1/ Ofsted downgraded my kids school, The American School in London, from "outstanding" to "requires improvement" - not meeting independent school standards.

The downgrade has to do with the lack of balance in the curriculum, which is being overwhelmed with Social Justice topics. 2/ The report highlights lack of balance where "teaching places more emphasis on the school’s social justice programme than on the acquisition of specific subject content"

1/ Quick high level advice for founders on fundraising material. The five elements of data you need for fundraising, and the "Notion alternative":

Core: The Everything Deck. Master deck you use for intros, pitching, "leave behind" and everything else. The one and only. 2/ One level down: The Narratives.

A set of subdocs that explain key elements of your business and address core areas of diligence. E.g. cohort analysis, GTM, product roadmap. Docs format easiest, think Amazon memos.

Make it easy for investors to copy / past from these.

1/ Are SPACs bad?

Step one : differentiate between "broker SPACs" (people trying to grab fees, shift risk and leave the building) and "sustainable SPACs" ( significant sponsor commits, are looking to build real businesses, stay in) 2/ Step two: check whether the net proceeds to the company are sufficient. Achilles heel of SPACs is uncertainty on redemptions.

You can possibly mitigate this like CAZOO did: $1BN SPAC on the side 🔥. That'd protected proceeds right there.

1/ Talent wars in London seem absolutely brutal these days.

Everyone of our startups reports their team members being approached almost continuously by everyone from other startups, FAANGS, corporates.

Wage inflation is brutal. Anyone is liable to be poached. 2/ With the advent of distributed organisations and remote work, competition is global.

It could be Tencent or Slack knocking at the door of your organisation, carefully mapping your team looking for openings.

1/ How much carry should you give your partners?

@HarryStebbings and I started 50/50. I'm a big believer in taking economics off the table (who knows who will find the next Spotify?) and partnerships can destroy each other in endless economics discussions. 2/ It's not uncommon or absurd that the GP group keeps roughly 80% of the economics - that would be say 3 or 4 General Partners taking the majority of economics and "floating down" as they accept more general partners into the group

1/ There’s no difference in probability of reaching Series A based on whether or not your seed round has a top VC.

Source: 3717 deals on @AngelList

angellist.com/blog/top-vc-se… 2/ I’ve always believed that the skillset required to work with seed companies is on some dimensions fundamentally different from working at the later stages.

1/ The @eldsjal podcast with @HarryStebbings is the best I've heard on management.

There are some deep non-obvious insights about management that I well worth reflecting on. 2/ On DELEGATION

@eldsjal makes an intentful distinction between:

*High variance* problem - high upside and high downside (e.g. key product evolution)

*Low variance* problem - low upside and high downside (e.g. paying salaries on time)

Savagely honest @Nicolas_Colin

“In toxic environments such as Paris, traditional venture capital has in fact become a rent-seeking business: you don’t need strong performances to make a reasonable living and enjoy your power over desperate Entrepreneurs.” 2/ This is the source article - a fab deep dive into the history of VC from @Nicolas_Colin that I highly recommend reading.

salon.thefamily.co/a-brief-histor…

1/ Breaking news. I’m absolutely thrilled to partner with @cleo_sham to build @stride_vc going forward. We’re just getting started and incredibly excited about what’s to come. 2/ Cleo is a consummate operator: built Uber China as an early GM, and Guanghzou as the first Uber city to hit 1M trips a week, before being promoted to Director of Operations for Uber China and later leading platform integration for Uber’s 45 EMEA territories post Uber/Didi.

1/ @Nicolas Colin asks on @Siftedeu : “why can’t we build more social media giants in Europe?”

Let me tell you the tale of @dailymotion.

Remember them?

They were neck and neck with @YouTube until about 70M UU per month. 2/ DailyMotion was started by two brilliant creative minds: @robertderosny and @Olivier_Poitrey. The guys were blazing new features at speed and leading the way. A real grassroots story.

1/ Is your board becoming unwieldy as you scale past Series B?

That's probably because you're trying to fit too much into the same format. Some ideas on how to solve that. 2/ Problems: you don't know who to invite. Exec team benefits from being involved but investors hesitate to be direct. A number of issues can't be discussed openly. Engagement isn't great and it all feels a bit theatrical. Takes too long to prep and most comments are generic.

1/ By definition, VC partnership are only as good a their decision making.

Let’s explore 👇 2/ In venture as in startups, there are only decisions, never any certainties. It is the nature of our game that good decisions combined with good execution can lead to poor outcomes. In other words, a poor outcome does not mean you took the wrong decision. What to do?

1/ I often say @stride_vc is "proudly anti-thematic" -- here's why. 2/ Fact: founders are much better at finding white space and developing unique insights than all of VC put together.

Our job is to be mentally plastic and be open to unusual ideas.

1/ Are we finally seeing the disaggregation of venture capital ? 2/ This was part of @naval 's original vision when starting @AngelList - the separation of capital / board / specialist advice / network intros

1/ Beware the tail wagging the dog.

Numbers you committed to your board are not your strategy.

Numbers you think next round investors want to see are not your strategy. 2/ You produce objectives because it's good to have measurable targets, usually ambitious ones. You know it's really hard to forecast so early ... but suddenly your fairly random attempt at predicting the future because the yardstick against which you are measured.

1/ The "age of transparency" is reshaping the venture game to the benefit of founders (finally). A thread 👇 2/ Market transparency = real.

Data tools widely used w/ some players investing heavily in their infrastructure (e.g. @eqtventures, @Coatuemgmt).

--> Outliers are immediately identified
--> Non-linear valuation increases.
--> Pre-emptive rounds prevalent.

1/ Let me distill the Stride investment strategy in fifteen tweets. Yes, fifteen 😘. 2/ To be able to make money, you need some form of edge. The edge does not need to be complex of over-intellectualised, but it needs to be real and drive returns.

1/ A CEO’s number one job is to define the mission, communicate that mission relentlessly, and keep everyone focused on the mission.

That’s how you move the ball down the field everyday. 2/ That communication is to team members, clients, partners, investors, the market at large.

It’s got to be simple, consistent, and consistently repeatable by others. Your second layer SDR needs to be able to deliver almost as well as you do.

How to get your hands on pre-seed funding 👇 1/ First principle - THE PICK.

Make sure you’ve picked your idea well!

A problem you feel is really worth solving, or an opportunity you’re willing to commit a good chunk of your life to. Validate hard before you commit.

Fact: Too many founders rush into average ideas.

1/ Your startup valuation, explained simply 👇 2/ Angels and Investors will buy newly issued shares (US: stock) in your company.

They will invest a dollar amount (say $1M) and buy shares at a certain Price Per Share (PPS) which is the value of one unit of equity (a share).

So far so trivial :-)

1/ How VC economics work explained very simply 👇 2/ Management company is the key entity. It is owned by the General Partners.

Revenues are fees paid on funds (usually 2%, may go down after investment period).

Expenses are team comp, office, all ops, compliance and placement agent fees if those are used.