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HOW TO LIVE THROUGH A CRISIS

Market disasters are "only passing episodes" in our march forward. Remember this is temporary. Choose "alive time" over "dead time" by using crises to experiment and grow.

AI CREATION PLATFORM ARCADE EXPANDS FROM JEWELRY TO HOME GOODS

Arcade, an AI marketplace for jewelry design, is expanding into home goods with a rug creation tool and a "Match My Room" feature. The company announced a $25 million Series A round for growth and platform development. Founded by Mariam Naficy, Arcade leverages Midjourney and Stable Diffusion and plans to introduce new categories like ceramics and apparel.

CEO FORUM 2025 — CO-ELEVATION THROUGH INTROSPECTION

Goldman Sachs and Lightspeed hosted an intimate dinner for gaming and AI leaders during the Game Developers Conference. The event focused on candid discussions about professional challenges and opportunities among key industry executives. It aimed to foster meaningful connections and deeper partnerships in the gaming industry.

HOW SNOWFLAKE GOT TO PLATFORM-MARKET FIT

The 3Ps framework shows how companies must evolve their go-to-market strategy through three distinct phases: Problem-Market Fit (exploration, experimentation), Product-Market Fit (focus on best customers, coordinated teams), and Platform-Market Fit (customer expansion, scaled operations).

HERE WE GO AGAIN? MAYBE.

Startups should secure the rigging and get ready for heavy weather.

MARKET ENDING MOVES

Consider making "market ending moves" – ones that decisively win a market.

SURGING TRADE DEFICIT LIKELY TO REVERSE IN MONTHS AHEAD

The US trade deficit hit near-record levels in February (-$123B) as businesses rushed imports before new tariffs took effect. This surge is likely temporary - once tariffs are implemented, expect a big reversal as higher prices dampen demand for foreign goods. For startups, this economic shift presents both challenges and opportunities: supply chains will face disruption and imported components will become more expensive, potentially creating inflation pressure across sectors.

DID WE JUST EXPERIENCE A "BEFORE, AND AFTER" DAY?

KLARNA AND STUBHUB DELAY IPOS

High-profile IPOs from fintech Klarna and ticket marketplace StubHub have been paused following market turmoil caused by Trump's new tariffs. Both startups aimed to raise over $1 billion but delayed investor roadshows as public markets tumbled.

THE 25-DAY PLAN TO REVIVE CLOSED-LOST OPPORTUNITIES

Lost deals aren't dead forever - they're often just waiting for the right moment to reopen. First, understand why each opportunity died through CRM data or call recordings, then watch for triggers like new decision-makers, funding rounds, or changing business needs that make timing right. When ready, execute a structured 25-day outreach: start with day 1's triple-touch across LinkedIn, phone, and email, then progress through educational content about new features on day 6, expand to other buying committee members by day 8, send personalized video demos by day 15, and finish with an open-ended goodbye that keeps the door ajar for when they inevitably return to the market.

SOMETIMES NEVER COMPETE ON PRICE

The difference between failing "low price" strategies and wildly successful ones like Amazon, Costco, Southwest, and Vanguard isn't just charging less - it's creating a comprehensive strategic system where "low price" emerges naturally from deliberate trade-offs. These companies didn't just cut margins. Instead, they built unique business models with intentional weaknesses that competitors couldn't copy.

OFFENSIVE VS. DEFENSIVE DATA ANALYSIS

Most startups treat analytics like firefighting—only analyzing data when metrics break. Instead, founders should shift to proactive "offensive analysis," regularly identifying what's working, why, and how to amplify it, turning insights into strategic growth initiatives. To embed more “offense” into your culture, reserve dedicated team time weekly, elevate data teams as strategic partners, and intentionally celebrate proactive wins.

AI SDK

The Open Source AI Toolkit for TypeScript by Vercel.

DIGITS AI ACCOUNTING (PRODUCT)

Digits is an AI-powered accounting platform with real-time insights, automated bookkeeping, and seamless bill pay.

SKARBE (PRODUCT)

Skarbe is a CRM-free sales platform that automates deal tracking, follow-ups, and meeting insights.

DISHING ON INVESTORS' FAVORITE ENTERPRISE STARTUPS WITH WING'S PETER WAGNER

The Enterprise Tech 30 list highlights Browserbase, Clay, Cursor, and Databricks as top companies. This discussion covers notable snubs, newcomers, and lessons from past lists. Check out the full conversation with Wing's Peter Wagner for detailed insights.

GO DO BUSINESS

Business skills are honed through practical experience, not just by consuming content. You improve by actively hiring, building products, and engaging in business activities. Similar to learning music or sports, success in business requires hands-on practice to build muscle memory.

NEXTHOP AI LOCKS UP $110M LED BY LIGHTSPEED

Nexthop AI has secured $110 million in funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Kleiner Perkins and others. The company provides custom networking solutions and AI-powered network operating systems for hyperscalers. This funding round enables Nexthop AI to strengthen its partnerships with cloud companies to enhance infrastructure efficiency.

FRENCH VC FIRM FOUNDERS FUTURE PLANS US EXPANSION

Paris-based VC firm Founders Future, which manages €300 million in assets, has sold a 25% stake in its holding company to investors like MACSF and the Dassault family.

THE #1 THING THAT MAKES ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS SEE VALUE

Your buyer's boss will never use your app, so how will they know it's worth the $100K they spent?

SELLING DURING A DOWNTURN

This downturn may feel different from previous ones, but the winning strategy remains the same - identify specific patterns affecting your business, and improve what's in your control while accepting what isn't.

DEEL SPY TELLS ALL!

The corporate espionage case between Deel and Rippling just escalated with Deel's spy confessing that the CEO personally recruited him, promised he'd be "like James Bond," and paid him $6K monthly through cryptocurrency to avoid leaving traces.

WHAT DO TARIFFS MEAN FOR STARTUPLAND?

The new tariffs are hitting markets broadly, but their impact on startups varies by business model. Most software companies won't see changes to their cost structure unless they rely on imported hardware components. The bigger concern is revenue growth, as tech companies generate nearly half their revenue internationally - meaning tariffs could create sales uncertainty in a significant portion of their business. This uncertainty typically leads to slower sales cycles and delayed investments, but there's reason for optimism: IT spend is projected to grow from 2.5% to 4% of GDP by 2030, with AI adoption potentially accelerating as companies focus on controlling costs during uncertain times.

A GLOBAL ECONOMIST'S TAKE ON TARIFFS: 'AMERICAN CONSUMERS WILL GET HURT'

The planned 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico will disrupt nearly every sector due to integrated trade partnerships. Even the 10% China tariff increases consumer prices. These create both immediate problems (higher input costs and reduced consumer spending) and second order effects (dollar appreciation hurting exporters) without corresponding policies to boost domestic manufacturing. Prepare for conditions where consumers either pay more, seek alternatives, or reduce spending entirely - with few protective measures available.

THIS IS WHY YOU'RE NOT SHIPPING

Your team isn't shipping fast because of structural problems hiding in plain sight: waiting for scheduled 1:1s to solve immediate problems, requiring cross-team approvals that create bottlenecks, rigid team structures that can't adapt to changing priorities, sales-led cultures where engineers are outnumbered, "keeping people in the loop" busy work, tolerating average performers who never raise the bar, and an addiction to predictability that avoids necessary risks.

YOUR PRODUCT TEAM DOESN'T NEED A "NORTH STAR METRIC"

Product teams waste hours debating the perfect North Star Metric only to land on something meaningless. Apple, Netflix, and Facebook made their biggest breakthroughs by following a strategic narrative instead of a single number. This "North Star Strategy" works better for complex products with different user types or multiple usage modes. It allows teams to make decisions based on vision rather than short-term metric optimization that might sacrifice long-term growth.

MATURITY FRAMEWORKS: A HIDDEN GEM IN YOUR GTM STRATEGY

Want to break out of feature-based selling and start selling business outcomes? Implement a maturity framework that maps your customers' journey from beginner to best-in-class, complete with assessment tools that help prospects benchmark themselves against peers. Companies like BEA Systems, MeridianLink, and Marketo have transformed their sales cycles by shifting conversations from "Do you want this feature?" to "Here's where you stand compared to competitors, and here's how we help you advance."

ION DESIGN

Visual editor for your codebase that lets non-engineers safely edit, refine, and ship UI changes.

GATHER ROUND

A more engaging, interactive, and inclusive way for your team to gather virtually.

PERIGON (PRODUCT)

Perigon transforms global information into real-time insights with AI-powered filtering, sentiment analysis, and contextual tracking.

QUICK HINGE HEALTH S-1 THOUGHTS

For those following digital health's first major IPO attempt of 2025, Hinge Health's S-1 reveals what really drives success in healthcare: the company has eliminated co-pays through employer flexibility, achieving rapid patient adoption while showing ROI, and built powerful distribution through channel partners that both accelerate sales and create dangerous dependency. As AI increasingly commoditized the virtual PT experience itself, its physical Enso pain device pointed to an unexpected truth - in a world obsessed with software, sometimes hardware creates the strongest defensibility in healthcare.

HOW TO BUILD A TIER 1 FUND

Kirsten Green's Forerunner has grown into a major venture firm. It has raised nearly $3 billion since 2012 by focusing on strategic team-building and decision-making. Green emphasizes partnership, seeking traits like complementary strengths and strategic foresight in investors, even with long feedback cycles. Forerunner has established itself as a premier player, especially in consumer investments, by creating an in-house research team and focusing on consistent yearly strategic expansion.

THE PIVOT TO PRODUCT-MARKET FIT

Many successful startups like Slack and Twitter achieved growth through strategic pivots by refining their target market or product offerings. Vanta shifted its focus from broad solutions to solving specific customer needs, while Lattice moved from OKR software to performance management based on customer feedback. Other companies like Shippo and Ironclad discovered new directions by addressing overlooked market needs or honing in on their unique value propositions.

34% OF ALL STARTUP ACQUISITIONS ARE BY OTHER START-UPS

33.7% of VC-backed startups are now acquired by other VC-backed startups, a record percentage up from 20% in 2018.

CAN THE STARTUP MINDSET FIX AMERICA?

Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act enabled the rise of social media by shielding websites from legal liability for user content.

TURNING $5M INTO $100M

Collaborative Fund's decision to invest 20% of a $25 million fund in a single startup led to a $100 million return, highlighting the debate between concentrated and diversified VC portfolios.

Learn more about Embedded Analytics with Metabase

THE GREAT LIQUIDITY SHIFT

Venture-backed startups now see 71% of exit dollars flowing through secondaries rather than traditional IPOs or M&A, signaling a fundamental market evolution that founders should pay attention to. With the IPO market silent since 2022 and companies needing $250M ARR (up from $80M in 2008) to go public, capital markets have adapted by creating alternative liquidity paths for employees and early investors, making secondaries not just a temporary workaround, but a permanent fixture that's transforming venture capital to more closely resemble private equity markets.

SOFTBANK AND OPENAI MAKE HISTORY WITH LARGEST STARTUP FINANCING EVER

SoftBank plans to invest up to $40 billion in OpenAI, setting its valuation at $300 billion, making it the most valuable privately-held venture-backed company founded in the last decade. This investment surpasses other large financing rounds, including Microsoft's previous $10 billion commitment to OpenAI and Databricks' $10 billion raise. The trend for soaring valuations continues, with several U.S. private companies reporting valuations over $45 billion.

TYLER BOSMENY BUILT CLEVER INTO A $500M COMPANY–NOW HE'S HELPING YC FOUNDERS DO THE SAME AS GENERAL PARTNER

Tyler Bosmeny, former co-founder of Clever, has joined YC as a General Partner. Clever, an API for schools, was sold for $500 million and is used daily by over half of U.S. K-12 students. Bosmeny is renowned for his sales expertise and his "How to Sell" class at YC.

AN AI-POWERED WORKFLOW TO SOLVE CONTENT CANNIBALIZATION

Content cannibalization happens when your website competes against itself in search rankings, and it's killing your organic traffic without you even knowing it. The key insight is that cannibalization occurs at the user intent level (not just keywords), making it a moving target that requires regular monitoring - to fix it, you need to either consolidate highly similar pages (similarity >0.7), disambiguate slightly overlapping content (similarity <0.5), or implement proper noindexing.

THE MINIMUM EFFECTIVE SALES TECH STACK

Most startup sales teams are drowning in tech they barely use while ignoring what actually matters - strong fundamentals. The solution isn't more AI-powered tools but mastering the five that truly move the needle: a well-structured CRM that captures buyer motivations and key players, a sales engagement platform with personalized openers (not generic blasts), call recording software you actually review, a data provider focused on past champions and executive changes, and (maybe) AI used to enhance research.

STEPS TO BUILD AN ENGINEERING STRATEGY

This chapter outlines a structured approach to creating a company strategy, focusing on five key steps: Exploration, Diagnosis, Refinement, Policy, and Operations. Each step builds on the last, helping organizations avoid common strategic errors while turning strategy into a collaborative practice. The author emphasizes flexibility in the approach, recommending adaptation to fit specific needs while maintaining the core intention behind each step.

A16Z SPEEDRUN (ACCELERATOR)

a16z's accelerator program, Speedrun, has applications open until May 11th.

OPENAI LAUNCHES OPENAI ACADEMY, A FREE AI LEARNING PLATFORM FOR EVERYONE

OpenAI has launched OpenAI Academy, a free platform that offers a range of AI courses, from beginner lessons to advanced topics like AI safety and governance. The platform aims to broaden access to AI education, catering to various audiences, and encouraging critical thinking about AI's societal impacts. Initial reactions highlight the platform's accessibility and comprehensive approach to demystifying AI for a global audience.

FYNIX (PRODUCT)

Fynix is an AI coding assistant that learns your style, streamlining development with natural language commands inside your IDE.

WHY SMALL PROBLEMS ARE WORSE THAN BIG ONES

The most dangerous issues in your startup aren't the obvious fires but the small annoyances everyone ignores. While major problems trigger immediate action, minor frustrations silently compound into culture rot, team resentment, and customer churn — catch these early by overestimating future consequences, creating systems for immediate feedback, scheduling regular check-ins, and embracing "do it or delete it" to prevent small frustrations from becoming business-killing problems.

THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO PRICING STRUCTURE

Stop obsessing over whether to charge $119 or $149 and instead focus on your pricing structure. The most successful SaaS companies use a combination of pricing modalities (Flat Fee, License, Usage, or Credit) with carefully chosen metrics that align with customer value. Research shows that 14% of top companies now blend license and usage-based approaches to capture more revenue. This approach solves the fundamental challenge of pricing: charging different customers different amounts based on their unique value perception and ability to pay.

PLURALIS: TOWARDS ACTUALLY OPEN AI

USV and CoinFund led a $7.6M seed round in Pluralis Research, which is developing "Protocol Learning" for open-source AI model training. Pluralis' decentralized approach allows collaborative training across distributed hardware that breaks away from traditional data center models. This model ensures contributors are rewarded while preventing power concentration, opening advanced AI development to a broader community.