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Founders might have to do 50 meetings to get a check. But you can make those meetings 10X better and up your odds of raising money by changing how you answer investor questions. Picture Francis sitting on Zoom. I have a list of 8 questions I want to ask the founder in my trusty composition […]
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Entrepreneur / Finance / Investing / Money / Small Business / Startups / Tech / VC / Venture Capital¶¶¶¶¶
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Antonio Garcia Martinez sold his startup for $10 million to Twitter just a year after founding. Then at Facebook, he was part of the rise of the most successful startup in the last 20 years. This week, I dug into Chaos Monkeys, his inside story of how startupland really works. The Biggest Problems Are People […]
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Entrepreneur / Facebook / Finance / Google / Investing / Money / Silicon Valley / Startups / VC / Venture Capital¶¶¶¶¶
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At age 29, Charlie Munger’s marriage was falling apart and his son was dying of leukemia. “A friend remembers that Charlie would visit his dying son in the hospital and then walk the streets of Pasadena crying.” I cannot imagine anything worse. And yet, Munger came back from it. He went on to have a […]
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Berkshire / Berkshire Hathaway / Buffett / Finance / Investing / Money / Munger / Stocks / Venture Capital¶¶¶¶¶
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I recently spoke with a reader of this blog. He noticed something strange about a lot of the other articles in his inbox. “Most of the newsletters I get seem to be written by AI,” he explained. He’s probably right! But I never, ever use AI to write this blog. Here’s why… Respecting Your Time […]
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AI / Artificial Intelligence / ChatGPT / Finance / Investing / Money / Startups / Venture Capital / Writing¶¶¶¶¶
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When I first moved to New Jersey in 2014, I weighed 40 pounds more than I do today. I also had a lot less money than I do now. One of the key ways I got from there to here was learning how to cook. Gradually, I picked up the basics from the blog Budget […]
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iWashie was raising $600,000 at a very attractive valuation. It was growing like crazy. But I passed. This company is a composite and I changed the name and some identifying details. But it illustrates a key point: the size of the market matters. An Amazing Startup iWashie is a SaaS product for car washes. It […]
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Entrepreneur / Finance / Investing / Money / Silicon Valley / Startups / Stock Market / Venture Capital¶¶¶¶¶
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I recently met a great young lady named Jill*. She works at a major tech company and wanted to get into angel investing. But she didn’t know where to start. Three years ago, I was where Jill is. Today, I have 28 investments and counting. Here’s the best way to get started: 1) Read the […]
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In 2008, Brian Chesky was trying to raise $150,000. For this sum, you could’ve owned 10% of Airbnb. His friend Michael Seibel introduced him to 7 top investors, but Brian didn’t get a single check. Today, that 10% stake would be worth about $5 billion.* Let’s look at the reasons these investors passed and figure […]
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Airbnb / Finance / Investing / Money / Silicon Valley / Startups / Stock Market / Tech / Venture Capital¶¶¶¶¶
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He pulls a tablecloth from beneath a pyramid of wine glasses. They scarcely move an inch. This is Astribot, a new robot from Chinese startup Stardust Intelligence. In an incredible new demo, Astribot cooks, decants wine, and even irons a shirt. And should you need a little Chinese calligraphy done, Astribot can do that too! […]
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AI / Android / Artificial Intelligence / Futurism / Money / Robot / Robotics / Silicon Valley / Startups / Tesla / Venture Capital¶¶¶¶¶
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How do you know if one of your investments is a winner? And when you find one, what’s the best way to double down? I dug into some real venture capital inside baseball with top angel Jason Calacanis on the latest This Week in Startups. One of the best ways to increase your returns in […]
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