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Liquidity puts capital into the hands of employees and early investors, enabling them to reinvest into the ecosystem or themselves. We still see very few secondary events in the startup world, but it looks like that might change, with all the new products and communities propping up to support private share sales.
A lot of people have a romantic view on strategy. You do this big lift, lock in a strategy, and then flip to pure execution. In reality, building a company is this dance between strategy and execution. Follow these principles to avoid writing a strategy doc that nobody ever looks at more than once.
A long deep dive into Plaid and how its product, model, and culture led it to become a FinTech giant.
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A zero interest-rate policy environment can drive a lot of things in the wrong direction. This article unpacks some ‘winner takes none’ outcomes, where even the best/surviving companies end up consuming a tremendous amount of dollars and delivering little value.
As a big advocate of side-gigging and combinatorial creativity, I like this approach of using hobbies and extracurricular activities to build out T-shaped knowledge. What you do outside of work is going to influence how you show up to work.
We get it, AI is changing everything. But with any disruptive technology, doing the math on that disruption is actually pretty hard. Enter a16z with their typical deep-dive on how AI is going to disrupt the cloud and application layers. Dense (although good) read.
More marketers and content producers are turning to AI for efficiency. Over time, this will lead to a level of genericism in the market. The antidote will be authentic human production.
Advice often comes in the form of someone giving you their winning lottery ticket numbers, but that’s not exactly helpful. It’s good to be mindful when you hear successful people explain some of their success, that it might not always be the truth. Red herrings can lead you down costly paths.
We’re big fans of the folks over at SaaStr and this recap of a bunch of their tips for founders & CEOs resonates this time of year when we’re taking a break and also preparing for the big push into Q4. Always insightful and timely advice.
Tomasz slices-and-dices his thoughts on the Carta report on funding outlook based on data from the last few quarters. It contains some good news and some bad news. Must read for sure.
SoftBank tallies up its numbers, which show a cumulative loss of $6.3B in its Vision Fund business.
Block is shutting down the Cash App's Verse brand in the EU and its BNPL platform Clearpay in Spain, France, and Italy to invest into other areas.
We’ve posted a lot about product-led growth (PLG) lately. This is another great example of a company nailing PLG. The key takeaways include being really thoughtful about who you’re building the product for, focusing on a defined persona, and then making their pathway to try your product as frictionless as possible. The traditional B2B marketing playbook didn’t land for Pinecone’s product.
Atlassian has been focusing on upsells to its existing user base, acquiring large new logos, and improving operational efficiencies by hiring slower and reducing non-discretionary spending.
Pixar changed the animation game in movies. Generative AI tools are changing it once again by supercharging what everyday people can do with animations. What will be interesting to see is how IP owners license out content in a world of AI-powered creation.
It is infinitely easier to build a narrative around things in retrospect, but it’s fascinating how seemingly small decisions can have profound long-term consequences. These short stories are a nice reminder that there’s still an emotional human behind all the data and insights.
Oftentimes people who appear like a natural at something have simply spent a lot of time getting it wrong. Whether you’re pitching to investors, recruiting, or convincing your partner why this new startup idea is worth leaving your job, it all comes down to practicing how you deliver the message.
Now that YC is back in person, we see a little less content around what they’re up to. These short clips give some insight into YC's latest cohort and the founders in it.
An exploration into why people feel like the economy is bad, even though the metrics show that the economy is actually doing pretty good.
In 2021 and 2022, there were more than 60 EdTech companies that raised rounds of $100M or more. There has been no such financing in 2023.
In the dog days of Summer, you can’t help but take stock of things and look back. History has a way of repeating itself and everything is cyclical. We’re in another rerun of a disruptive tech cycle. Now is your chance to maximize.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t bring your attention to the latest rate hike, and more importantly, the specter of future increases. Some say we’re bouncing off this recession, with markets still hot and inflation not cooling. All of these factors affect your company’s ability to scale and raise money.
Sequoia Capital has cut the size of its cryptocurrency fund by more than 65%, from $585 million to $200 million. Talk about a pivot. We assume this is all going into AI, right?
It isn’t the heady days of 2021 (“shut up and take my money!”), but there are glimmers of hope out there. This exhaustive review of current data on each stage of investing is a must read if you’re headed out to raise this Fall.
I like to ask my team if the person they are recommending to hire would pass the “airport test” - if you were stuck in an airport for the next 8 hours, would you be psyched to chat with this person? I like Matt Blumberg’s approach as well though.
With just about every major SaaS provider raising their prices, should you take the plunge? Quick read on the things you’ll want to think through before doing so, as well as tips on how to test and roll it out.
It never hurts to study up on early-stage hiring especially in a post-AI, post-pandemic world. This is a great read that breaks down the 5-to-50 hiring tricks of the trade.
I’m an active Notion user, largely for curating interesting reads, infographics, and thoughts. In this article, Azeem Azhar unpacks how you can use AI to level up your research skills and turn Notion into a valuable database where you can store knowledge and more easily spot thematic connections and patterns.
You never know, but the formula is pretty clear if/when you get acquired. Jason from SaaStr walks us through what to expect.
We’re increasingly seeing more people want to take control of their finances. Fees charged by financial advisors, funds, and wealth managers, and valuable leaps in money tech, are encouraging people to go it alone when it comes to personal finance. Is there an opportunity for AI to take the wheel on this trend?
Marc Randolph lays out why he thinks founders shouldn’t be focused on “getting rich” but instead should be focused on solving hard problems with amazing people. What do you want to spend your time on really once your basic needs are met?
Canned water? C’mon. You wouldn’t think of canned water as a massive business, but Mike Cessario leveraged some (what are now) obvious tricks to bootstrap his now ubiquitous canned water brand.
Within all the AI hype, it’s nice to see biotech getting a spotlight.
Less venture funding dollars are going to space tech startups. In 2021, $12.1 billion went to space tech across 450 deals. In 2022, this decreased by 25% to $9 billion. So far in 2023, we’ve only seen $2.4 billion go to them. To the moon, maybe, maybe not.
UC Berkeley researchers found that ChatGPT has not improved over time, and in fact, may have gotten worse. The researchers suggest that one of the reasons for this decline could be the result of new safety protocols being implemented by OpenAI.
Five partners are leaving the firm, but the headline is that Mike Moritz is officially moving on after 38 years service. As the venture capital scene gets more competitive, it’ll be interesting to see what 2024 and beyond has in store for Sequoia.
This article explores the metrics you should be aware of as you build out your product-led growth muscle at your SaaS company. It double-clicks on the funnel conversions you can expect from when a visitor lands on your website and eventually becomes a paying customer.
Gergely, writer at The Pragmatic Engineer, interviews Jean Yang, the founder of Akita, which was very recently acquired by Postman. They dive into finding your co-founder, fundraising, hiring, pivoting, and all the challenges faced along the way.
Optimizing for productivity and being busy doesn’t necessarily mean you’re working on the right things.
AI has long played a role in games, from procedurally generated environments, to machine learning and NPC behavior. Generative AI is the next frontier in game development, enabling hyper personalization and adaptive environments. How about a game that designs itself and never ends?
An insightful read that digs into the positive correlation between wealth and social liability. In today’s society, the wealthier you get, the more you feel a responsibility to give back to family, friends, and the global community.
The story of Material Security’s path to product-market fit, in which they took a circuitous route where they tested multiple different ideas.
As a founder, you want to get things done fast and see results now. Sometimes this isn’t always possible. Godin provides a nice reminder that we have to be persistently patient.
The SaaS industry is facing a profitability crisis, with many companies spending more money on sales and marketing than they earn in revenue.
File this under “problems we’d like to have” - thinking through being worth 18x ARR with continuing massive growth across every KPI. Fascinating read and something to aspire to.
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On Monday we flagged that cash-strapped tech startups are exploring sales to bigger companies in order to survive a funding crunch. Well, in fintech, it’s M&A, M&A everywhere. Neobanks are merging with one another to bolster their market share and legacy players are mopping up startups to expand their product offering and reach new customer segments.
Uber Technologies Inc may face a lawsuit in California regarding the coverage of work-related expenses for drivers. If successful, what precedent does this set for the broader gig economy?