivatives. Five-hour-a-week cadence, the ADHD burst-energy fit, and the three failure modes (derivatives as work, paste-everywhere, skipping email).
5 min readWork & CareerCV and Portfolio When Your Path Zig-Zagged
Ibarra: non-linear CVs are read as missing a story, not as messy. Five moves to make the zig-zag legible (one through-line, capability groups, results-led, name pivots, portfolio surface). The ADHD case for narrative work.
5 min readBusiness & StartupsFrom Idea to First Step: Defeating Business Paralysis
Ries's Lean Startup: market risk dominates technical risk for first-time founders. The first move is conversation, not building. Five tiny first steps that validate cheaply, why ADHD founders are especially prone to build-in-isolation failure, and three classic mistakes.
5 min readBusiness & StartupsA Personal Brand Without Selling Your Soul
Kelly's 1,000 True Fans: a few thousand engaged fans is the durable form, not mass following. Show-the-work strategy with six moves. Why this fits ADHD energy curves better than persona-first approaches.
6 min readBusiness & StartupsFinding First Customers When You Have No Marketing Budget
Paul Graham's 'Do Things That Don't Scale': zero-budget acquisition is hand-built, specific, slow — and the thing first-time founders skip. Six moves (30 specific DMs, communities, trade work for testimonials, ask for 2 intros, build in public, partner-trade), the ADHD case, three failures.
6 min readWork & CareerNetworking for People Who Hate Selling Themselves
Granovetter 1973 'Strength of Weak Ties': most career-changing introductions come from acquaintances, not close friends — produced by steady low-intensity maintenance, not loud rooms. Six quiet moves, the ADHD/RSD case, and what kills the technique.
6 min readWork & CareerChange Careers Without Panic — and Without Burning the Bridge
Ibarra's 'Working Identity' research: successful career changers test possible selves through small real-world experiments first, then let identity catch up. Six moves of the step-ladder transition, why ADHD pays double, and what kills a pivot.
7 min readBusiness & StartupsSolo Founder with ADHD: Not Drowning in Operations
Wiklund 2017: ADHD-symptom entrepreneurs are over-represented and show opportunity-recognition advantages but operational disadvantages. Don't fight with discipline — build systems that don't need it. Six this-week moves, why CRMs fail, and the three failure modes.
6 min readWork & CareerWhy Imposter Syndrome Hits Hardest After Success
Clance & Imes 1978 named it; Bravata 2020 says ~70% of high achievers feel it. Three mechanics: recursive expertise, hardening comparison set, broken attribution. Five tools that move the needle, plus why ADHD/RSD pays double.
6 min readWork & CareerHow to Choose a Career When You're Interested in Everything (or Nothing)
There's no single 'true calling' to discover by thinking hard enough. Here's why introspection and career quizzes fail you — and the constraints-and-experiments method that actually narrows it down.
11 min readWork & CareerADHD and Email: Stop Drowning in Your Inbox (Without Inbox Zero)
Email overwhelms an ADHD brain for mechanical reasons: invisible messages fall out of mind, every one demands a decision, and dread turns into avoidance. Here's a low-decision system that actually survives ADHD.
12 min readWork & CareerPlanning Under Uncertainty for IT Professionals
Planning under uncertainty is a practical skill for IT professionals whose priorities keep shifting faster than any tidy weekly plan can hold.
11 min readWork & CareerThree Clients, One Brain: How Freelancers Stay Afloat
Freelancer project management gets harder with three active clients. A practical column on attention, deadlines, and staying reliable.
10 min read