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Selling equity in your startup is the most expensive form of financing. Debt is cheaper, but only accessible under certain circumstances, like when you know your unit economics, have product market fit, and have proven repeatable channels to find customers.
From stepping away from founder-led sales completely to hiring mistakes. Here’s a list of some things you can be mindful of as a founder of a scaling startup that’s in the growth phase.
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) is a staple metric of investor expectations. Contracted Annual Recurring Revenue (CAAR) is being used more by founders to show unrealized revenue from committed contracts. It bumps the numbers, but it might leave you in hot water further down the line.
Truly great innovation comes in pairs. Technology innovation and business model innovation. They work together and deliver outlier results. AI is the next technology innovation, but have we found its counterpart on the business model side yet?
When it comes to AI and security, there is a significant amount of work and effort required. This article breaks down the risks and challenges and looks at the opportunities for companies in this new world order.
Remote can be anywhere that inspires you to work at your best.
“Under-promise and over-deliver” - how many times have we heard that? The mantra is focused on ensuring you only take on enough work that you can really do justice. But are you in danger of being seen as a slacker? There’s a balance somewhere.
The incorrigible Jason Fried of 37 Signals gives his take on culture and how to view it around the things that have happened around a 50-day rolling window. Best quote: “Culture is the nonfiction story of an organization. It writes itself.”
LLMs are amazing, but they require immense amounts of hardware. For this reason, the software will evolve to have a hardware architecture where some of the model is processed on the computer and some in the cloud.
While we focus on founders here, it is helpful to see how VCs think, especially over the long haul.
Failure isn’t a word that should be in your vocabulary if you want to become the best version of yourself.
The idea of personalized services beyond what we have around shopping is really interesting and a16z agrees. In this post, a16z breaks down the opportunities and some of the companies already playing in this space.
The term “fracking of user data” is one that resonates even if the term fracking has negative connotations. The opportunities around unstructured data and LLMs as it relates to existing structured systems like databases are seriously limitless and we’re only just now starting to see the opportunities.
Despite economic challenges and a shift in the lending landscape due to rising interest rates and inflation, we might be coming to a new era for alternative lending thanks to five catalysts: the return of affordable capital, the competitive advantage of alternative lenders in attracting new borrowers, streamlined operations, trust in risk models, and the potential for market share growth.
This article walks through some of the things to consider as you’re onboarding an executive. While these may seem obvious, in the rough-and-tumble world of daily startup life, they can get lost in the shuffle. Always a good refresher.
A complete guide to boosting your digital brand awareness online, with methods including defining your audience, researching and building your list of journalists, and monitoring coverage.
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AI has made voice-enabled apps
In an age where foundation models make it possible for anyone to build an AI company, what makes for a defensible business? Instead of using AI to enhance a product, the technology should be the key unlock to drive a company’s entire product development and business strategy. This article outlines how AI-first products can reinvent networks and marketplaces, create entirely new startup categories, and establish AI co-pilots for knowledge workers.
The new technological epoch of AI and mixed reality makes this a seminal time for startup creation.
We all get caught up in chasing money and status, but don’t forget to chase respect and admiration as well.
The majority of software projects, whether in startups or established companies, often fail to generate substantial value. They propose a shift towards incentivizing developers based on project success and allowing developers more autonomy in project selection to improve outcomes.
The trick is to refine some of the time spent doing other tasks into learning time - for example, listen to podcasts while commuting to work.
OpenAI is planning to host its first developer conference on November 6th.
Tomasz is at it again giving a great overview of the ever-changing open source business models and that will continue to evolve with AI now in the picture. There are so many opportunities out there right now to adopt these models for new businesses. It’s a long play but clearly a good one.
Arm on Tuesday submitted an updated filing for its upcoming blockbuster initial public offering on the Nasdaq stock exchange, setting a price range between $47 and $51, which could value the company up to $52B.
It’s true that the retail landscape is ever-changing and Gotham Gal always has an interesting perspective on these things. If you’re thinking at all about retail in this day and age, there are a bunch of variables that are coming to bear that need to be thought through.
Don’t confuse confidence with arrogance. A quick level-set on the difference for a few specific examples. Never hurts to check in with yourself.
Long read but full of lots of great tidbits from working with those that bring energy to managing your board and expectations. Always a great read coming off a holiday weekend (here in the US).
An exhaustive read about moving from a corporate job to spinning up your own gig from Marian Kamenistak. If you’re thinking of going it alone, there are some really solid tidbits in here.
Steve Blank has always had great feedback on building companies and products and his recent return to regular writing again has been welcomed by many (us included). Having a profound belief is critical when thinking through customer input. Must read if you’re building a nascent product.
Quick one on when to step out and more importantly how to gauge if you’re doing it right. I’ve always been a fan of being in LOTS of customer meetings.
This is a deep, deep dive into Instacart’s IPO and such a great lens on not only how it built its business but also on finding a way to IPO in this kind of market. It’s never the “perfect” time to IPO and reading the tea leaves on when to do it is nearly impossible.
The article makes the case that if you’re looking to elevate yourself from an amateur to a professional, ditch billing clients by the hour.
Reddit, everybody’s favorite search engine, is dealing with content quality concerns following its moderator civil war.
Meetups are a great way to meet people in the industry. Here are some thoughts on how to do it right.
It’s often advised that startups build minimum viable products (MVP), but MVPs come with the problem of not being very useful to your customers. So consider building simple, loveable, and complete (SLC) products instead.