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Ryan Breslow 🕺 Profile picture
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19 Oct, 11 tweets, 4 min read
Over the last 7 years I’ve built 2 multi-billion dollar companies.

It’s been grueling. We don’t share these lessons enough.

So I decided to do that over the last month.

The feedback has been awesome - 25k new followers in 1 month.

Here’s a roundup of all of the threads 👇
Why Bolt is the first tech unicorn to shift to a 4 day work week.
I’ve built both a $4B company and a $1B company over the last 7 years.

Here are the 12 mindset rules that got me here.
We 10X’d our company in the last 10 months.

Here are the 10 tactics to making every day count.
We’ve closed more deals in the last 90 days than in all of Bolt history.

Here are 10 tips on how to negotiate your best deals.
Over 7 years I’ve interviewed over 5000 candidates,

And have hired over 500.

Here are the 15 most impactful interview questions.
I’ve helped over 200 founders raise billions of dollars.

These are the most common mistakes.

Avoid them.
Every iconic company has a risk taking culture.

It isn’t easy to do.

Here’s exactly how to embed it into your startup.
Great leadership is hard to find and even harder to train.

Learn what top traits a great leader embodies.
And finally, Bolt raises $393M.

Here's how we got here and where we're going.
These threads took a lot of work but were so rewarding to get out to you all.

If you found them helpful, give me a follow at @ryantakesoff.

I routinely share my learnings building multiple billion dollar companies with Twitterverse.

Let’s take off together! 🚀

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More from @ryantakesoff

Ryan Breslow 🕺 Profile picture
20 Oct
Startups are all about momentum.

Period.

The best founders know how to take momentum and turn it into lightning in a bottle.

Over the last 18 months, we have done that at Bolt - our valuation has gone up by 1600%.

Here are 10 practical tips on how to multiply your momentum 👇
Tip 1: Turn money into more money

Fundraising is the ultimate game of momentum.

If your round is full, that’s the time to double down and build even more momentum.

Bolt has raised a B, B1, C, C1, D, D1, etc.

Much of this was from over-committed primary rounds.
Tip 2: Turn investors into more investors

When an investor is committed and has wired their money,

Ask them who else they recommend.

Sit down with them and go through specific names.

Turn 1 investor into 3, those 3 into 9, and so on.

This works great with SAFEs and Notes.
Read 13 tweets
Ryan Breslow 🕺 Profile picture
13 Oct
🚨Big announcement today: Bolt raises $393M.

Wow.

A couple years ago, I didn’t know if we were going to make it.

Now we have $500M+ on the balance sheet.

I wanted to share a bit more about where we've been, but more importantly where we're going 👇👇👇
To put this fundraise into context, our valuation has gone up 18x in the last 18 months.

This wasn’t an accident, but it also wasn’t a given.

There were 4 big pillars that allowed us to hit this milestone and set up our foundation for future growth from here:
Pillar 1: A relentless focus on culture.

At Bolt we pioneered the Conscious Culture movement.

The equation is simple:

Potential = Execution + Humanity.

Implementation of this equation is anything but simple.

We work on this every day at Bolt.
Read 12 tweets
Ryan Breslow 🕺 Profile picture
7 Oct
Fundraising

I have helped 100+ founders collectively raise $5B.

The biggest insight: fundraising is a game.

If you know how to play, you can do well.

Here are the 10 most common mistakes founders make 👇👇👇
Mistake 1: Complicated Pitch

The average VC spends 3 minutes on a pitch deck.

Crazy right?

Attention spans are shorter than ever, but consideration spans are still long.

People lean in if they're hooked.

So how do you hook them?

Keep the pitch simple.
Mistake 2: Building Relationships Late

It's hard to build a relationship with someone AND ask them for money at the same time.

Instead, develop relationships early.

Meet VCs, discuss your startup, share your progress.

When you need to fundraise, hit the ground running.
Read 13 tweets
Ryan Breslow 🕺 Profile picture
6 Oct
When you look all at the iconic companies, there’s 1 undeniable shared trait:

A willingness to take risk.

In contrast, dying companies lack this trait.

So… how to do build an team that’s ok with risk?

It’s not so simple. Let’s dive in 👇👇👇
1/ Set a Threshold for Wrong

At Bolt, one of our favorite operating values is Chase 10X, Be 20% Wrong. (credit: Reid Hoffman)

The 20% figure really matters.

It puts a real number behind our willingness to make mistakes.

It gives the team something tangible to measure against.
2/ Praise Smart Failures

Failure is the lifeblood of a risk taking culture.

The mindset: Failure is progress. It means you learned critical information to inform your next step.

When giving feedback to your team, if they drove a smart strategy that led to a failure, praise it.
Read 14 tweets
Ryan Breslow 🕺 Profile picture
4 Oct
In all of my spiritual work,

I’ve found no concept more important than Samsara.

They say that if you stare at the Wheel of Samsara long enough,

You become enlightened.

I will now explain it in plain english:
Samsara is a Buddhist concept that describes the suffering humans face over the course of one or many lifetimes.

We run on the wheel, like hamsters, until one day we finally see the wheel for what it is and step off.

There are 6 Realms that we all occupy at any give time.
Understand these Realms and you will understand humanity.

Ok, here we go…
Read 14 tweets
Ryan Breslow 🕺 Profile picture
2 Oct
Leadership.

I never understood how important it was.

Until one day I realized our organization needed it.

That’s when I started my homework.

I started with a simple question: “What makes a great leader?”

Here’s what I learned…
Of everything I discovered,

Erica Ariel Fox has the best framework.

She describes The Big Four leadership traits.

Great leaders have one of these traits. The best leaders have multiple.

Here are the traits:
1/ Dreamer

This is your Visionary leader who can’t help but live in the future.

They value creativity and a bold long term perspective.

They spew innovation.

Usually, the CEO is a Dreamer.
Read 11 tweets

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