Samuel Culman
writes for moinaki
Samuel covers work, business, startups, and career change for people who think a little differently.
Articles
Why ChatGPT Never Mentions Your Business (And What Actually Changes That)
AI assistants don't keep a list of good businesses. They retrieve live web pages and quote whatever is easiest to lift. Here's the real mechanism, the four moves that matter, how to check your own position this afternoon, and two popular fixes that stopped working.
14 min readWork & CareerAsking 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