RULING, Michael Houck, 2026-09-04. This block supersedes anything below it.
- The newsletter is Anyhouck. Not Hard Calls, not Founding Journey. “Anyhouck is final.”
- Tagline: “How to build leverage, make hard calls, and stay in control.”
- Positioning: leverage is the what; hard calls are the how. “Hard calls” stays as a phrase everywhere (it is in the tagline). It is no longer a product or brand name.
- Holdstead (Michael’s coinage,
#ops2026-06-28: holdco + homestead) is the CONCEPT the writing is about. It is NOT a title and is never used as one.- Domain: anyhouck.com (bought 2026-09-04, on Cloudflare). Root and www 301 to https://michaelhouck.co/newsletter. michaelhouck.co stays the site; the newsletter is one product on it (his own decision, 2026-09-02: put the name on the work, not a brand).
- Sending domain will be mail.anyhouck.com, configured in beehiiv by Michael later. Never guess its DNS records; add exactly what beehiiv issues.
- Paid tier: Anyhouck Pro. Free toolkit: The Anyhouck Stack. Both pages still await Michael’s content review.
- The site bio, one line everywhere: “My best move was walking away from my nine-figure startup. Now I help founders build leverage and stay in control.”
- Rights holder is Rye Valley LLC. “Hard Calls, LLC” never existed; it was removed from the site footer and Organization schema on 2026-09-04.
- Production site is michaelhouck.co, not hardcalls.co. hardcalls.co is to be pointed at it.
Flagship newsletter. ~60-80k founder subscribers, Sunday essays, on beehiiv.
- NOT yet renamed internally: the Kick entity is still “Founding Journey” (entityId 12764). Use that name when querying bookkeeping.
- Revenue still partially flows through Rye Valley’s Stripe/Mercury (migration in progress).
- Public face: Michael Houck (X @callmehouck, YouTube @callmehouck).
beehiiv (connected 2026-07-29)
Publication id pub_b3883e6d-0769-469a-8e5e-29a5d6019999 (“Founding Journey” in beehiiv). Baseline at connection: 60,878 active subs, 52.06% avg open rate, 1.83% avg CTR.
Newsletter-to-entity map (per Michael, 2026-07-29): each newsletter belongs to an agency. Viral Examples -> Megaphone. Trendspotting -> JOLT!. Internalized -> Lore. Founding Journey will be renamed Hard Calls and be its own thing within Rye Valley (rename pending; Kick entity still “Founding Journey”). Hockey Stick has no newsletter yet. Houck’s Dealflow (pub_aba16a5f-8af9-47a1-bd6a-3664ce3432d2): DEFUNCT (confirmed by Michael 2026-07-29). Was part of Founding Journey, occasionally sent startup deals from the audience to investors; discontinued in favor of 1:1 intros. Exclude from all reporting.
Domains (verified 2026-08-01)
- Production site: michaelhouck.co (Vercel, repo ~/repos/michaelhouck-co). hardcalls.co is the RETIRED site (see ruling above).
- hardcalls.com is NOT the production site
Newsletter platform note (2026-08-01)
- Beehiiv publication still named Founding Journey, on the SCALE plan (not Max): no custom scripts on the Beehiiv site, so foundingjourney.com traffic comes from Beehiiv built-in analytics API for the scoreboard.
Growth partners (from Read.ai backfill, 2026-08-06)
- The Feed: qualified-lead paid growth partner for Founding Journey since Nov 2025 (kickoff 2025-11-24). Part of the 2026 “founder OS” strategy alongside the GEO agency and quarterly retreats.
Content system (since 2026-08-09)
Canon lives in ~/hardcalls-dna/ (both machines; MacBook is the editing master, rsync to Mini after changes):
content-commandments.md: the Ten writing commandments + kill list + two-poles optimization doctrine (discovery pole = Michael’s socials, optimized for packaging; trust pole = HC essays/site, judged on retention) + sourcing doctrine (steal patterns via Hook Library / Viral Examples filter, never voice or receipts; results outrank distillations).voice-fingerprints.md: per-platform voice canon with calibration tags (essay STRONG, spoken STRONG, LinkedIn/X COLD START with 5-10 piece calibration rounds).voice-corpus/: 172 transcribed Slack voice notes (2023-2026, ~56K words), Michael’s real spoken register. The twelve 2026-06-04 casper notes = him describing his own positioning in his own words.content-ledger.md: one row per shipped piece, verdicts vs outcomes, reviewed on the Sunday rhythm.content-dna.md: the original ideation/scripting DNA doc (numbers swept 2026-08-09: Pro $197 one-time, proof $4M+).
Enforcement: every HC/Michael content piece passes the hard-calls-content-review skill gate (MacBook default profile) before shipping. CONTENT-VERDICT format mirrors the code QA gate. Research basis: market/creator-economy-audit-2026-08.md in this vault.
Live views: Hard Calls
Decisions
Recent meetings
| Date | Name | Attendees |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-12 | Michael / Ben Ornstein 1:1 - Oct 12, 2026 | Michael Houck, Ben Ornstein |
| 2026-09-22 | Stripe Partnership | Blake Stewart, Alex (Stripe, AEO) |
| 2026-09-15 | GoMining BD Call (Blake Stewart x Denis Ladanov) | Blake Stewart, Denis Ladanov |
| 2026-09-10 | Mona Darwish and Founding Journey | Blake Stewart, Mona Darwish |
Playbooks
| Name | Owner | Updated |
|---|---|---|
| Engineering workflow | Michael Houck | 2026-07-30 |
| Funnel design: lead magnet must map to a monetizable back end | · | 2026-08-01 |
| State of the Business: September 2026 | Michael Houck | 2026-10-01 |
| Working with the company brain | · | 2026-07-29 |
Clients
People
2| BSBlake Stewart | Client-Facing Lead (sales, partnerships, account management, agency support) |
| RBRafael Bruno | Engineering Lead |
Decisions
View all 25| 2026-10-15 | Hockey Stick Workshop Signups: Auto-Add to Attio, Michael as Default Owner | decided |
| 2026-09-15 | Viral Examples: 5-point repositioning driven by new ad + outreach funnels | decided |
| 2026-09-14 | Hard Calls: take beehiiv sponsorship deal, defer Substack push | decided |
| 2026-09-11 | Viral Examples returns to twice-weekly cadence | decided |
| 2026-09-07 | The Feed cut; JOLT ad creation process defined | decided |
| 2026-09-04 | Rename the newsletter to Anyhouck and reposition on leverage | decided |
Meetings
View all 6| 2026-10-14 | Houck & Ben (Ben Gusberg, Cape) |
| 2026-10-12 | Michael / Ben Ornstein 1:1 - Oct 12, 2026 |
| 2026-10-06 | Hockey Stick Sync |
| 2026-09-22 | Stripe Partnership |
| 2026-09-15 | GoMining BD Call (Blake Stewart x Denis Ladanov) |
| 2026-09-10 | Mona Darwish and Founding Journey |
Playbooks
4| Engineering workflow | human |
| Funnel design: lead magnet must map to a monetizable back end | human |
| State of the Business: September 2026 | human |
| Working with the company brain | human |