I’m fired up to share that Heyday raised a $6.5M Seed led by @kevinthau @sparkcapital

We’re sharing our pitch deck as a resource for founders trying to raise in this environment 👇 @kevinthau @sparkcapital A deck alone isn’t enough to raise money

But it does determine whether or not investors meet with you

And it all starts with an often-overlooked slide...

Heyday is live on @ProductHunt today!

In just 6 months we went from:

Idea > beta > @FastCompany feature > 150 paying subscribers > launch

Here’s how we did it: 🧵 First, we are not an overnight success story

We struggled for 4 years with our previous company (Journal) before @samiur1204 and I shut it down to start Heyday.

50,000+ people tried it, few stuck around

It was a worse version of more popular, better-funded tools

Melanie Perkins co-founded Canva when she was 19 years old and still in college.

Last month, the company hit a $40 billion valuation.

This is a story of how two gutsy Australian entrepreneurs convinced Silicon Valley to fund their dream and change the world of design forever.👇 .@melaniecanva's journey to get @canva built wasn't easy.

She had:
• Zero Silicon Valley connections
• No technical background
• 100+ investor rejections

What she did have was product market fit and an ambitious vision.

(photo h/t: @zachkitschke)

Ruben Harris started Career Karma, a platform that helps people break into the tech industry, in 2018.

Career Karma raised a $10 million Series A led by Garry Tan @Initialized in 2020.

This is a story of an outsider breaking into the Valley with sheer determination and hustle👇 .@rubenharris’ story is all about overcoming long odds:

• Broke into investment banking with no connections.
• Linked with VCs like @balajis through Twitter.
• Landed a job in SF 3 weeks after booking a one-way ticket.
• Built an audience for CK before building a product.

In 4 years, Jamila Souffrant took @JourneyToLaunch from nothing to a six-figure personal finance business.

Her podcast has over 2 million downloads.

This is the story of how a bootstrapped entrepreneur is building the media empire she wants to see. Jamila had no plans to make Journey to Launch (JTL) a business until a regular commute brought on an existential realization.

She and her husband Woody saved $169,000 in 2 years, with a growing family, so that she could leave her corporate job and focus on JTL full time.

I chatted with some of the top writers on Substack recently.

Here’s their advice on growing a newsletter:

[thread] Rusty Foster (@fka_tabs), @TodayinTabs

Get people with a bigger audience to mention you.

Sam Udotong is one of the scrappiest founders in tech

In 2016, he moved to San Francisco with $100 in his pocket.

Today his startup Fireflies raised $14 million from top investors.

This is the story of his "overnight" success 👇👇👇 Sam's journey has been far from easy

• He moved to San Francisco with $100 in his pocket
• For years his daily diet consisted of a bottle of Soylent and three slices of pizza
• He and his co-founder pivoted the company *7 times*

Pipe is a fast growing startup that recently raised more than $50 million

The company is probably the most “traditional” way co-founder and CEO Harry Hurst has ever made money.

This is a story of an immigrant entrepreneur who wasn’t afraid to think big. 👇 .@harryhurst had to hustle for everything he has:

•He grew up on the U.K.’s equivalent of welfare
•He sold clothes, started a magazine, and managed a rapper
•He pitched 50 startup ideas to someone at a random music studio encounter, and convinced him to be his co-founder

Loom is a video messaging startup valued at more than $325 million today.

In 2015 it was a usability testing app with no traction.

This is a story about taking a company through a dark period and teammates sticking together. 👇 Co-founder Vinay Hiremath describes Loom's early days as "simultaneously the greatest source of joy and crushing anxiety" of his life:

• Opentest, their original product, wasn’t working
• The founders maxed out their credit cards
• They pivoted 4-5 times in 7 months

Ryan Gilbert works in supply chain management at a 13,000+ person company

He started a newsletter on the side to feature workspaces of creative individuals.

It's now one of the most beautiful newsletters on Substack 👇 .@rjgilbert started "Workspaces" while many of us transitioned to WFH during the pandemic

He needed inspiration to design his workspace.

He realized he wasn't alone.

So he reached out to a few creatives he looks up to.

They responded with pictures:

Ryan Gilbert works in supply chain management at a 13,000+ person company

He started a newsletter on the side to feature workspaces of creative individuals.

It's now the most beautiful newsletter on Substack.

His newsletter and a few highlights workspaces.xyz

👇 .@rjgilbert started "Workspaces" while many of us transitioned to WFH during the pandemic

He needed inspiration to design his workspace.

He realized he wasn't alone.

So he reached out to a few creatives he looks up to.

They responded with pictures.

Figma is a startup valued at more than $2 billion dollars.

Co-founder and CEO Dylan Field is a Forbes 30 under 30 list alum.

This is a story about the messy reality of building a startup and the myth of overnight success.👇 Building Figma was messy

Dylan is really open about it:
• The company idea was originally around drones
• He questioned dropping out of Brown after "the worst week of Figma"
• John Lilly passed on their seed round, saying "I just don’t think you know what you’re doing yet."

1/ We grew the @usejournal blog from 0 pageviews per month in 2017 to 4,100,000 per month in 2020.

Here's what we've learned along the way 👇 2/ Embrace limitations.

we have a small team

we spend our time writing code and talking to users

a contributor-driven strategy was the only way for us to reach a huge audience quickly

now 99% of articles on our blog are written by people with no affiliation to Journal

1/ I'm super excited to onboard people into the @usejournal beta today!

a couple weeks ago we started rebuilding it from the ground up, this time with people like @samiur1204 in mind.

Now it's time to see a few brave souls use it 👇 2/ Journal is a research tool for creative people who hate organizing.

our goal is to give people the benefit of having their ideas organized - without doing any manual work.

In the past 24 hours @samiur1204 and I scheduled 19 video onboarding sessions to welcome people into the @usejournal beta.

Exciting!

But now I'm more nervous than happy.

Here's how I work through the nerves of hearing new product feedback: Remember the only thing worse than harsh feedback is no feedback.

In the past we took too long to get feedback

We polished areas of the product that users didn't care about.

We wound up not building enough empathy

Now before we ship something new, my inbox looks like this:

I've run 200+ user research interviews for @usejournal.

after a recent call, a well-known product leader stopped me and said,

"i'm going to steal your questions for my team.

can you walk me through the rest of your process?"

here's what I've learned about user research👇 Start with a point of view on the problem you're solving.

the more opinionated the better

it makes the right people easier to find

they'll be more willing to talk to you too.

here's our POV:

1/ Only 1% of venture-backed founders are Black.

I'm one of them.

On May 31, I sat crying next to my fiancee as she drove us from Santa Cruz to SF. I was overwhelmed by George Floyd's death and ashamed by how little I'd done to support the Black community.

That changes today. 2/ There are many Black people doing incredible work in Tech.

We need more visibility so we can be examples of what's possible for others who looks like us.

Today, let's shine a light on some of us.

links.usejournal.com/black-in-tech