Tag: Silicon Valley
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“It was the biggest mistake I made as an investor.” I was chatting with a fellow angel a while back. He shared with me something he learned the hard way: keep the checks small. But year after year, angels keep getting this wrong. Here’s why… How Angels Fail Take a…
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+ Angel, Angel Investing, Entrepreneur, Finance, Investing, Money, Silicon Valle, Silicon Valley, Startups, Tech, VC+
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I saw an incredible startup at a demo day yesterday. When I contacted the founder after, she offered to add me to the investor update. This is genius. But very few founders do it. Got Dat Drip Startups use drip marketing to get customers all the time. This involves e-mail…
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+ Angel Investing, Entrepreneur, Finance, Investing, Silicon Valley, Startups, Tech, VC, Venture Capital+
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Ten years. 100 investments. Three years in, I’m at 30, and I’m finalizing a new one right now. Why 10 years? Why 100 companies? Story time… Walking Away In 2019, I walked away from a great job. I worked in medical software for many years. The field had been good…
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I’m seeing a pattern among my most successful investments. They’re raising a lot less money. How It Works Here’s how it usually goes: The raises after pre-seed/seed are tiny, selling just a couple percent of the company each time. That’s a huge change from how it’s been done in the…
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They were raising $1.5 million on an $8 million post SAFE. They had a cool product and a dedicated founder, but I passed. Here’s why… “DoorTrack” is a platform for real estate investors. ***”DoorTrack” is a composite, not a real startup, and the name is made up.*** But it shows…
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Most investors don’t reply to updates. I think that’s ridiculous. Here’s why I reply to every single one… It’s the Least You Can Do Founders are working 80, 90, 100 hours a week. And they’re doing it on our behalf, at least in part. The least I can do is…
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They were raising $1.7 million at a $20 million cap SAFE. I passed. Here’s why… “PaintBetter” is an app that teaches you how to paint. ***”PaintBetter” is a composite, not a real startup, and the name is made up.*** But it illustrates why even some startups with really cool products…
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+ Entrepreneur, Finance, Investing, Money, Silicon Valley, Small Business, Startups, Venture Capital+
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I invest in companies with $200k to $500k ARR. So why am I meeting startups that just launched? I think of investing as a conveyor belt. Each day, I put a few more startups on it. In time, they’ll be ready for checkout! Shopping at the Startup Store I try…
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+ Entrepreneur, Finance, Investing, Money, Silicon Valley, Small Business, Startups, VC, Venture Capital+
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They were raising $1 million at a $10 million valuation. I passed. Here’s why. ReadMate helps kids learn how to read. ReadMate is a composite, not a real startup. But it shows why some consumer startups get funded, and others don’t. A Wonderful Mission ReadMate has guided stories that get…
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No one is more over-advised than founders. So rather than tell you how to run your company, let me show you a fantastic early stage startup in action: Fathom.video. The Problem For months now, I’ve been struggling with taking notes at my meetings. I’ve tried tons of different AI notetakers,…
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+ AI, Artificial Intelligence, Entrepreneur, Investing, SaaS, Silicon Valley, Startups, Venture Capital+
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Tremendous 