Some random musings on startups and funding.

As an investor, it really bums me out (most of the time) when I have to pass on a company. As a human being, you want to help wonderful ppl as much as possible, esp as a former entrepreneur.

more thoughts >>
1) And the worst pass is when there literally is nothing wrong w/ the business.

You meet the team -- they're thinking about things in the seemingly right way. They have drive and hustle and have made things happen in a focused way. Etc.
2) The reality is that for every investment check I'm able to write, there are ~4 additional companies I meet who are at the same caliber.

But I can only pick 1.
3) What most ppl don't realize (and I certainly didn't as an entrepreneur) is that everyone has a limited amount of capital.

That's just life.
4) Microfund mgrs often say, "If I could 2x my fund next time" then I'll have enough.

I can tell you it's still not enough. You go beyond your scope of what you see. And there's still ~4 addl great cos for every investment that you could be funding but don't have the $$ for.
5) So then what happens? How do you pick? A few ways:

a) You create a scope/mandate.

Maybe it's no HW. Maybe it's geography-bound.

Whatever it is, you narrow your scope and focus so you can be remembered for that scope.
6) Another way - b) You create a strike zone. And try not to go outside the strike zone.

Things like valuation. Or assess differentiation/competition. Or things like that.
7) Your fund size is your strategy. E.g. For us, as a small fund, we try to avoid capital intensive or long sales cycle cos. If you are a small check, you are looking for things that are bootstrappable & don't need to raise much to protect against dilution.
8) Honing in on your strike zone of what you will do (and not do) is part of the microfund mgr maturation process.

Saying no to great companies who don't fit the strike zone is hard. It's a rite of passage in some ways. You know they will be successful.
9) On the flip side, part of the reason why fundraising takes a long time, is finding out whose strike zone you do fit.

It's hard to find that on investors' websites.
10) Lastly, there's a lot of luck.

Luck in both an investor picking well (of the 5 potential companies -- which one is the highest returning? That's unclear) and luck of the entrepreneur being picked.

For these reasons, that's why I think there should be more investors.
11) I wish I had understood all of this when I was building my startup.

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More from @dunkhippo33

24 Oct
Don't be afraid to ask would-be investors questions. Doing an investment deal with someone is truly a partnership.

Asking qs will not only help you understand the investor and his/her values but also your likelihood of closing that investor:

Some thoughts on this >>
1) First off, my $0.02 applied to both raising for a startup as well as raising for a fund. Just my opinion though - your mileage may vary.

Most ppl go into fundraising (whether raising from a VC or from a fund investor) w the mindset of "I'm trying to pitch for money".
2) That could not be further from the truth.

Both parties hold something valuable. One side holds money. The other side holds equity (or equivalent). The cash is valuable because well cash is cash. The equity is potentially even more valuable down the road.
Read 25 tweets
11 Oct
Since a lot of people were asking for more details, today I want to do a quick case-study on Modus and how we invest cold generally speaking (or "direct" as someone suggested I use instead)

Read on >>
1) First off - let's establish baseline. 15% of the deals we do are direct.

So, if we invested in your co & someone (ANYONE - your friend / a VC / an acc / your dog) referred you, you are marked as a referral even though we often don't even know our referrers well / if at all..
2) 1 of these 15% was Modus who closed a very successful exit last week.

Let's walk through the timeline and the interactions.
Read 12 tweets
5 Oct
Time for another tweet storm! This one is about fast growth vs slower growth. And I'll start with a story about my friends.

Read on >>
1) In my sr yr of college, 3 friends got together to build an e-commerce co. In typical "noob entrepreneur" fashion (and I've definitely been there too!), they decided to start selling - call it product X - because they were just really passionate about prod X.
2) They didn't think about the COGs or margins. Or how wholesale works. Or sourcing. Or customer acq. They just knew they liked prod X. So they set up a website w/ a shopping cart. And started trying to buy product X in bulk and resell online.
Read 23 tweets
22 Sep
As an investor, I think it's impt to understand your strengths and weaknesses. And sometimes your strength IS also your weakness.

1) Some self-reflections here:
2) First and foremost, I'm a marketer. By training and background. At big cos and at my own past startup(s). My startup even sold to marketers. I even used to do affiliate marketing.

Customer acquisition is THE #1 thing I think about and live, eat, breathe.
3) And often, esp in software, where PM fit is not clear, customer development and cust acq is key priority to figure out and derisk.

As such, I orient most of my thinking around how do I think a co can acquire customers. What is that angle and scalable path?
Read 12 tweets
22 Sep
Some takeaways from @bernardjhuang 's SEO online event.

1) How to know if you should even do SEO?

You are 1 of 2 companies.

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.
Read 12 tweets
18 Sep
1) I want to talk about investor kindness in the startup ecosystem.

Personal story - I pitched an investor for my co yrs ago:

Me: "So what do you think?"

Him: "I don't want to say the wrong thing & call you a meek Asian woman, but I question how you'll lead a team of 100 ppl"
2) Needless to say, I was completely shocked that someone in this day and age would say something like that. Outloud. In Silicon Valley.

I was so stunned that I was wondering whether I had actually heard that correctly and if I was actually in a bad dream?
3) But it was in fact reality.

My next thought was that I needed to come up with a response really good and really quickly to respond with otherwise I would be a "meek Asian woman"!
Read 16 tweets

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