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Tag: #FounderAdvice

The Bad Boys of Tech, Part 2

The Bad Boys of Tech, Part 2

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 Unless you’ve been cut off from all worldly communications, you’ve heard that co-founder and CEO Sam Altman was very unceremoniously booted from OpenAI – and was informed in a Google Meet, despite Microsoft being a major OpenAI investor and partner.

No one seems to know the precise reason why he was terminated. Malfeasance? Was it his reported lack of transparency with the board, which now consists of three independent directors holding no equity, and its Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever? A coup?

Or something quite different transpiring behind the curtain… Read More...

Tech’s Bad Hair Day

Tech’s Bad Hair Day

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Photo by Birger Strahl on Unsplash

No one wants to say it out loud, but is the latest tech bubble bursting? While the Web 1.0 demise was a result of too much money chasing too much youth and inexperience, this time around it’s different: It’s a result of a different kind of huckster class which has woven itself into the fabric of tech.

And many investors were complicit.

WeWorked It

Yes, he did, ‘he’ being Adam Neumann, the company’s charismatic founder/showman who somehow convinced investors that WeWork was a tech company, and not just another real estate play. Tech startups were drawn to the space, but being able to rent office space using an online system doesn’t make you a tech company. There was WeWork Labs, but it was something of an accelerator by any other name and which other accelerator considers itself a tech company?  WeWork’s rapid expansion into new spaces and more cities did grab attention, as they’d almost instantly be 90+% full, it would be announced. Although the play was to rent ten floors, build out three, fill them, and as for the floors that hadn’t been converted? Details! Kick the can down the road and stick to the plan to show hockey stick growth. Read More...

What If Elected Officials Were Scrutinized the Way Startups Are?

What If Elected Officials Were Scrutinized the Way Startups Are?

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Photo by Pauline Loroy on Unsplash

Given recent world events, we decided that wouldn’t it be interesting to examine what the results would be if elected officials and their policies were put under the same scrutiny as are startups – using an investor lens.

We use the following simply as an example.

There have been several mandates/regulations coming from the current administration and state and local governments that are pushing the population to reduce the amount of fossil fuels burned for residential purposes and pushing us increasingly onto the power grid. Read More...

How to Blow It At an Investor Meeting

How to Blow It At an Investor Meeting

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Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

We were recently approached by a potential new client, who wanted feedback on his pitch deck, a rewrite and assistance with reaching out to the appropriate investors.

We liked him and his product and decided to take him on as a client.

An investor friend called us a few days later, and asked what we were working on, meaning was there anything in our pipeline that might be of interest to him and his fund. We gave him the broad strokes on the software that our new client had built, and which already had some traction in the market, knowing full well that it was in his sweet spot. Read More...

The Fine Line Between Deck and Dreck

The Fine Line Between Deck and Dreck

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Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

There was an interesting Twitter thread from @thedanigrant, CEO of jam.dev. We suggest you read the entire thread, but she begins, “When you start a startup, so many people tell you to ship fast and ship messy. They tell you: you’ll know you have product market fit when people are willing to jump through hoops to use your broken product. This was great advice in 2013. But not in 2023.”

Grant said that Jam.dev first released a buggy product, and while users might have been willing to put up with bugs in those earlier days of tech, meaning long before 2013, these days, not so much. And MVP is a good way to start – providing that the ‘M’ is sufficiently engaging to users, and case in point is the meteoric rise and cataclysmic disengagement of Meta’s Threads, which we mentioned just last week.

Oh, once the bugs were out, jam.dev relaunched and found its userbase. Read More...

Summer: The Midway Point, Part 1

Summer: The Midway Point, Part 1

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Things have certainly changed in the startup landscape. Investors haven’t completely unplugged for the summer, as they had previously. Their offices might have moved to non-sanctuary cities or they may no longer have offices at all. And investment into female founded companies is down.

Okay, so not everything changes, fair enough.

While none of us have any control over investor behavior, and as someone who is hired to ‘fix’ pitch decks all the time and make introductions to investors where and when appropriate, we can tell you that founders can control their own behavior, and give themselves a leg up, by presenting their offering clearly and concisely and grabbing the attention of investors, provided that they’re truly on to something – some of whom might actually write a check. Read More...

The Birds and the Bs and the Importance of the Pivot

The Birds and the Bs and the Importance of the Pivot

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We spend time at our place outside of the city, come the warmer weather. Two years ago, when Spring came, we noticed a small bird building her nest, tucked into a seemingly protected nook above our front door. Most people use our side door, so it was apparently out of harm’s way, and she also seemed to enjoy perching herself on the fence in front of the house, to keep an eye on her nest, and an eye out for predators and to forage.

One day, we noticed that the nest had somehow been dislodged and had fallen onto the concrete tiles. All the eggs had been destroyed. The little bird continued to perch herself on the fence in front of the door, but guess she only had one shot at that season’s eggs.

The following year, she made her nest in the same spot, and, well, history does have a way of repeating itself. Again, the nest had somehow been dislodged and had fallen, and all her eggs destroyed. Read More...

Unicorns Rethought

Unicorns Rethought

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Image by Classically Printed from Pixabay

Heads up! Yet another tech billionaire now owns a media empire, and a notable one at that.

“Austin Russell became the youngest self-made billionaire in 2021; now he owns Forbes,” TechCrunch reported.

The problem is, no matter that tech wunderkinds might have made a fortune in their chosen fields and become vaunted in the media: that doesn’t translate into the ability to run a media property being in one’s wheelhouse.  It’s terra incognita and always a good idea to stay in one’s lane, from what we can tell as a result of tech billionaire devouring media stalwarts so far. Read More...

How to Fail Spectacularly

How to Fail Spectacularly

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Photo by Mikael Kristenson on Unsplash

There is a place called The Museum of Failure and as the Failure Report noted, “The Museum of Failure is a collection of failed products from the United States and worldwide. They have exhibited everywhere from Sweden to Shanghai. Most products and startups fail, unfortunately, and the museum showcases these failures to provide “a fascinating learning experience.” Every item gives a unique insight into the risky business of innovation. The goal of this kitschy museum is to stimulate productive discussion about failure and consider the possibility of risk.”

The exhibit is making the rounds globally and is in New York until May.

Crystal Pepsi, anyone? Pass. Read More...

The Long Tale of the Shortcut

The Long Tale of the Shortcut

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Image by Roland Schwerdhöfer from Pixabay

Bill Gates was a college dropout. Steve Jobs quit after one semester. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t finish, either.  So it was no wonder that, when the tech sector rose to prominence, kids believed that dropping out of college and starting a company was de rigueur for success in life. And to be wealthy and lionized.

The Age of Social loved tech ‘luminaries’ such as Zuck and Jack Dorsey and how convenient that their genius could be amplified on the very platforms they created. Tech founders were the rockstars of the computer age.

We know things move faster in the online world, but how did these guys get so rich and powerful in so short an amount of time? Read More...