Building is easy now. Getting the market to care is not. Yet companies still go idea -> build with zero GTM thought. AI made building cheap. It made attention expensive. Before you build, know: who it’s for, why they’d switch, how they’ll find you, and what they’ll pay.

Some of the biggest banks in America spent Money20/20 week explaining why AI agents can't touch customer accounts. The same week, Huntington gave its new AI tool away to small businesses that don't even bank there. One closed a door. One opened a new one. Both were answering the same question: where does a customer start a money task now? It used to be the branch, then the app. This week it split four ways. An AI agent. The software a business runs on. A brand's wallet. And yes, still the branch. In this Sunday's Fintech GTM Report, I walk through six moves (Citi and PNC on agents, Huntington, Cross River buying Accrue, Ramp's charter filing, the OCC's stablecoin rule, and a Michigan credit union buying a Florida bank) and what each one means for banks, credit unions, and fintechs. The short version: nobody can own all four front doors. The institutions that struggle will be the ones trying to show up at all of them with a budget for one. Full breakdown here: thefintechgtm.substack.com/p…

Todd and I are builders at heart. So, we picked a business and built it live, in an hour. In this week’s episode of the Sunday, Unedited podcast you get an inside view into how we’d spin up a Micro Art Vending Machine business. Listen in at podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…

Is a title worth 10 years of your life? That's the question Todd and I tackle on today's episode of the Sunday, Unedited podcast. open.spotify.com/episode/6ef…

This one was so fulfilling to work on. Congrats to both teams.

Ishan Singh, Google, and I did a thing. Well, not alone. But we herded and cajoled the right people to get this deal across the line. Congrats to both teams! lnkd.in/p/eTX--_f4

Let's talk GTM. If you are heading to our annual conference, Jack Henry Connect, in Kansas City, I want to compare GTM notes with you. So, let's connect. A few ways to make that happen. 1) Find me in the Connect app and drop me a message (or message me on LI). 2) Attend my session, look for "Disrupting the Disruptors." You'll learn how your bank/credit union/fintech can compete in the market and win using my Six Pillar GTM framework. 3) Head to fintechgtm.com for access to some free GTM resources.

GTM tip I've never seen shared. (for GTM operators of publicly traded companies) I meet with our Investor Relations team regularly. Their input on what investors are saying about our strategies is gold. Ex. "Your AI strategy is resonating." It's the perfect feedback loop.

I have a friend whose business folded because his partner was stealing from the company. He didn’t panic. He took a few months off to reset and do some deep work. What did he want in this next chapter? A chapter he thinks could be his last. He’s not focused on getting rich or even leaving a legacy. He’s focused on doing work where he a) gets to express his creativity; b) work with who he wants; c) when he wants; d) having time for his family and himself. Today he landed a $15k/month contract. How? Because he gave himself the room to “figure things out.” The opportunity came via referral from someone he hadn’t talked to in years. It didn’t matter - he had made an impact on that person’s life and when the time came to call someone in for the skill set my friend had, his name was on the top of the list. Could he have landed this contract if he had rushed to the next thing out of fear? Nope. The best part - the $15k/month contract checks all the same boxes for him. He’s a) expressing his creativity; b) working with who he wants; c) when he wants; d) having time for his family and himself. Want to meet him? I can arrange it. His name is Todd and he’s my co-host on the Sunday, Unedited podcast. Our first episode is live. Learn more about Todd’s background and experience at podcast.jonathanmillspatrick…

The list of NTC applications grows. Fintechs have gone from eating away at the edges to “If you can’t beat them, join them.” We are in an unprecedented environment of favorable views on the financial services sector from the Fed.

Our daughter is 18 and feeling stressed this morning. Here’s what I told her. Stress is: - Worrying about things you can’t control - Worrying about outcomes - A misalignment in between shoulds and wants The path out of stress is simple. Movement.

Well, really I took everything from my brain, across $300M in products and $800M in fundraising, and turned that experience into an app. Then I programmed AI on top of it. Looking to grow your business? The app runs you through five key pillars of growth. From Ideation to Revenue. Read about it at open.substack.com/pub/jonath…

Focus on driving value. Value for your customers turns into value for your business (i.e. revenue). I’m part of a community of consultants. All really talented people. But the community has gamified the process. Points for this activity, points for that activity. I get the purpose. But I don’t need to gamify my business or in order to stay focused. I’m not focused on points. I’m focused on adding value. Where in your business are you gamifying things when you should be focused on different metrics?

Anything with high demand is commoditized. High demand = lots of competition = commoditized pricing. What’s an industry where I’m wrong?

I Turned Decades of Founder Mistakes Into an App Before I ever raised a dollar, I was a professional fighter. One thing MMA drills into you early is that you don't get to skip the fundamentals. You can have the best finishing move in the gym, but it's worthless if you can't stay on your feet long enough to use it. I didn't expect that lesson to follow me into business. But after three companies, three senior executive roles, roughly $800 million in fundraising and around $300 million in product launches, it's the pattern I see more than any other. Founders come to me with a question. Usually it's about the pitch deck, the investor list or the ad budget. And usually, it's the wrong question for where they are. A founder who wants help with a deck often hasn't gotten a single customer to say "I'd pay for that." A founder asking about paid acquisition often can't describe their buyer in one sentence. A founder eager to hire developers often hasn't tested whether the problem is painful enough to solve. None of these people are lazy. Most are working harder than anyone around them. They're just working on phase four while phase two is still open. The fix is sequence Over the years I've written books, built templates, collected swipe files and recorded more video than I can easily count. Earlier this year I put a lot of it into a toolkit. It helped, but it still asked founders to consume everything and work out the order themselves. That's the exact step where most people get stuck. So I built something that does the sequencing for you. Five Pillars OS is an app that walks founders through the five phases of launching a business, in order: Ideation: getting from a vague idea to a specific problem for a specific person. Validation: proving people want it before you spend months building it. Build: creating the smallest version that delivers on the promise. Go-to-market: getting it in front of the right customers, in the right channel, with the right message. Fundraising: raising money once you have the story and evidence that make investors lean in. Fundraising is last on purpose. I've sat on both sides of a lot of investor conversations, and nearly every one of them comes back to the first four. Traction, customer insight and a clear go-to-market plan are what a pitch is actually made of. The deck is just the container. How it works You start with a free diagnostic that tells you which phase you're really in. For a lot of founders, the answer is a step or two earlier than they expected. That's not bad news. It's the most useful thing you can know. From there, the app gives you the work for that phase, step by step, along with an AI guide built on my material to help you think it through. When a phase is done, you move to the next one. The takeaway Whether or not you ever use the app, here's what I'd want every founder to remember: figure out which phase you're actually in, finish that phase's work, and only then move on. Most of the pain I've seen in early-stage companies comes from skipping ahead. If you want to find out where you stand, the diagnostic is free: fivepillaros.com

Two people I know walked away from their work this year. One saved for decades. One cut what his life cost. Neither sold a company. Both built the exit before they needed it. I just realized I haven't.