How to cold email investors
Venture capitalist shares the right way to cold email potential investors. Good advice here for reaching out to anyone.
Venture Capital
MrBeast working with $2 million fund to invest in up-and-coming creators
“The hit YouTuber, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, is working with a $2 million investment fund that will offer creators up to $250,000 in exchange for a stake in their channels. The fund, called Juice Funds, is part of a new company that Donaldson is a minority owner of called Creative Juice.”
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AngelList founder Naval Ravikant on Tim Ferris
Naval Ravikant gives a rare interview on Tim Ferris’ podcast. Naval is the co-founder of AngelList and has invested in more than 100 companies, including Twitter, Uber, Notion, Opendoor, Postmates, and Wish. He has rock star status in startup communities.
While this interview is not startup focused, there is a lot of valuable content here.
The most important insight is that there is a lot to learn from the frameworks and mindset of uber-successful people like Tim Ferris and Naval Ravikant. Tim and Naval have the right combination of skills, network, and ideas so that they can repeatedly accomplish amazing things.
Check out Naval’s popular Tweet thread that now has more than 45k retweets.
How to Get Rich Without Getting Lucky
Here are some of the highlights:
“Understand that ethical wealth creation is possible. If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you.”
“You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity, a piece of a business, to gain your financial freedom.”
“The person who is the best at doing something in the world will get to do it for the entire world through a combination of leverage and distribution, accountability, and specific knowledge.”
“The hard parts are not the learning, it is the unlearning. It’s not the climbing up the mountain. It’s the going back down to the bottom of the mountain and starting over. It’s the beginner’s mind that every great artist, or every great business person has, which is: you have to be willing to start from scratch. You have to be willing to hit reset and go back to zero.”
While this interview is not startup focused, there is a lot of valuable content here.
The most important insight is that there is a lot to learn from the frameworks and mindset of uber-successful people like Tim Ferris and Naval Ravikant. Tim and Naval have the right combination of skills, network, and ideas so that they can repeatedly accomplish amazing things.
Check out Naval’s popular Tweet thread that now has more than 45k retweets.
How to Get Rich Without Getting Lucky
Here are some of the highlights:
“Understand that ethical wealth creation is possible. If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you.”
“You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity, a piece of a business, to gain your financial freedom.”
“The person who is the best at doing something in the world will get to do it for the entire world through a combination of leverage and distribution, accountability, and specific knowledge.”
“The hard parts are not the learning, it is the unlearning. It’s not the climbing up the mountain. It’s the going back down to the bottom of the mountain and starting over. It’s the beginner’s mind that every great artist, or every great business person has, which is: you have to be willing to start from scratch. You have to be willing to hit reset and go back to zero.”
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How to Buy Your First Company – Andrew Pierno
How to Buy Your First Company – Andrew Pierno
“The easiest way to go from 0 acquisitions to 1 acquisition is to go make an acquisition. Seriously, go buy something small, risking only the amount of money you are perfectly happy losing. Might be $5k, might be $50k. Doesn’t matter. Just go do it. Give yourself a month and pick the best option on micro acquire. You’re going to be some % wrong anyways, quit agonizing over it.”
Big Idea: The fastest way to start a business is to buy an existing one. Smaller websites and businesses can be purchased for less than $20k.
11 Signs To Predict If a Venture Investment Will or Won’t Work Out
Venture capitalist, Jason Lemkin, shares some of the key factors that predict success with a VC funded startup. This is focused on well-funded startups, but there are lessons for bootstrapped companies as well.
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VentureList has 75 Paying customers
Venture List has earned $2,175 in its first 3 months.
While this is not a large business, it goes to show that almost any idea can find some success. Venture List is just a large list of links presented in a nice format. The idea got some traction on ProductHunt, as well.
High-quality resource lists like this get shared a lot as well, so they can be a good marketing tactic. Check out this tweet from Dan Siepen.
You don’t need a breakthrough idea to start getting traction. Just launching projects like this can be a good way to get momentum.
While this is not a large business, it goes to show that almost any idea can find some success. Venture List is just a large list of links presented in a nice format. The idea got some traction on ProductHunt, as well.
High-quality resource lists like this get shared a lot as well, so they can be a good marketing tactic. Check out this tweet from Dan Siepen.
You don’t need a breakthrough idea to start getting traction. Just launching projects like this can be a good way to get momentum.
Go to Link
World’s largest pitch deck collection.
Here are 139 tech startup pitch decks from funded companies used to raise investment from venture capital investors.
It’s a great resource if you are planning on raising capital.
It’s a great resource if you are planning on raising capital.
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This Startup Accelerator is Taking a Huge Bet on Remote Work
“Ryan Kuder – the Managing Director of Techstars Anywhere – shared the biggest challenge he’s seen on remote teams, the secret to getting into Techstars, and why Techstars Anywhere is all-in on remote work.”
Techstars is now taking applications for the remote version of their startup incubator. It’s a great opportunity to get some cash, mentoring, and networking to take your company to the next level.
“For Techstars Anywhere, when we think about the founders that are a great fit, it’s people who have a vision about the way the world should look and what their company is in it. They’ve got an ability to share that story and get people on board. They’ve got all of the technical and functional skills necessary to get to whatever the next stage is. And we also look at the market people are working in, the progress they’ve made, and the idea they are working on.”
Techstars is now taking applications for the remote version of their startup incubator. It’s a great opportunity to get some cash, mentoring, and networking to take your company to the next level.
“For Techstars Anywhere, when we think about the founders that are a great fit, it’s people who have a vision about the way the world should look and what their company is in it. They’ve got an ability to share that story and get people on board. They’ve got all of the technical and functional skills necessary to get to whatever the next stage is. And we also look at the market people are working in, the progress they’ve made, and the idea they are working on.”
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How to Pitch Your Startup to Venture Capitalists
Here’s a good Twitter thread about telling your startup’s story for an investment pitch.
Telling your story like this is also a good way to think about how to market your startup. How is this for landing page content?
“Start with a one-line, high-level overview.”
“Then dive right into the big, hairy problem that you’re tackling. The problem sets the foundation for the rest of your story. Investors will noodle if the problem is real and if so, how big it is.”
“After the problem, explain your solution. No other details.” “Now you can do 1 of 2 things. Either 1) add some Fire product screenshots and explain “how it works” for your end-user (consumer or business or both) or 2) Hop straight into your vision”
via startupdigest.com
Telling your story like this is also a good way to think about how to market your startup. How is this for landing page content?
“Start with a one-line, high-level overview.”
“Then dive right into the big, hairy problem that you’re tackling. The problem sets the foundation for the rest of your story. Investors will noodle if the problem is real and if so, how big it is.”
“After the problem, explain your solution. No other details.” “Now you can do 1 of 2 things. Either 1) add some Fire product screenshots and explain “how it works” for your end-user (consumer or business or both) or 2) Hop straight into your vision”
via startupdigest.com
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The Entrepreneurs Fundamental Superpower: The Conditional Close
“If you can master this, then the world is your oyster”
“The Conditional Close looks something like this:”
You: “What would you need to see in order to make an investment in our company?”
VC: “I’d need to have a discussion over a pretty detailed financial model, and I’d also like to see your customer usage data.”
You: “So if we were to have a conversation about our financial model and customer usage data, then you would be willing to invest in our company?”
VC: “Yes, then I would be willing to invest.”
via founderweekly.com
“The Conditional Close looks something like this:”
You: “What would you need to see in order to make an investment in our company?”
VC: “I’d need to have a discussion over a pretty detailed financial model, and I’d also like to see your customer usage data.”
You: “So if we were to have a conversation about our financial model and customer usage data, then you would be willing to invest in our company?”
VC: “Yes, then I would be willing to invest.”
via founderweekly.com