Want to invest in @wes_kao and my startup?

Today, we're debuting a new approach to seed rounds:

... Open Application Investing 💥

We’ve launched a public form where anyone can apply to invest in the company: wk-gb.typeform.com/to/JvGpJetd

Small check sizes welcome!

More details 👇🏾
ICYMI, we closed a super over-subscribed seed round led by @firstround with @naval @shl @ljin18 + more investing over $4M at a $20M cap

More info here - bit.ly/wk-gb

Many saw it and asked to invest, and we worked with @joinrepublic to make this possible
Investing in startups is the ultimate "who you know" game; you must be an insider and have significant access to capital

The open application process helps us provide access to non-accredited, non-traditional investors AND maximize the impact this has on our company's success
The criteria:
1) Diversity: 25% of the round should be URM's
2) Mission-Aligned: You're a potential user or instructor of a cohort-based course
3) Value-add: You've got an edge that can help us achieve our mission

Please don't lobby us or our investors; your app is sufficient!
Terms:
A standard SAFE at a $25M Cap
Republic does not take a carry
We pay for all company-side fees

No matter what, remember that startup investing is extremely risky. My last company Sprig lost ~90% of investor's money!
Apply here: wk-gb.typeform.com/to/JvGpJetd

Thank you so much for the continued support.

We hope to continue to push the envelope not just in providing a higher quality education to the world but also in how we build this company.

Onward! 🚀🚀🚀

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More from @gaganbiyani

16 Nov
Advanced Fundraising Strategy:
For most, fundraising is a chore. These days, more companies are fortunate to have competitive rounds.

What do you do when you have options? How do you optimize a competitive round?

@wes_kao and I had options... Here's how we approached it.

👇🏾
We named our priorities up-front:
1. Involve investors who backed us in the past
2. Find a Lead who would help raise the A
3. Leverage Lead + large syndicate to create traction (our market is aligned with this strategy as many investors can be instructors or help promote courses)
To make room, we had to raise $4M. If we raised less, we'd have to exclude too many people. If we raised more, the company would be over-valued or over-diluted.

I do not believe in having a valuation over $25M for a pre-seed company. Too hard to beat those expectations.
Read 15 tweets
12 Nov
It's been a year in the making...

Today, @wes_kao and I are announcing a $4.32M seed round led by @firstround for our new company

We're building a platform for Cohort-Based Courses (CBCs): bit.ly/wk-gb

The backstory 👇🏾
In 2009 @erenbali, @caglaroktay shared the Udemy vision w/ me. Back then it was a marketplace for live online classes.

They wow'ed me with a Zoom-like product that was ahead of its time (built on Adobe Flash 😅)

I tried to market it for 1 year but couldn't get any traction.
In order to get traction, we pivoted into video-based courses (now known as “MOOCs”). They took off and the rest is history.

I'm really proud of what the Udemy team has done - 400M course enrollments and counting! 👀

Read 12 tweets
22 Oct
I’ve been thinking about co-founders a lot lately.

In 15 years of building companies, I’ve had >10 different co-founders.

They’ve fired me. I’ve fired them. But I’m still friends with 100% of them to this day.

... 15 Rules on Co-founder Relationships

**Read On**
Rule 1: You don’t have to know each other in advance.

@erenbali and @caglaroktay didn’t know me when we started @udemy, but I think all of us would agree the company wouldn’t have happened without any one of us.
Rule 2: Create a pre-nup through role definition.

99% of companies should have a clear CEO. If you are not that person, you report to them.

Co-founders firings should not be done lightly, but if it happens, the CEO decides.
Read 17 tweets
7 Oct
At Udemy, we were 3 first-time entrepreneurs trying to raise seed capital. We made every mistake in the book.

We got 200+ no’s and wasted 12 months fundraising.

We eventually pulled through, just barely. 😅

This thread shares our mistakes as lessons for founders.

**Read On**
We built an impressive product, but we were nobodies.

We thought: we need money to build our vision, so let’s go talk to some investors.

WRONG.

Nobody gave a fuck that we needed money. We needed to prove we deserved their money.
We met some associates and intermediaries who might introduce us to investors.

Few decision-makers wanted to meet with us.

We should’ve stopped there.

If getting meetings is hard, it will take you forever to raise.

Instead, spend your time building product + getting traction.
Read 12 tweets
30 Sep
Most investors add no value, but when they do, it can be company-saving.

In 2010 as @udemy was just picking up steam, eBay-owned PayPal was cracking down on marketplace businesses for violating ToS. Without warning, they shut our entire payments system down.

**Read On**
We had a few months of runway and were starting to raise our Series A. It would take weeks to implement an alternative system, and that would've killed our traction story.

It was all-out panic mode.
We asked everyone for help - many were experiencing the same problem.

PayPal was notoriously bureaucratic at this time and was completely inaccessible to small startups like us.

The "best case" scenario, we heard, was 3 months of downtime.

That would've been a death blow.
Read 7 tweets
23 Sep
Yesterday I made a major life announcement: I’m starting a NewCo after 3 years of exploring

More of you cared than I expected; thanks for the support! 🙏🏾

What the hell did I do for 3 years?

Thought I’d share the back-story...

**Read On**
In 2017, my life blew apart as I shut down @Sprig. Shock + relief.

Even as we shut down, new opportunities were coming my way.

Funders for new ventures. Hotshot CEOs asking me to be an exec.

There’s always opportunity in SV.

What opportunities would I miss by stepping away?
After some good advice, I needed to resist the FOMO.

I know people who grinded for 20 years straight, constantly chasing more success and more money. That wasn’t for me.

I decided on the first rule of my transition: GET AWAY.

I packed my bags, left SF and went nomadic. Image
Read 14 tweets

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