Marcelo Calbucci | Founder, Author, Tech/Prod, Community Builder
People use the terms innovator and founder interchangeably in conversations, social media posts, and in articles. That’s fine most of the time. It becomes a problem when startup founders or investors don’t get the distinction. It causes them to make the wrong bets on themselves and on others. The tl;dr is that a founder is the person who creates a company from nothing. An innovator is someone who…
Every product and service in the world has the same underlying agenda: to solve a problem. A modern way of saying this is that a product is being hired to do a job. That’s the jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) theory. Until recently, these products required a tool, a system, and a set of instructions on how to get the job done. I call these “syntactical products.” To borrow from language (grammar), the…
This was a unique week. The tech world and the stock market world held hands. There was a convergence of the idea that AI will “eat” SaaS and software. It had a major negative impact on the stock market. In the world I live in, call it the “startup” industry, every VC and founder is also talking about it. The vast majority of VCs have declared that SaaS is done. Agents and vibe coding (or “agentic…
Welcome to 2026! A decade or more from now, we’ll look back at 2026 as the year that cemented the foundation blocks for the new era for humankind. The industrial revolution started in 1760, but Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776, is what gave humanity the framework to think about what was happening, and how to accelerate progress. Similarly, the Information Age started in 1947…
There are two narratives unfolding in the press, in VC/founder circles, and in the boardroom. One is about AI automation and job displacement. The other is about layoffs, hiring freezes, and a shortage of entry-level positions. As expected, we assume these are intertwined. There’s just one problem. The data doesn’t support a correlation at this point. A comprehensive recent analysis by Yale’s…
Learning how to exit VIM.
I just published “ The PRFAQ Framework ”, a book I authored and self-published. I learned about the writing process, the book industry, and how to publish and promote a book from this experience. When I started with my journey, I reached out to friends who have published books, bugging them with basic questions. I’m writing this post to help others who are considering authoring and publishing a…
VMSO stands for vision, mission, strategy, and objectives. It’s a framework for a project, organization, or team. In this article, I’ll explain team-level VMSO. Once your organization crosses a certain number of employees and teams, dysfunctions appear. These include misalignment between team members or teams, miscommunication around priorities, duplicated efforts, or activities that “fell through…
I wrote a book about the PRFAQ Framework. It launches on January/2025. Add your email to the list to be notified when it’s available. The book is for those who define, drive, or evaluate innovation—founders, product managers, executives, researchers, inventors, tech leaders, UX leaders, venture capitalists, etc. It’s a practical guide to help you transform a mediocre idea, or even no idea, into an…
See calbucci.com/book-announcement