By Eric Paley
How do you bootstrap a $1B+ hardware startup?
SimpliSafe founder Chad Laurans recently shared some wisdom with our portfolio:
🪤 Avoid the “trap of perpetual unreadiness”
🎯 Have a hiring “hit rate”
♻️ Start succession planning from day one
Here’s more…
🎯 Have a hiring “hit rate”
If you’re scaling quickly, you’re not going to hire perfectly. However, many managers fear losing face by admitting they made a bad hiring decision. Give them a permission structure to end poor fits before they poison your organization.
☑️ Reference people early
Chad urges hiring managers to call references as…
By Brittany Brody
I’m a venture capitalist.
I’m a lawyer.
I’m not a cat…
…but I play one on Instagram and TikTok.
I want to share what I’ve learned about the influencer economy by getting my orange cat named Dobby to 60K+ followers across both platforms.
😻 People get *really* invested in online felines
I knew people might like pics of cute cat with enormous ears — but I had no idea they’d send msgs asking about her food & litter box preferences. Celebrity kitten is an absurd phrase, but it’s a real & valuable phenomenon.
Dobby’s “fame” revealed how much people invest in parasocial personalities. 60K fans…
A friend ran marketing for a startup famous for its cult-like workout classes and zealous members.
In the early days, this person had a limited budget — unable to buy ads, she pored over customer service logs and made a horrifying find: Their towels smelled bad…
The towels were plush and freshly laundered, of course, but the detergent’s scent was unpleasant.
The hour spent picking a new laundry soap likely had a bigger impact on the brand’s NPS score than any single hour of brand strategy that week.
Marketing success at a startup, especially at the early…
By Eric Paley
Founders, if I told you that you could:
🧱 Increase productivity
♻️ Reduce turnover
🤗 Build loyalty
All in 15 minutes a day, you might think I was peddling snake oil.
There’s actually an easy way to do it.
Show gratitude.
Your best people *are* being recruited.
They’re being offered better titles, better pay, and the rush of being courted.
If you’re not making them feel recognized and valued at your company, they will take one of these offers.
Don’t lose them to a lack of attention.
I understand why founders let this slip. They have urgent…
“Product-market fit” has a mythical quality. Many believe PMF is a dragon to be slain as you storm the castle en route to taking your place at the round table with Sir Elon and Lord Bezos. Those of us that have operated know the truth — the dragon takes many forms.
👻 Phantom Product-Market Fit
Customers *say* they love the product you describe and pledge to pay handsomely for it when ready. But when presented with a product that differs from their vision — even slightly — their interest in writing a check disappears.
🇦🇺 “Pay No Attention to that Man Behind the Curtain”-Market Fit
Some startups find PMF before they build…
I recently shared a thread urging founders to preserve their exit optionality by limiting the amount of capital they raise.
Read this post if you would prefer to own more of your startup.
Skip it if you want to help your VC to buy another yacht.
🪙 Build on your own dime
The easiest way to maintain ownership is to put off the point at which you raise capital so you have more heft when you do. Bootstrapping in the early days will also train “resourcefulness muscles” and limit time spent on unproductive activities.
Today, many seed rounds are being raised based on…
Founder 1: Runs startup for five years. Sells for ~$100M. Makes $30M.
Founder 2: Running startup for ten years (and counting). Valued at ~$1B. Founder shares valued at $30M.
Which founder would you rather be?
There is no easy — or correct — answer to this question. These founders have different life situations and ambitions. However, I don’t think VCs do enough to highlight the financial risks founders take by getting on the fundraising treadmill.
Raising venture capital increases the theoretical value of a startup and the paper wealth of its founders. It also reduces the number…
I think tech cynicism has taken hold in part because we can’t fully measure many of its benefits. CAC, LTV, and ARR are well understood, so I want to propose a few new metrics that capture the bounties of the internet — Consider:
👶 DIAPER
💄 GLAM
🎨 ART
🧂 SALT BAE
💍 I DO
👶 Daily Images Add to Parental Enjoyment & Rejoicing (DIAPER)
What is the improvement in human happiness caused by ready access to cell phone cameras and the ability to capture more spontaneous moments of your child’s life?
Imagine a working parent pre-camera phone. What would they pay for a video that captures…
Fundraising is happening at a torrid pace.
Speed dating and shotgun weddings between founders and VCs are happening everywhere and will lead to many unhappy unions.
Since there are no prenups at startups, here are questions you *must* ask before you sign that term sheet!
🔭 Will you lead?
Lead investors are the most difficult to find and must be prioritized. Don’t waste time having extensive conversations with any investor until you know the answer to this question.
🐘 How big is this check relative to your fund?
You want to be sure the VCs are making an investment, not buying an option to invest more later if you enjoy success.
…
We live in an extraordinary moment where startups that IPO’d after 2000 dominate the major stock indices, yet among the 100 largest charities on this list, more organizations predate the 20th Century than follow the founding of Google.
To put this in plain terms: Six of the top 100 charities on the list compiled by Forbes were founded after the year 2000. 15 were founded prior to the year 1900. The median non-profit was founded in 1950. You can see the full distribution here.
The US remains an incredibly generous country, and while giving has decreased by…
Founder Collective
Our mission is to be the most aligned VC for founders at seed. #ProudInvestor in @Uber @TheTradeDeskinc @Buzzfeed @Cruise @Diaandco @PillPack @SeatGeek & more.
