A) You are like a TripAdvisor (a content site) where SEO is the only thing that will allow you to win if you can do SEO better than your peers.
2) OR
B) You get "decent" CTR on Google AdWords (if you had the organic equivalent would it be worth it to spend time on?)
And you are post PM fit.
3) Even @bernardjhuang 's co is an SEO tool! And he is post PM fit. But working on SEO for his own company @Clearscope is not even top priority.
Other cust acq channels are higher priority.
4) GOOG has gotten smart & nuanced. Does your topic require recency, location, education?
E.g. if you are writing news, when you publish matters a LOT.
if your content is location based, you need to be local.
if it's on how-to content, the medium (such as video) matters.
5) Click-through-rate matters a LOT. Google will test your webpage for a particular set of keywords and seed your page at a certain rank.
If you do well relative to your rank, you will move up. Or opposite, you'll move down.
6) If your website is already credible, you will be seeded in a better position to start.
But it's possible to be a nobody and move up if you can keep CTRs up.
7) However, GOOG is smart about ppl trying to game the system.
Typing "click here" in the title is not going to help. They look for relevancy of your whole content as part of this.
You may be penalized if Google thinks you are gaming the system.
8) Google even looks to see if a user repeated the search. Ultimately, if your site didn't deliver what ppl are looking for, that will affect your rankings.
9) Don't focus on keywords. The old way of doing SEO was to try to game particular keywords.
You want to dominate on topics.
If you rank high for a topic, Google will be smart enough to rank you high for very related topics or auto-complete variations of that topic
10) You can use SerpAPI to see how you rank in different locations and can test your searches there.
11) Variations on the English language doesn't matter. E.g. American English vs British English.
SEO tools incl as his own @Clearscope may recommend a particular spelling but in the end, the variation of spelling doesn't have a strong effect
12) Ok - there was so much packed into this talk, I can't even tweet it all.
-Pre-seed rounds are getting done at low valuations.
-Hot pre-seed rounds are getting done all over the map
-Seed rounds are getting done at say $8m+ post with companies that have lots of traction -- sometimes $1m+ rev runrate
Last yr, I personally paid more in taxes than what I made (!!).
I was completely shocked - I didn't think it was possible to *owe more* than you make. But it is.
To be clear, this post isn't meant to ask for pity, but I think it can help a lot of ppl out.
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1) First, every VC and many bootstrapped startups are advised to set up LLCs.
E.g. LLC for your funds. An LLC for your management co. An LLC really for any partnership. Etc.
We're told this is tax advantageous.
But like everything else, it depends...
2) So how is this possible?
First, how do LLCs work? My ELI5 explanation of an LLC is that when you make money, the taxes get passed through to the business owners -- the partners of that LLC.
So EVERY dollar that comes through is taxed to YOU as the business owner
Today HR 2799, a legislative bill, has passed the House of Representatives in the US. This bill will have a huge impact on startups and emerging fund managers if it can become a bill.
2) The backstory: VC funds are only allowed 99 accredited investors. This means that if you want to raise a $50m fund, your average check size from each of your investors must be over $500k.
$500k is doable (and small) for institutional investors β pension funds, endowments, etc
Todayβs tweet thread is about VC audits and how they affect startups.
I knowβ¦*such an interesting topic*β¦but actually itβs *extremely important* with the current market for founders.
More here >>
1) First, what is an VC audit?
Many VC firms hire a 3rd party auditor to analyze their funds annually. This gives their investors (LPs) confidence that fraud is not being committed, capital in the fund is being deployed into legit companies, and performance is not fabricated.
2) Auditors charge *tens of thousands of dollars* per yr to audit a fund.
As an aside, if anyone is thinking about creating a tech-enabled audit firm for microfunds, Iβm extremely interested.
There are very few auditors for VC funds on the market.
It's been about a year since the markets crashed for startups and VC funds. In the past year, it's been incredibly hard for both funds & startups to raise $$.
I'm no crystal ball, but here's what is happening from my standpoint & where I think the mkts are going.
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1) First, what am I seeing now?
For startups, there are basically 3 categories of companies who need to raise somewhat soon:
-doing great
-doing fine
-doing meh or not good
If you don't need to raise for another yr or more, then you're in good shape.
2) In the last category, this is where most cos are getting wiped out.
2021 prolonged the lifetime of startups that would've ordinarily died in a "normal" market. Companies w no product-market fit.
Many of these companies were given an extended lifeline with valuation markups.