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Was catching up with a buddy this afternoon and he thought that so many of my perspectives were contrarian to Silicon Valley practices these days. I told him that the way I see it, I'm really just SV OG, curmudgeonly, and constantly thinking kids/founders these days 😂 /1
First, I talked about how I think it's an absolutely terrible idea for founders to be angel investing. Starting a company is so freakin hard that you need ultimate focus to have any shot at success. Spending time angel investing is the very definition of not focusing! /2
Second, I talked about how "back in my day" a $500K angel round was HUUGE. That would get you 18-24 months runway until raising a Series A. While the round sizes have gotten a lot bigger, the amount of progress teams are making these days with $2-4M isn't much more than that /3
Sure, people+office+paid channel costs are up compared to back then. But that doesn't really account for most of it. Most of it is due to the fact that people feel they require much larger teams to get anything done. I remember when "entrepreneur" meant "jack of all trades". /4
Now founders think the first thing they need to do is hire a team, quickly specialize into their respective roles and as a CEO focus on hiring/raising funding/strategy. All 3 of those activities are a terrible waste of time pre-product/market fit. /5
Third, I remember when "default alive" was ingrained into founders as a question that they would regularly ask themselves. These days profitability by IPO isn't event felt as a requirement. When I ask about unit economics, I often get blank stares... /6
Fourth, we talked about personal finances in SV. How did I fund @notejoyapp? Off of my savings. Savings that I have accumulated working in SV by living well under my means and banking it. This often sounds heretical to founders. Why burn your own money they ask? /7
@notejoyapp As if there was absolutely no downside at all to raising. I always point them to @bryce's post on meaningful exits so they at least understand their personal startup economics has everything to do with rounds & dilution medium.com/strong-words/m… /8
@notejoyapp @bryce Alright, enough dating myself and reminiscing about OG SV. Thanks for listening! 🙏 /END
