CEO @buildwithporter. Writing about AI, business, finance, fashion, tennis, philosophy, and whatever I’ve recently become curious about.
New York, NY
Joined July 2025
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Sales between your own companies shouldn't count twice. Porter finds them and takes them out of the group total. buildwithporter.com
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Tell Porter your equipment policy in one sentence. It books the schedule every month from then on. buildwithporter.com
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Ask your books in Slack. Porter answers in the channel, straight from your books. No login. buildwithporter.com
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We recently onboarded a group of 11 companies whose books were months behind, and two weeks later they had statements ready for a proposal to one of their own clients. Most of the work was matching money that moved between their own companies, which I wrote about here: buildwithporter.com/blog/con…
Month end tends to drag on for weeks because someone has to go back and match every account by hand. Porter does that matching as the month goes, so by the time it ends, closing the books is mostly a review.
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After power looms, hand-weaving survived as something people paid more for because a person made it. A lot of writing and analysis is headed the same way, and the real question is whether that smaller market employs everyone doing the work today. xitter.cf/emollick/status/211618…
I was interviewed in Vox about my new book, and a question on the meaning of work let me discuss something I have been thinking a lot about, comparing the logic of industrialization to the logic of craft: "You’re a hand-weaver in a world of power looms." vox.com/technology/508032/ai…
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If you run a few companies, you probably have bills that get split between them every month. Once you tell Porter how to split one, it books it the same way going forward, so you're not redoing the math each time.
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Most owners I talk to are tired of explaining the same transactions to their bookkeeper every month. So we built Porter to learn how you book things the first time and keep doing it that way, which means you only answer a question once.
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Most of the late invoices I see come down to the same thing, which is that following up isn't anyone's job. So it lands on the owner, who's busy, and it happens late. A twenty-minute check every week fixes most of it, and I wrote up how we do it: buildwithporter.com/blog/get…
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Same thing shows up in the books. Annual prepay makes cash look great for a few quarters, and the churn arrives all at once when the renewal doesn't. xitter.cf/jasonlk/status/2116170…
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Mine looks random from the outside. Moved to New York at 20, business school, started a nonprofit, now an accounting startup. Each step only made sense after the next one. xitter.cf/thejustinwelsh/status/…
Straight-line careers are going extinct.
The most successful people will bounce between little experiments, stumbling into new ideas and income streams by accident.
Nearly all of my best results came from trying things that made no sense at the time.
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The gap is widest in small business. Most owners I work with aren't asking what AI can do. They want the receipt they snapped on their phone to end up in the right place. xitter.cf/emollick/status/211616…
This is right, but I'd add that the distance between what someone who is working at the frontier with AI uses AI for and what AI can actually do today is growing even wider! We don't really understand the full capability of today's systems when properly harnessed & applied.
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A customer told me this week that Porter is her third accountant this year, and that what's different is we're "on it." She called us organized, clean and responsive, which is exactly what we're trying to be, so I've been smiling about it all week.
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A client deposit isn't revenue yet. Porter books it as work you still owe, so you know what you really made. buildwithporter.com
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A thin month usually shows up after it's over. Porter lists every invoice due in the next 30 days so you see it with time to act. buildwithporter.com
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Want a new report? Tell Porter what to show. It builds it while you watch. buildwithporter.com
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Costs creep up one vendor at a time. Ask Porter who you're buying more from and see it in a chart. buildwithporter.com
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Group numbers four weeks after month end is too late. Porter rolls every company into the parent as it happens. buildwithporter.com
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A customer paid $14,580. For which invoices? Porter matches it to the three it covers and marks them paid. buildwithporter.com
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Hire two more people? Ask Porter first. It runs the numbers on your own plan and shows what happens to your cash. buildwithporter.com
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