(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.)
Danny Chu, Asawari Kini and Noam Levine founded DAO Tokeni$eMe to …
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, …
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.
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.
All money in venture capital is not similar. We can distinguish between
“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 …
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 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 …
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’, and the emergence of the Indus Valley playbook — a distinct set of hacks and business models that help startups win in the unique Indian market.
I have been thinking of writing this essay for a while now. Many of the individual elements of the …
TL;DR: There are 3 core jobs of a founder-CEO in a Series A+ startup. They are prioritization, hiring and fundraising; in that order. Communicating, meetings or reviews which is how the founder-CEO spends her time, are only enablers of the above jobs. They should not be confused with the 3 core jobs. The article below unpacks these 3 jobs at length. As always feedback and criticism welcome, and I would …
I saw this tweet recently from Anmol Maini, a keen observer of the Indian startup scene.
It is yes, funny.
Is it right? Hmm….I must confess the joke has a point, but I am not sure it is …