Tremendous

An angel investor's take on life and business

  • The Airbnb Deck

    In 2008, Airbnb was near death. Founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia were living off dry cereal. If they didn’t raise this $500,000, it was probably over.

    This morning, I dug into the pitch deck Brian and his team used to raise that crucial round of funding.

    Framing the Problem

    Brian does a great job of explaining what Airbnb does and why you need it.

    For travelers, it’s cheaper and more fun. For hosts, it’s an income stream.

    Many startups aren’t clear about what they do and why. But “We save people money on travel,” that I get.

    Be sure to clearly say what you do and why it matters.

    How Big Is This Market?

    The market for crashing in people’s spare rooms was pretty tiny in 2008. Airbnb basically created it.

    Some investors would look at that market and say “this is niche, no thanks.”

    But Brian shows them an adjacent market that’s huge — travel in general.

    One thing I’d change here: make that slide “dollars,” not “trips.” It’s not easy to translate between a number of trips and an actual dollar figure.

    Today, the global market for budget hotels is $276 billion. Put numbers like that in front of VC’s, and watch the drool dribble down their chins.

    But How’s the Product?

    Brian shows us the product in the deck and points out some of its great features. This is genius — every startup should do this.

    I especially liked the dual posting feature with Craigslist. This is an easy way to get a lot more eyes on those Airbnb listings.

    Brian doesn’t show every screen, just a few key features. That’s the right approach.

    A Team of Builders

    For a company this early stage, the team slide is critical. Airbnb is strong here, with two designers and a developer.

    YC’s rule is teams of 2-4, at least half technical. I think that’s as good a rule as any, and Airbnb fits the bill.

    Fanatical Users: The Trump Card

    Airbnb had a great team operating in a giant market. But what really drew me in were the customer testimonials.

    People just loved using Airbnb!

    I strongly suggest every startup include a slide like this.

    What’s Missing?

    One really important slide is missing here: traction.

    Brian didn’t include anything about revenue. That’s probably because at this time, Airbnb didn’t really have any.

    They’d been grinding away on the business since October 2007, but had only made a couple thousand dollars. They’d actually made far more selling cereal than renting rooms!

    So Brian led with what he had! He had some happy customers, a cool product, and a great team.

    You work with what you’ve got. And in Brian’s case, it was enough.

    Wrap-Up

    Airbnb’s deck is a great example for early stage startups.

    Brian frames a big problem. Then, he shows us how he’ll solve it. Finally, he gives us some early signs it’s working.

    That’s exactly what you want to do. Big problem, solution, traction.

    Give us that, and your chances of raising money will skyrocket.

    What do you think of the Airbnb deck? Leave a comment and let us know!

    If you enjoyed this post, subscribe for more like this!

    More on tech:

    The Coinbase Deck

    The Deel Pre-Seed Deck

    Meet My Latest Investment: Mobly

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

  • Is a Revolution Brewing in Cuba?

    “In Cuba, families get one dozen eggs per month,” my friend said. “So what do they eat?” I asked. “They starve.”

    I was in New York recently talking with a friend who left Cuba in 2021. She first moved to Uruguay, then made her way to the United States two years ago.

    There are still a few lefties in America that idealize Cuba. But they don’t know anything about it — she does.

    So this morning, I was fascinated to read that a revolution may be brewing in Cuba. From Bloomberg:

    Almost unnoticed amid the drama and crisis that hit Latin America every week, in the last days of February the Cuban government asked the United Nations for aid to address a growing food shortage.

    The unprecedented cry for help from a communist regime that has always prided itself on its social welfare model captures Cuba’s dire economic straits. Hurt by tightened US restrictions, decaying domestic production, a weak post-Covid tourism industry and indifference from its allies, the island is living through its worst economic days since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago. A string of blackouts brought people into the streets last weekend, shouting for “food and power” — a rare display of social unrest since the turmoil that shook the island in July 2021, which the regime contained with crushing force.

    “I’m Hungry”

    You can watch actual video from the protests posted on Twitter, below.

    It’s hard not to be moved by the Cuban people’s plight. Their chant, “I’m hungry,” is the most basic of human needs.

    Here in the United States, we have everything. Sadly, we probably throw away enough food to feed Cuba and several other countries.

    So I hope that our government comes through in a major way for Cuba, despite our political differences.

    Toppling the Regime is Harder Than You Think

    But as bad as the situation in Cuba is, I doubt the government will fall any time soon.

    “No one has guns,” my friend explained when I asked her if the government would fall. And despite my serious concerns on US gun policy, I have to admit — she was making sense.

    Perhaps there is some middle ground between a disarmed, powerless populace and the violence we see in America today.

    What Would It Take to Get Rid of the Regime?

    What it would take to get rid of the Communists in Cuba would be somebody with guns turning against the government. That means the military and police.

    To my knowledge, there is no indication of the military or police turning against the regime. I’m guessing they’re better fed than those poor people protesting.

    We often think that if a society becomes poor and desperate enough, a revolution happens. But that’s not really true.

    How Revolutions Really Work

    Around Christmas in 2022, I read a fascinating little book. It’s called Revolutions: A Very Short Introduction.

    In this book, Professor Jack Goldstone of George Mason University traces countless revolutions from Ancient Greece to the present. The upshot: poverty alone won’t get rid of a bad government.

    You also need the elites to turn against the regime. Those elites have the power, the money, and the weapons.

    And it’s going to take a lot of all 3 to get rid of a dictator as brutal as Cuba’s Miguel Diaz-Canel.

    Wrap-Up

    If we start to see Cuban elites openly criticize the regime, and police and military start to disobey orders from Diaz-Canel, a revolution could happen. But until then, I’m afraid the Cuban people are in for more of the same.

    What do you think of the situation in Cuba? Leave a comment and let us know!

    If you enjoyed this post, subscribe for more like this!

    More on world events:

    China’s Decline Has Begun

    China’s Jobless, Childless Youth

    From AI to Satellites, US Dominates All Competition

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

    Photo: “Cuba” by szeke is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

  • How AI Could Make In Vitro Easier

    I’m 38 years old. Of all my friends, only one has a child, a little boy. So if I had to lay a bet, I’d say our generation is going to use a lot of IVF.

    A fascinating startup called Alife might make that process a lot easier.

    How AI Is Helping Families Grow

    Alife uses AI to improve the success rate of IVF. Alife tells the doctor which embryos are most likely to produce a healthy baby, calculates optimal medication dosage per patient, and a lot more. From Fortune:

    Alife’s suite of AI-enabled tools is designed to cover every step of the fertility process. Its Stim Assist tool uses a machine-learning algorithm trained on 40,000 cycles to analyze a woman’s data. It then delivers recommendations, such as the dosage of Follicle-Stimulating Hormone (FSH) a woman should take to optimize the number of healthy eggs before a retrieval cycle, and predicts the best day for retrieval. The idea is, by relying on the data and finding what worked for a similar patient, women can potentially save money on medicine and unnecessary future rounds.

    IVF is expensive, time-consuming and often fails. A cycle costs around $23,000 on average. Many women require numerous cycles in order to deliver a baby.

    All in, it could cost $50,000, $100,000 or more to start a family. How many families can afford this?

    Making IVF Cheaper and More Effective

    If we could improve the success rate of each IVF cycle, we’d drive down costs dramatically. That’s where Alife’s approach makes a lot of sense.

    Alife has a giant data set of IVF cycles. It can tag each cycle with metadata, like “resulted in pregnancy” or “mother over 35.”

    Once the Alife models have enough training data, they should be able to tell which embryos give the woman the best chance of pregnancy.

    Today, Alife has 40,000 IVF cycles to train on. What happens when it has 40 million?

    Worldwide, women are having kids older. At the same time, people are getting richer.

    That’s the target market for IVF. So I expect that the available datasets will grow enormously in the coming years.

    Eventually, Alife may be able to target the right embryo, med dosing, and retrieval day with incredible precision. That could mean women need fewer IVF cycles in order to get pregnant, which would drastically lower costs.

    Wrap-Up

    Cheaper, more effective IVF means more babies. And in a nation with a fertility rate of just 1.7 children per woman, that would be wonderful news!

    In my work investing in startups, I’ve seen a ton of AI sales tools and coding assistants. I love those — super useful!

    But I think AI will impact every part of our lives, not just our work. Massive amounts of intelligence crunching giant data sets should be able to solve just about any problem on earth.

    What do you think families will look like in the future? Leave a comment and let us know!

    If you enjoyed this post, subscribe for more like this!

    More on tech:

    The Most Amazing Video I’ve Ever Seen

    Control a Robot with Your Vision Pro!

    Meet My Latest Investment: Mobly

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

  • The Most Amazing Video I’ve Ever Seen

    “Can I have something to eat?” “Sure thing.” The man’s friend hands him an apple. His friend is not human — it is a robot.

    This is the latest demo from Figure. Figure is developing an android, with the goal to produce one for every human on the planet.

    This video is truly one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in my entire life.

    “Indistinguishable From Magic”

    The man speaks to the robot the same way you would to a person. The entire conversation is very natural and smooth, although the robot’s responses are slightly delayed as it processes information.

    Note that the man, Figure AI engineer Corey Lynch, didn’t tell the robot to give him an apple. He just said he was hungry.

    The robot took that information and went to the next logical step — hand the man an apple!

    This robot can reason like we do. That makes it a very powerful tool.

    But what amazed me the most was the hands. Look how perfectly Figure grips things, and how gently it places them where they’re supposed to be!

    Incredible.

    How Figure Works

    Figure robots are using a multimodal model developed in partnership with OpenAI. It takes in images and sound. Then, it gives responses with a voice and certain movements it knows.

    This video isn’t faked.

    The robot was not operated by remote control. It’s shown at 1x speed, and not edited. The voice from the robot isn’t a human one — it’s Figure’s own voice.

    I’m writing this on Friday morning. Just yesterday, I thought, “How long until someone puts something like ChatGPT Voice into one of these Figure robots?”

    Turns out Figure had already done it the day before.

    That’s how fast things are moving. What is Figure working on right now that they’ll demo next month and blow us all away?

    What Will Figure Do Next?

    Imagine if I said “Hey Figure, put together this Ikea desk for me” and it fully assembled a desk. That would be truly incredible, proving its ability to reason and manipulate the physical world better than most of us!

    If Figure could do that, it could probably do most manufacturing jobs. At that point, it’s just a question of building lots of them at a reasonable price.

    Figure could also go places we’ve never been.

    Fast Forward to 2050

    Don’t forget, Figure wasn’t the only incredible demo this week. SpaceX’s Starship hit orbit for the first time yesterday!

    Imagine 2050…

    Starship is headed to Mars, with a crew of both Figure robots and humans. After 6 months, they land in New New York.

    Throughout the city, more Figures are building houses and parks. Let’s go to the new park…

    I can hear the children laugh. I can see the robots in the distance, growing food.

    When those children grow old, they could get a new robotic knee, or even a new leg. Perhaps they’d augment their arms too to make them stronger.

    Humans and robots will coexist. And in time, it may be hard to tell which is which.

    Some day, I will shake Figure’s hand. When I do, I will know the world is different.

    What do you think of the Figure robot? Leave a comment and let us know!

    Have a wonderful weekend, everybody!

    If you enjoyed this post, subscribe for more like this.

    More on tech:

    Let’s Double the Human Population

    Control a Robot with Your Vision Pro!

    Would You Get Microchipped?

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

  • The Tantalizing Thai of Bangkok City

    Is this place open? I went around to a side door, down a few steps, and entered the dimly lit restaurant. Inside: the best noodles in town.

    This is Bangkok City, a Thai restaurant in Hoboken, NJ. This homey spot has served up pad thai, drunken noodles, and more since 1989.

    I stopped in last Saturday during a rainstorm. Coming out of the gale into this quiet, calm atmosphere felt really good.

    I perused the lengthy menu, unsure what to choose. An embarrassment of riches!

    Mee grob
    Pad thai

    Ah, there’s Tim*! Tim and I are on a food tour of Hudson County, with a new spot or two every weekend. We hadn’t been to Bangkok City in a while, and the noodles were calling our names.

    I settled on the pad thai, a classic. Tim ordered drunken noodles with chicken.

    In an act of depraved gluttony, we also ordered the fried noodle appetizer. It’s Tim’s favorite.

    If we didn’t get it, what kind of friend would I be? 🙂

    We caught up on each other’s weeks and enjoyed the calm atmosphere. After a whirlwind of meetings and errands, this was the right place to unwind.

    Ooh, noodles!

    These fried noodles, served with shrimp and tamarind sauce, are called mee grob in Thai. Mee grob quite a few. 🙂

    Almost as soon as they appeared, the fried noodles were gone. Well, I guess I can eat light tomorrow!

    Tofu

    A good friend of ours, Matt*, actually lives in rural Thailand for most of the year. To think, he gets to eat like this all the time!

    Perhaps when he comes back this summer, we’ll take him here.

    Pad thai time. I boldly dumped sriracha all over my entree — caution to the wind!

    Holy moly, that’s hot!

    This isn’t grocery store sriracha. This is the real deal.

    The noodles were supple, the bean sprouts crispy and fresh. There was also a vegetable I couldn’t identify — it was a little like daikon, the Japanese radish. I’m not sure what it was, but it was delicious!

    What really makes the pad thai is the peanuts. I would never have thought of that. But then I didn’t need to — the good people of Thailand already did.

    Tim made serious inroads on the drunken noodles, and I cadged a few for myself.

    They were perfectly cooked, neither too soft nor too firm. Not easy to do!

    Oof, I’m stuffed. Time to get the bill.

    As we were about to leave, the waitress asked if I wanted one more glass of water. After all that sriracha, I gladly accepted!

    Little things like that, that’s what makes great service. Noticing what a guest might need, and offering it before they even think to ask.

    And you won’t find nicer service than Bangkok City.

    Bangkok City is located on lively Washington Street in the heart of Hoboken. It’s open every day but Monday for lunch and dinner.

    Pop in for some delicious Thai in a friendly, happy atmosphere.

    What are your favorite Thai restaurants? Leave a comment and let us know!

    If you enjoyed this post, subscribe for more like this!

    More on food:

    Coffee With Class at Angelina Paris

    The Fragrant Curries of Karma Kafe

    In Porto

    *Names are changed to protect privacy.

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

  • Meet My Latest Investment: Mobly

    “Every waking moment I’m not spending with my family or in church, I’m thinking about this. Most of my sleeping moments too.”

    That’s Zach Barney, Founder and CEO of Mobly. Mobly makes it easy for outside sales teams to capture info about leads and turn them into customers, fast.

    Ever been to a big corporate trade show? You meet a ton of people in quick succession — and good luck keeping track of them.

    Mobly makes tracking those new prospects easy.

    You can scan their badge or business card or just input their name. Mobly enriches that contact with over 20 fields, including their social media accounts.

    Then, Mobly pushes all that data to your CRM automatically.

    Now it’s easy to contact your leads via text, email or phone call. And you can do it all from your phone, not a clunky laptop.

    Mobly gets you more sales, faster.

    No wonder customers love it. Mobly has a 5.0 star average on G2, with scores of reviews.

    Check out Mobly and take your sales team to the next level! 

    More on tech:

    The 2 Most Important Things to Tell Investors

    Control a Robot with Your Vision Pro!

    Would You Get Microchipped?

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

  • Control a Robot with Your Vision Pro!

    If the Vision Pro wasn’t wild enough for you, how about controlling a robot with it? A team at MIT just did, and the results are incredible.

    Developed by PhD student Younghyo Park, this new tool lets you control a robot just by gesturing with your hand. Fellow grad student Gabe Margolis pantomimes opening a door, and a robot dog grasps the handle and opens it!

    The system appears to be able to mimic any human motion. Gabe also has the robot walk around, pick up a trash can lid, and open another door.

    You can use this yourself, provided you have a Vision Pro and a robot.

    First, download the Vision Pro app, which is called Tracking Streamer. Then, run some Python code and you’re in business! The GitHub repository is here.

    These demos are awesome. They got me really excited!

    But the real world applications are even more amazing.

    The first things that come to mind for me are police and military. What if police could have a robot enter a room where a hostage situation is taking place — perhaps even picking the lock?

    Already, police and military use robots like the FirstLook from Teledyne. But those platforms can only do so much.

    The FirstLook, for example, is controlled by a tablet. You can’t just pantomime an action and have the robot do it.

    Humans with Vision Pros controlling a robot could be helpful in other dangerous situations, like mining or hazardous waste disposal. Why should any human have to risk their lives doing this?

    Congratulations to Younghyo on his incredible work. I think we’re going to be hearing a lot more from this guy…

    What would you do with a Vision Pro and a robot dog? Leave a comment and let us know!

    If you enjoyed this post, subscribe for more like this!

    More on tech:

    Would You Get Microchipped?

    An AI Copilot for the Economy

    Is This the End of Manual Labor?

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

  • Would You Get Microchipped?

    Note: This is not medical advice. I have absolutely zero qualifications in medicine. I’m only writing about this for general interest and entertainment purposes.

    Do you want to get microchipped? Patri Friedman just did it — and it even unlocks his Tesla.

    Getting Branded

    Patri got the chip in Prospera, Honduras. Prospera is a charter city with some very unusual laws. And they just happen to allow implanting chips in people, if the patient consents.

    The procedure went so well, Patri was able to do an interview with the Just Asking Questions podcast from ReasonTV the next day!

    In the interview, Patri explains that his chip is just a passive device with an ID inside.

    Bump phones with him, and you get his contact info. When he goes to open his Tesla, it unlocks itself.

    How It Works

    Patri’s chip behaves kind of like an API: it just contains a key that shows his identity. That key could be fed to any number of applications, enabling more and more actions.

    Theoretically, Patri should also be able to unlock his house, pay for dinner, and a whole lot more. All that’s missing is the right software to do it.

    Engineers could build apps for Patri’s chip. Then, all you need is a garden-variety NFC scanner like the one in your iPhone you use for Apple Pay.

    Wild, isn’t it?

    Biohacking as a Service

    People appear to have been implanting chips under their skin since at least 2005.

    I spoke with Patri on Twitter, where he went into some interesting detail on his experience.

    Is This the Future?

    There’s no way around it: microchipping yourself is weird. I like that Patri embraces that, but I’m not sure I want to.

    I love using new technology. But even if implanting my chip doesn’t give me an infection, the idea still makes me queasy.

    I may tweet a lot, but believe it or not I really value privacy.

    On the other hand, our phones are already in our hands all the time. Is a chip really so different?

    In the near term, the more likely form factor is a ring. Engineer Julia Pak in Canada has already done it.

    That, I’d try, especially for payments. Imagine buying groceries with your finger…you won’t even need your phone!

    And if you don’t want to be tracked right now, just slip it off.

    Wrap-Up

    “We’re goin’ to a new age, pal,” as Gordon Gekko said in the original Wall Street.

    What amazes me most is how common and off-the-shelf this technology is. Add in the right medical personnel, and you could have one in your hand (or anywhere else) lickety split.

    Like it or not, this is probably the future. But I’m not so sure I want to be an early adopter.

    Would you get chipped? Why or why not?

    Leave a comment and let us know!

    If you enjoyed this post, subscribe for more like this!

    Correction: A prior version of this post had some inaccurate details about Patri’s chip. Patri cleared that up and the version above reflects his corrections. Thanks so much Patri, and congrats on being a part of the future! 🙂

    More on tech:

    Your Next House Will Be Built By Robots

    AI Is Starting to Prompt Itself

    Is This the End of Manual Labor?

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

  • The 2 Most Important Things to Tell Investors

    More than anything else, I need to know these 2 things about your startup. What do you do, and what’s your traction?

    This morning, I was looking through a ton of decks I just got from Mercury Raise. This is an awesome program that connects founders and investors.

    Some of the decks are way better than others. So how do you, as a founder, stand out?

    I need to know 2 things as soon as possible…

    1) What Do You Do? It sounds simple. But it’s not.

    You would not believe how many decks I look at where I cannot tell what the heck the company does.

    “We help teams collaborate at warp speed.” Okay, that sounds peachy keen, but what do you actually do?

    “We democratize access to tools creators need.” Okay, but what do you do?

    37 slides in, I still don’t know. 😫

    Here’s a better way…

    “We get you a ride from Point A to Point B faster and cheaper than anyone else.” That’s Uber. Pretty great company, right?

    “We find you a spare room in someone’s house that’s cheaper than a hotel.” That’s Airbnb. And already from that pitch, I’m thinking of becoming a customer…

    Real talk: I looked at 20 decks this morning. If I don’t see something compelling in short order, I’m on to the next.

    Please, please, please, tell me what you’re doing and make it clear.

    I don’t know anything about your product or your market. You have to explain it to me like I’m 5.

    2) What’s your traction?

    Let’s say you get #1 right. I understand what you do and I’m interested.

    But what reason do I have to think you’re succeeding?

    That’s where traction comes in…

    Here’s an example: “We’re at $250k ARR growing 20% MoM.”

    Okay, that’s awesome traction! I’m already itching to meet you.

    Let’s say you don’t have that yet. What else could traction look like?

    “We launched this month and already we have 3 paying customers.” That’s awesome — I’d probably want to meet that company.

    What if you don’t even have that?

    “We have an MVP, two beta customers, and a team of 4 builders working day and night.”

    That’s a pretty early stage company, but it sounds compelling, doesn’t it? I’d meet those guys.

    Here’s what’s not compelling:

    “We have an advisory board of industry experts.”

    I don’t care about your advisors. They’re not going to build the company. The founders are.

    “We won a competition at ABC Startup Pitch Night.”

    Hey, that’s awesome and congrats. But in terms of investment, it doesn’t mean much. Better to leave it out.

    “We have 10 LOI’s from enterprise customers.”

    Jason Calacanis calls these “Letters of Nothing.” They generally don’t convert.

    Stick to concrete signs of traction: revenue, customers, product, team.

    Wrap-Up

    It’s Friday, and I could’ve given you feel good stuff for a Friday. But today, I decided to just give it to you straight.

    Happy talk won’t get you venture capital. But nailing your deck might.

    Tell me right away: here’s exactly what we do, and here are signs it’s working.

    Do that, and your chances of raising money just skyrocketed.

    Let’s practice this in the comments. What does your startup do, and what’s your traction?

    Who knows, maybe I’ll find a great deal in there! 🙂

    Have a wonderful weekend, everybody!

    If you enjoyed this post, subscribe for more like this!

    More on tech:

    Cringe VC’s

    The Deel Pre-Seed Deck

    Why I’m Learning to Love Consumer Subscriptions

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

  • Cringe VC’s

    “If you don’t know that, then I know more about this market than you do. And that’s a problem.”

    I sat in the audience at a demo day in New York last year, cringing big time. A VC was criticizing a founder onstage, and I had had about enough.

    The young founder had just pitched his company, an early stage healthcare startup.

    The VC was the judge. But he wasn’t just judging this founder’s pitch — he was browbeating him.

    I actually thought the pitch was pretty good. But the VC claimed to have some familiarity with the market, and was convinced this young entrepreneur knew nothing.

    Lately, I’ve been thinking about this incident a lot. It got me thinking about how founders and investors get along…

    Time and again, I see investors acting as if they’re above founders. Smarter, wiser, and of course richer.

    These investors don’t understand what their job is. Their job isn’t to tear people down — it’s to cooperate with them and build something big!

    Perhaps the VC did know more about this market than the founder.

    Great! Help him out, and give him some useful ideas!

    But there are nicer ways to do it. The VC could’ve said something like “Hey, I used to work in this area, have you thought of doing X? I’ve seen it work well for other companies.”

    At that point, they’re having a conversation, rather than an auto da fé.

    And let’s not forget the truth that investors love to hide from.

    The founder is in this business every day. We’re parachuting in for a few minutes.

    We don’t know much about it!

    The best we can do is help you think through some problems and offer a couple of ideas we’ve seen work. We shouldn’t act like we know all the answers, because we don’t.

    If an investor does need to have a more frank, difficult conversation with a founder, okay. Do it in private.

    Don’t do it on a stage in New York City in front of 50 people.

    I’m all for asking founders tough questions. Anyone who’s met with me will probably tell you that I asked them for tons of details.

    And yes, in the end, I’ll be passing on most of these companies. That’s the business we’re in.

    But there’s a way to do that without being a jerk.

    That’s what I’m aiming for. And if I fall short, please, let me know so I can correct it.

    What do you want to see from investors, and what don’t you want to see? Leave a comment and let us know!

    If you enjoyed this post, subscribe for more like this!

    More on tech:

    Why I’m Learning to Love Consumer Subscriptions

    Why I’m Cold Messaging Aquaculture SaaS Companies and More

    The Deel Pre-Seed Deck

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order.