Thread by @Jason

1/Most folks don’t have a startup, they have an *idea* or *plan* for a startup

no one invests in ideas or plans today

I haven’t seen ideas/plans get funded for ~20 years

So what gets funded?

— Growing Startups
— World-class products
— Track Records
— ... then everything else

2/Investors pick their inventory in three phases.... First, they look for “the chart.” Basically, you’re growing ~20% a month, consistently, for ~six months

After VCs can’t find any more investments with the chart they move on to the second tier startups....

3/Those startups have either a world-class product design or founders with track records.

World-class design means your product can stand with Uber, Calm, Robinhood, Instragram, Snap, Wealthfront, etc.

World-class track record means you build a startup already & sold it.

4/After investors run out of growing startups with the chart, and world-class products and/or world-class track records they *might* take some chances on founders with OK products, inconsistent growth, or founders with no track record

You are in a competition & it is zero sum.

5/The only way to beat this is to be world-class (or find new/dumb money that hasn’t figured out the sort order above)

— I didn’t come up with this system, the market did
— This system isn’t fair it’s just efficent
— This is the system investors use (some will deny it)

6/Your questions?