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In this episode the hosts detail how they replaced their human SDR team with over 20 AI agents, sending 60,000+ hyper‑personalized emails, booking 130+ meetings and generating 15% of SaaStr AI London ticket revenue by targeting low‑priority and ghosted leads. They emphasize that AI SDRs work best when they handle the work humans refuse to do, using modestly personalized (3‑6/10) outreach at scale, and stress a rigorous rollout: document proven human scripts, train agents for specific personas, segment contacts, and assign two dedicated human roles for vendor implementation and internal GTM engineering. Key takeaways include the need for a two‑week training period, focusing AI on low‑stakes segments first, and the importance of continuous monitoring to achieve consistent 6% response rates and 70% open rates, ultimately unlocking found revenue and faster growth.
Liquidity is thin in startups It's entirely possible for you to have had a $100m acquisition offer last year and 0 offers today Or to close an oversubscribed rounds just a few months ago and have 0 VC interest today
What's the value an investment bank can provide? As an example, we had one founder who was on the verge of signing an LOI with a buyer, but then decided to engage us first. In a 3-week turnaround, we marketed...
Wealthfront IPO'd today at $2.6B 🎉 The 17-year journey: 2008: Founded as "kaChing" 2014: Peak at $700M valuation 2018: Down round to $500M 😬 2022: $1.4B UBS deal collapses 2025: IPO @ $14/share, $485M raised The pivot that saved them? Cash accounts now drive 75% of...
Super fun from Elizabeth Yin and Hustle Fund
Founders in trouble are often dismayed by how fast corp dev people can sense their desperation. You'll be less surprised if you remember this is all they *can* sense. They can't judge technology or talent. All they can judge is...
Founders realizing they need to work on distribution from day 1: https://t.co/ADYBNNLJja
I'm not a great judge of character, but fortunately my mistakes are nearly all in the same direction (accepting the bad rather than rejecting the good). So all I need is a second pass by someone with a tighter filter,...
This aspect a big deal: 1Allowing individuals to take a test to verify accredited investor status, rather than relying solely on wealth.
what a silly oped on so many levels “But the resource-intensive AI platform bubble in which the US dominates cannot last. A market correction will shift attention to alternative models. This will in turn create new opportunities for Europe, which has...
"Unclear" product market fit is when you do customer acquisition, and your unit economics work such that you can repeatedly get more customers. But you don't have a line at your door without manufacturing that.
So ARE we in an AI bubble?! Here’s why David Clark says… NO. David Clark of Ven Cap has looked at the actual metrics and came up with a hot take on this week’s TWiST VC Roundtable. When you actually...
The phrase captures something teams feel long before they can describe it. Early stage work depends on a level of shared pressure that only forms when people experience the same uncertainty at the same time. The speed of communication inside...
Yes we are - and you can hear some of his amazing stories and insights including some from an early investor (me) who gets some coverage in his book about that time Jamie said he had other investors coming in...
🚀 Proud moment spotlighting two of our incredible students, Henry Fox and Henry Warren , and their USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy born startup Seeing Is Everyone’s Right (S‑I‑E‑R), the creators of Sidekick, a clip‑on AI smart glasses...
You can argue timelines, risks, or regulation. Existing AI capabilities are already sufficient to drive long-term change. What people miss is how disruption actually unfolds. It takes time for systems, incentives, and habits to reorganize around what already exists.
In this episode, Raaz Herzberg, CMO and VP of Product Strategy at Wiz, recounts the company's rapid rise from a ten‑person startup to a $30 billion enterprise brand, highlighting the unconventional marketing tactics and product‑led growth strategies that fueled its success....
I think the problem with product market fit is that it's actually a spectrum. When people say that you know if you have it, that's only when you have extreme market pull. But there are plenty of products that can...
So I’m starting to get emails from sales reps I’ve interacted with over the past months trying to get a deal done by year end. The problem? They added zero value. There’s really no reason to sign a contract for...
We’ll cap the community at 50 people who are “immediately backable”, i.e. repeat founders and early employees & execs at top companies.
Extreme market pull is when you really don't have to do much to get customers. You just need to fulfill their demand. You are so overwhelmed with customers that you can't even fulfill everyone's demand.
We deployed 20+ AI agents & replaced our entire SDR team. 60K hyper-personalized emails. 70% open rates on ghosted leads. 15% of London ticket revenue from AI alone. The 5 things that actually work: 1⃣AI crushes the work humans refuse to do...
Stanford senior Theo Baker, already the youngest George Polk Award winner, is turning his investigative chops toward Silicon Valley’s venture‑capital machine. His forthcoming book, How to Rule the World, draws on more than 250 interviews to expose how VCs treat...
My face when @matiii reminds me @Kieranleehill turned down the seed for ElevenLabs…. 🤣 https://t.co/R0b3biSsor
Congrats to @AaronLCannon, Michael, and @OutsetAI on their $30M Series B! Outset is building an AI-powered insights platform across the full customer experience. They're redefining customer research with AI-moderated interviews that deliver speed and depth — no more painful tradeoffs. Since raising...
Friendly reminder that the “get shit done” founder beats the “perfect plan” founder 100% of the time in startups because speed of execution wins.
Silicon Valley is repeatedly generating individual companies that are worth more than entire developed world national economies
SaaS companies serving the SMB space are often overlooked as potential investment opportunities because, when compared to enterprise SaaS providers, these companies tend to have higher churn and less well-known (or even unknown) customers. Despite these relative weaknesses, if positioned...
If you're a founder trying to make a term sheet decision before year's end, give Boardy a call to check in!
We frequently get asked how a founder can tell when it's the best time to think about raising capital or making an exit. The truth is, it depends on a handful of factors. In this video, I walk through some...
Important work from @SwordHealth and @VSwordH on how we evaluate AI for mental health. MindEval is a new multi turn benchmark that tests how models behave across full therapy like conversations, not just single replies. Much needed, rigorous, and open...
The median age of founders raising venture capital is climbing about six months each year, a shift driven by three forces: the surge in AI‑focused funding, the growing dominance of B2B models, and a media narrative that over‑highlights youthful, consumer‑centric...
Every week I meet three new LPs. Even when I am not fundraising. And... I never ever sell 20VC to them. The single biggest reason VCs struggle fundraising: they do not build relationships in between funds. This is wrong. You...
Startup Snapshot’s second report reveals that 80% of startup employees say their mental health has suffered, with half experiencing burnout and 52% reporting anxiety. Founder stress is visible to 57% of staff, yet only 10% of founders discuss it openly....
Venture capitalists are acknowledging a shift in fundraising dynamics, with founders now wielding greater leverage after the 2022‑23 bear market. Leslie Feinzaig of Graham & Walker and Ross Fubini of XYZ Venture describe how they had to market themselves to...
So many founders would be happier if they just slowed down fundraising toward the end ... a little
Venture capitalists Ross Fubini of XYZ Ventures and Leslie Feinzaig of Graham & Walker Ventures reveal how VCs craft their own go‑to‑market strategies, not just evaluating startups but also courting limited partners and founders. In a TechCrunch Build Mode interview...
Great profile of great investor Bruce Booth @LifeSciVC https://t.co/VCOHBQIriN
The best risk takers I know took lots of small, calculated risks when they were younger before concentrating. It’s a skill that requires repetition for the patterns to emerge.
I think pitch meetings should be a two way street. Most of the time, I find that few founders I speak with have any questions for me or about Hustle Fund. Here are some questions that may be helpful for...
It is midnight and I am working on the final edit for the show tomorrow with @jasonlk @rodriscoll. Holy s***. By far the best show we have done. - SpaceX valued at $800BN - The BFD: Netflix Buys Warner Brothers - Harvey...
Stic, a Los Angeles‑based OOH advertising platform, secured a $10 million bridge round led by Accretion Capital and several tech entrepreneurs, bringing its cumulative capital to $200 million. The funding will fuel expansion into more than thirty U.S. states and Canada, deepen...
This does happen, but it’s almost unheard of for founders still running a company to make nothing in a material exit The acquirer wants the most consideration to go to the team, the least to the VCs A liquidation preference is hardly...
Lolli, the Bitcoin rewards app acquired by venture studio Thesis* earlier this year, announced a partnership with Lightspark’s Spark platform. The integration enables Lightning Network withdrawals, allowing users to instantly move earned Bitcoin to self‑custodial wallets via Spark’s SDK. Spark’s...
check out this chart -- the majority of seed rounds go to startups in SF and NY (and really, mostly SF) (we'll be dropping a report on "the state of seed" from Carta tomorrow on our official substack) But it's data like...
The episode explains why long‑term government bond yields are rising again in late 2025 despite central‑bank rate cuts, focusing on the 10‑year Treasury as a key benchmark. Higher yields increase the discount rate, pressuring valuations of long‑duration assets such as...
In this episode, Sergey Jakimov, co‑founder of LongeVC, explains the firm’s $1.6 trillion longevity market thesis, its AI‑enhanced deal sourcing, and the strong track record of Fund I (over 3x MOIC with zero write‑offs). He walks through three flagship investments—Insilico Medicine, Turn...
The episode explores SpaceX’s $800 billion valuation and its implications, followed by forward‑looking IPO market forecasts for 2026, including potential listings for Anthropic, Stripe, Databricks, and SpaceX. It examines Netflix’s strategic acquisition of Warner Brothers, highlights major fundraising rounds such as Harvey’s...
We’ve worked with some really great “no-code engineers” at Hustle Fund. Although many people think that agents will eat everyone’s jobs, agents are not good enough to implement themselves. Ironically we find ourselves looking for even more people-help to build...
As an investor today, you should question pattern matching assumptions more than ever. Consumer behavior is changing. Business models are changing. The tools to build are changing. Org charts and roles are changing.
