I have been writing and publishing, though much more infrequently than I did previously. However, I haven’t been updating this website with links or content from those. I notice my last published piece here was from late last year. Sigh. Still, those of you who follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn, or subscribe to my newsletter would have seen or read some or most of those pieces. For the sake …
Venture Capital
Narrative Capital
A fan reached out to me after a recent tweet of mine (below), asking for a ’smol essay’ on what I meant by the term ‘narrative capital’ and what it means for the future of funding. Here goes.
First, the tweet
Narrative Capital is my term for a trend that has accelerated lately in venture capital; one where writers / podcasters / media creators purveying tech and startup content have …
Tokeni$eMe
(This is a fictional news report. Nothing mentioned here happened. There are some real names here, but none of them said or did what is reported. Think of it as a fictional ‘postcard’ or news report from the future.)
Tokeni$eMe, a ‘controversial’ people funding play, becomes fastest-growing ‘decacorn’ after Tiger-led ‘round’.
10th December ‘23 / techcrunch.com / Sarah Hegarty
Danny Chu, Asawari Kini and Noam Levine founded DAO Tokeni$eMe to …
Defining ‘Product-Market Fit’
Two discussions, one with a founder, and another with an experienced operator, both around the definition of product-market fit (PMF) encouraged me to write this post.
Product-market fit (hereafter PMF) is seen variously as the ‘holy grail’ for startups (Elizabeth Yin, Hustle Fund) to the ‘only thing that matters (Marc Andreessen) to ““arguably the most critical milestone for a startup” (Jill Soley & Todd Wilms, …
VCs making fun of VCs, and what it says about VC.
A twitter theme I have noticed of late in Valley VC tweets is the self-deprecating VC tweet, where VCs make fun of themselves, for wearing Patagonia vests (!), or spouting philosophy, or the way they interact with founders.
Take these two tweets.
Nailing Capital v Scaling Capital
Thoughts and reflections inspired by the frenzied pace of investing and dealmaking we are seeing in the early stage in India, and specifically the trend of traditionally later stage investors playing early.
Two, or maybe three types of capital
All money in venture capital is not similar. We can distinguish between
- Nailing Capital: money required to get you to nail your product proposition + GTM (Go To Market) approach and
‘Exhaust Fumes’, or, Understanding Startup Valuations
“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.” – Fred Wilson; source.
“Those guys are morons,” says Palihapitiya of many value investors. The historic way of determining value by looking at balance sheets and discounted cash flow no longer works, he asserts. “Today, when money has no value, because we’ve essentially …
How founders should think about product-market fit
Product Market Fit or PMF is amongst the most discussed and evergreen startup topics. Popularised by Marc Andreessen in a celebrated post titled ‘The Only Thing That Matters’, PMF has become a keen topic of study and analysis in the startup community. Not a year or a quarter passes by without a celebrated article or twitter thread offering a new take or slant on it. After all PMF …
I joined Amit Varma on ‘The Seen & The Unseen’ podcast
I joined Amit Varma on his acclaimed The Seen & The Unseen podcast to talk about venture valuations, the VC playbook, the evolving media sector, my productivity hacks + stack, and lots more.
It is long podcast (Amit’s signature style) but certainly the most interesting + important one I have done. Do give it a listen! Link below. (The wonderful illustration that appears on the Seen Unseen page is by …
The Indus Valley Playbook
In this long essay, in fact my longest ever at ~7k words, I set out the evolution of the Indian startup ecosystem, or ‘Indus Valley’, as well as the distinct set of hacks and business models that have evolved to help Indian startups win, which I term as the Indus Valley playbook.
The essay has three sections
- Origin and evolution of the India startup ecosystem or Indus Valley as I