Tag: Silicon Valley
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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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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.…
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+ Entrepreneur, Facebook, Finance, Google, Investing, Money, Silicon Valley, Startups, VC, Venture Capital+
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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…
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