After I became a VC, I understood much more clearly that there are all kinds of investors with varying incentives and interests. Angels, Family offices, Corporates, Fund of funds, Endowments, Gov, etc The same is true for startups. You have to find the right fit for you.
I think we're at the point in the year where it is probably better for most founders to push their VC meetings to January than it is to try to take them now. (of course, if you've already been running...
"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.
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.
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...
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...
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...
What people think is core - the biggest asset - to their business is often not what they think it is. For example: for Uber, is the core the app? Not really. The core is their supply and demand sides.
It is so straightforward to get money signed and wired on a SAFE that many founders are thrown for a loop when they do their first priced round. That process can take several months from term sheet to redlines to...
Finding product-market fit is like pushing a boulder. The easiest way to grow a startup is to find the right boulder to push down the mtn rather than pushing it up. Unfortunately, if you have not experienced product-market fit, it's...
An ideal customer acquisition strategy as a pre-seed company is to try a handful of marketing channels and then quickly go all in on the one that is working well and optimize. The only issue is at some point that...
When you’re first starting something and doing customer acquisition through a channel, if it works, it often performs well even though it’s unoptimized. If you have to spend a lot of time optimizing to get it to barely work, it's...
Measuring profit per person at a startup is a great metric to track.
I think most pre-seed founders would be way better off hiring contractors for specific projects rather than hiring employees for roles - at least in the beginning.
I caught up with one of my portfolio founders this past week. He's a successful serial entrepreneur, and one of the things that sets him apart from many founders is his relentless focus on margins. He constantly is trying to...
Excited to have @immad, CEO / co-founder of Mercury join us on the 24 hour live founder advice hotline on Dec 17! Sign up here:
While we have portfolio companies that have gotten to unicorn status in 5-10 years. It's much more realistic (and common) - even on a fast trajectory - to take 10-20 years to get there.
One 2026 prediction I have is that consumer health companies will be an even bigger trend next year. With Function Health leading the way, you have fast growing newer upstarts helping consumers with longevity. Measurement of vitals, F&B for more...
Congrats to the Flex team on their raise!
Why we started succession planning as an emerging fund manager and congrats @haleymbryant ! https://t.co/TuBWR76gm5
We are live dissecting a pitch right now with @haleymbryant ! https://t.co/zpbdJFaHfL
As a first time founder, it can be exhilarating to want to sell a company. As a second time founder, you know that results compound and it only gets better the longer you hold. I will never sell my business...
A lot of emerging fund managers think they would like to start a fund because they enjoy investing in startups. But as a fund manager, investing is probably only 20% of the job. The bulk of it is fundraising, portfolio...