Tag: Entrepreneur
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Today, GitLab is valued at over $9 billion. But in 2015, it was a tiny startup with just a couple employees. Let’s dig into their YC Demo Day pitch. GitLab is a platform for software development. It lets developers collaborate, version control their code, and more. Who Ever Saw an…
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+ Entrepreneur, Finance, Investing, Money, Silicon Valley, Startups, Stock Market, Stocks, Venture Capital, Y Combinator, YC+
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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…
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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…
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+ Angel Investor, Entrepreneur, Finance, Investing, Money, Silicon Valley, Startups, Stock Market, VC+
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“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…
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I’ve usually been a SaaS or marketplace guy. But then something interesting happened at Duolingo… A year ago, I looked at the consumer subscription market and I didn’t see a lot of big winners. What I did see were crowded markets, high advertising costs, and scary churn. But Duolingo’s rise…
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+ Duolingo, Entrepreneur, Finance, Investing, Silicon Valley, Startups, Stock Market, Tech, Venture Capital+
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Coinbase is the world’s 2nd largest crypto exchange. But in 2012, the company was barely getting off the ground. Let’s dig into the deck they used to pitch investors at YC Demo Day… Explaining What Coinbase Does Right on slide #1, founder Brian Armstrong makes clear what Coinbase does: it…
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+ Bitcoin, Coinbase, Crypto, Entrepreneur, Finance, Investing, Silicon Valley, Stocks, Tech, Venture Capital, YC+
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The best founders in the world have their choice of investors. So I’m not waiting for them to contact me — I’m going to them. When I started as an angel in 2021, I let the deals come to me. These days, I’m doing a lot more outbound. Here’s how…
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Deel is one of the most successful startups today, valued at $12 billion. So when I found their pre-seed deck this week, I was really intrigued. Deel’s deck from 2019 is simple and effective. Let’s dig in… Framing the Problem Founders Alex and Shuo do a great job of framing…
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I found myself in the kitchen last night, cracking an egg into a frying pan. This wasn’t a normal dinner — this was research. Decks and deal memos are great. But to really understand what a startup does, you have to use the product. So when I had the chance…
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If you’re having trouble raising money, it’s not just you. Angel, pre-seed, and seed funding in January fell to the lowest level since before ZIRP, according to a new Crunchbase report. Those earliest rounds totaled just $2.1 billion in January. This funding slowdown happened even as total venture funding actually…
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+ Entrepreneur, Finance, Investing, Money, Silicon Valley, Small Business, Startups, Venture Capital+
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Tremendous 