The Daily Index — Wednesday, March 13, 2024

HEADLINES & TRENDS

TLDR Founders

STARTUPS ARE STILL BUYING FEWER STARTUPS

Startup acquisitions by other startups hit a 3-year low in 2023 and continue to look sluggish in 2024. With valuations falling and big tech acquirers steering clear, startups looking to sell may have limited options and may have to settle for smaller deals focused on investor returns rather than big exits.

news.crunchbase.com · 2 min

TLDR Founders

APPLIED INTUITION HITS $6B VALUATION AFTER RAISING $250M

Applied Intuition, a leader in autonomous vehicle software, raised $250 million in Series E funding. This values the company at $6 billion, a 67% increase from its previous valuation. Its generative AI tech is used in developing software for automotive, trucking, and other industries, leading to profitable triple-digit growth and partnerships with major manufacturers.

news.crunchbase.com · 2 min

TLDR Founders

PETER THIEL-BACKED COGNITION LAUNCHES AI SOFTWARE ENGINEER

AI start-up Cognition has launched Devin, a groundbreaking AI software engineer capable of autonomously managing full development projects, from coding to execution. Unlike other coding assistants, Devin can independently handle a wide range of software engineering tasks, demonstrating superior performance compared to other models like Claude 2, SWE-Llama-13b, and GPT-4 in the SWE-bench test by resolving 13.86% of issues end-to-end without human intervention.

venturebeat.com · 2 min

TLDR Founders

HOW AMPLITUDE BUILT A $4B COMPANY

Amplitude's journey from a failed YC pitch to a $4 billion public company is a masterclass in perseverance. Despite initially gaining traction for their voice-to-text app, the founders pivoted after being unable to solve retention issues. Their story shows the importance of listening to users, boldly charging higher prices when possible, and being willing to abandon products that aren't working.

marketcurve.substack.com · 4 min

TLDR Founders

YOU ARE FIRING PEOPLE TOO LATE

Firing someone is never easy, but waiting too long can be costly for everyone. This candid account reveals how holding onto underperforming employees slows down productivity and ultimately kills team morale. Trust your gut and act decisively. Your future self — and your team — will thank you.

zaidesanton.substack.com · 5 min

TLDR Founders

FINDING HIDDEN VALUE IN NICHE MARKETS

This author challenges the conventional VC wisdom that only large, mass-market opportunities are worth pursuing. They make a compelling case for the hidden value in smaller, specialized markets by detailing the success of Procore and advocating for a strategic approach to market segmentation and niche market exploitation. Founders and investors alike should reconsider their assumptions about market size and potential – the next big success story may well emerge from a niche market.

jaydimonte.substack.com · 8 min

TLDR Founders

DEEPGRAM AURA (SOFTWARE)

<250 ms latency text-to-speech API.

deepgram.com

TLDR Founders

JAM PITCH DECK (RESOURCE)

The original pitch deck for Jam’s seed round.

docsend.com

TLDR Founders

FREE SAAS WEBSITE KIT (TEMPLATE)

Components, sections, 3D assets, and page templates for Framer & Figma.

framer.com

TLDR Founders

TOO SMART FOR YOUR OWN GOOD

While intelligence is highly prized, it can also lead to detrimental outcomes such as overconfidence, disregard for insights from less credentialed individuals, and resistance to change due to an attachment to one's intellectual reputation. These pitfalls prevent smart people from adapting to new information and embracing the best ideas.

collabfund.com · 3 min

TLDR Founders

FIRST-TIME VERSUS REPEAT FOUNDER

While repeat founders may have some advantages when it comes to startup success, a recent report indicates that first-time entrepreneurs still have a fair chance of success. Although serial entrepreneurs find it easier to secure venture capital funding and negotiate favorable terms, nearly 18% of first-time founders managed to achieve a successful exit.

datadrivenvc.io · 3 min

TLDR Founders

EXPONENTIAL GROWTH AND AI ESCAPE VELOCITY

AI Futurist Ray Kurzweil invented the law of accelerating returns, which states that the rate of progress is increasing at an exponential rate over time. In a recent discussion, Kurzweil explored various topics including prospects that are only getting better, the direction in which the AI economy is headed, human relationships with AIs, longevity escape velocity, and much more.

bvp.com · 20 min

TLDR Founders

WHAT ARE THE CHANCES YOUR STARTUP IS BOUGHT?

This analysis examines the acquisition rates of 553 startups acquired in 2023 from Pre-Seed to Series D rounds.

linkedin.com · 2 min

TLDR Founders

EXPANDING BEYOND FOUNDER-LED SALES

B2B founders should prioritize hiring a Sales Development Representative (SDR) over an Account Executive (AE) as their first sales hire. SDRs specialize in generating leads and setting up meetings, enabling founders to focus on closing deals more efficiently.

linkedin.com · 1 min

TLDR Founders

THE SOUL OF YOUR WORK

Truly standout products have something extra: a soul. It's this hard-to-define quality that elevates products from merely functional to memorable.

proofofconcept.pub · 2 min