Tag: Entrepreneur
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I started investing in startups in April of 2021, like a lot of other angels. But looking around 3 years later, many of them seem to be gone. I found an interesting data set from Jason Saltzman at Live Data Technologies. It shows a huge slowdown in new angels. The…
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“Cynicism is the coward’s way out.” Jason Calacanis Last week, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be awesome to be on This Week in Startups some day? Maybe many years from now.” A couple days later, it happened! Jamming with JCal Host and angel investor Jason Calacanis was doing a Q&A session…
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Coinbase is one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges. Its market cap is $64 billion. But in the summer of 2012, founder Brian Armstrong was in a dimly lit Silicon Valley office, practicing his pitch. Let’s dig in! What the Heck Is Bitcoin? Brian does a wonderful job of explaining…
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+ Entrepreneur, Finance, Investing, Money, Silicon Valley, Startups, Stocks, Tech, Venture Capital, YC+
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Sales platform Apollo is valued at $1.6 billion. But in 2016, it was a little company called ZenProspect. This morning, I watched their YC Demo Day pitch. Founder Tim Zheng clearly shows us why salespeople need ZenProspect. Then, he shows us some incredible traction. Let’s dive in… A Clear Value…
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+ Apollo, Entrepreneur, Finance, Investing, SaaS, Silicon Valley, Startups, Venture Capital, Y Combinator, YC+
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DoorDash is one of the most successful startups of the last decade, with a market cap of $56 billion. This morning, I watched their YC Demo Day pitch from 2013. Founder Tony Xu shows us a huge problem and gives us strong evidence that he’s solving it. Let’s dig into…
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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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