Interesting post by @mariogabriele on 'DeCos' or decentralized countries. We are beginning to see provocative thinking on the future of nation states (@balajis has done a lot of thinking on this - network states v nation states) & this is certainly one.
I do concur that the nation state's gravitational power is decreasing; my specific area of interest is not virtual but new physical nation states emerging (more challenging + less realistic though) & the actions needed to support the emergence of these new physical nation states.
1/ There are 3 broad risks in the startup’s journey - product, market and execution risk.
A startup grows from idea to IPO by eliminating these systematically along the way.
Let us examine these.
2/ First, product risk.
Does the product you designed solve a problem for a customer. Does s/he care? Getting to a minimum viable product (MVP) broadly eliminates ~80% of product risk.
3/ Market risk - is there a market for the product you created, or can you iterate to a problem for a paying market? Getting to product-market fit (PMF) is about eliminating this risk. PMF eliminates ~90% of market risk for the then product, I think.
A perspective basis my last 3 years in a seed VC.
(this is true especially of seed investing, but holds for the broad VC asset class)
I work at @BlumeVentures, a seed stage tech VC, and we get 3-3,500 startup pitches a year. We can fund 10-12 at best a yr. This means that we reject a lot of great startups.
Some of these startups are rejected because they are too late or early for us, and thus don’t fit our investment criteria (blume.vc/for-startups). Some are rejected because we have invested in their competitors or in similar risk buckets we dont want to add to.
On @ClassplusApps, its recent fundraising round, and what we can learn from one of the most exciting B2B startups out there today.
A B2B startup with a consumer DNA, that any B2C co would be proud of.
On thursday, Classplus announced its latest fundraising round, toting up to $65m across Tiger, @gsvventures and existing investors Falcon Edge / AWI, @BlumeVentures
“Early stage valuations aren’t really valuations. They are the exhaust fumes of a negotiation about two things — the amount raised and the amount of dilution.”
Let us understand this.
2/23
They say that chess is a game that can be learnt in an hour, but it takes a lifetime to master. Venture valuations are similar.
Here is the simple part of startup valuations. Take capital invested, and divide by stake diluted.
I got this whatsapp message yday👇🏽fm a founder grinding it out, 1 month of runway left. But absolutely unwilling to give up.
We saw 2 great stories recently fm the ecosystem - as Meesho, Cred became🦄. Congrats to them, & let us celebrate their achievements.
But let us also celebrate the founders grinding it out without much love. Life is hard for them. It is tough mentally & not easy to keep pushing.
It takes a special grit and determination to chug along, to motivate your team on dreams and vision alone without hikes, or even delayed salaries; holding on to them when other startups and Big Tech are throwing money at them.