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Founders chasing venture scale should take a page from the oldest playbook: repeatable, proven, capital-efficient growth--Franchises. They print free cash flow. VCs love to talk software, but let’s not forget—classic models like franchises often allocate capital better than your favorite SaaS. Will Quist on TBPN with Jordi Hays and... show more

Slow Ventures

25,232 subscribers

20,924 次观看 • 1 年前 •via X (Twitter)

Anya Rossi• Live Now

Private livecam show

9 条评论

maitham 的头像

maitham1 年前

@joseflchen

Inc. 的头像

Inc.2 年前

Are you ready to make your next business move? Explore podcasts such as Your Next Move, videos and audio clips from fellow entrepreneurs, and so much more at Capital One’s business hub. #ad.

Jeff Weinstein 🇺🇸 的头像

Jeff Weinstein 🇺🇸1 年前

Love this

Luckyram9887 $TUT base.eth (🧙) 的头像

Luckyram9887 $TUT base.eth (🧙)1 年前

Your Twitter add this token dev ?

Luckyram9887 $TUT base.eth (🧙) 的头像

Luckyram9887 $TUT base.eth (🧙)1 年前

One reply please dev ?🙏

Arsen Ibragimov 的头像

Arsen Ibragimov1 年前

Franchises are underrated in this convo tbh

antonio 🇺🇸 的头像

antonio 🇺🇸1 年前

Would have to agree here.

Arpan Punyani 的头像

Arpan Punyani1 年前

@honam I think Trinity invested in Starbucks back in the day correct?

Bitget 的头像

Bitget1 年前

😎

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$"If you have agents that can do entire swaths of legal work, then the best thing you should do is start a law firm. Because you're selling work to clients, not merely fractions of work or helping lawyers along. We're able to do end-to-end work in a way that if you're just selling a legal copilot, I think you're going to face a lot of competition just from the models with no customization." - Crosby CEO Ryan Daniels on TBPN with Jordi Hays & John Coogan announcing our $60M Series B led by Lux Capital & Index Ventures$

"If you have agents that can do entire swaths of legal work, then the best thing you should do is start a law firm. Because you're selling work to clients, not merely fractions of work or helping lawyers along. We're able to do end-to-end work in a way that if you're just selling a legal copilot, I think you're going to face a lot of competition just from the models with no customization." - Crosby CEO Ryan Daniels on TBPN with Jordi Hays & John Coogan announcing our $60M Series B led by Lux Capital & Index Ventures

Crosby

10,686 次观看 • 4 个月前

Roughly 10% of active fundraising is happening right now through Boardy. Two weeks ago, we launched a program to help 100 founders raise their round before the end of the year. Since then, 5,000 founders raising $16B signed up, along with 600 investors managing over $1T in capital. As a CEO, your job is to create demand for your shares. Doesn't matter if you're Elon Musk or if it's your first time - you'll take all the help you can get. Most founders only raise 2-3 times in their lives, and it can make or break the trajectory of your company. But right now, investors are chasing the same 50-100 founders, while thousands of founders with incredible businesses and metrics go overlooked simply because they don't fit Silicon Valley's pattern. Boardy's fixing this by connecting great founders with investors based on aligned thesis, stage and merit. Thanks for having me John Coogan, Jordi Hays, and the TBPN team! This time next year, I expect that number to be 90%.

Roughly 10% of active fundraising is happening right now through Boardy. Two weeks ago, we launched a program to help 100 founders raise their round before the end of the year. Since then, 5,000 founders raising $16B signed up, along with 600 investors managing over $1T in capital. As a CEO, your job is to create demand for your shares. Doesn't matter if you're Elon Musk or if it's your first time - you'll take all the help you can get. Most founders only raise 2-3 times in their lives, and it can make or break the trajectory of your company. But right now, investors are chasing the same 50-100 founders, while thousands of founders with incredible businesses and metrics go overlooked simply because they don't fit Silicon Valley's pattern. Boardy's fixing this by connecting great founders with investors based on aligned thesis, stage and merit. Thanks for having me John Coogan, Jordi Hays, and the TBPN team! This time next year, I expect that number to be 90%.

Andrew D'Souza

55,992 次观看 • 9 个月前

David Sacks: Debt makes your company more fragile Friedberg: “I hate this business. I think venture debt's the worst vulture-like business in Silicon Valley. “ Sacks: “Right. I've always hated when founders take on venture debt. Part of it is that founders forget that they have to pay it back. They treat it like venture capital and they forget about that, and then they get surprised. But the other thing I've never liked about it is it makes you more fragile. It basically subjects you to a bunch of business covenants, and it makes it harder for you to do an abrupt shift in your business, because now you've got a bank looking over your shoulder and they want to make sure they get paid, and they have to review your financials and all the rest of it. And to your point, J Cal, the companies that have free cash flow right now are the ones that again, have the most maneuverability. I hate taking away maneuverability from founders, and that is what debt does because it subjects you to a fixed schedule of payments. And so this is always a thing to remember, whether you're a business or you are an individual, when you put on that debt, it makes you more vulnerable to big disruptions in the market.”

David Sacks: Debt makes your company more fragile Friedberg: “I hate this business. I think venture debt's the worst vulture-like business in Silicon Valley. “ Sacks: “Right. I've always hated when founders take on venture debt. Part of it is that founders forget that they have to pay it back. They treat it like venture capital and they forget about that, and then they get surprised. But the other thing I've never liked about it is it makes you more fragile. It basically subjects you to a bunch of business covenants, and it makes it harder for you to do an abrupt shift in your business, because now you've got a bank looking over your shoulder and they want to make sure they get paid, and they have to review your financials and all the rest of it. And to your point, J Cal, the companies that have free cash flow right now are the ones that again, have the most maneuverability. I hate taking away maneuverability from founders, and that is what debt does because it subjects you to a fixed schedule of payments. And so this is always a thing to remember, whether you're a business or you are an individual, when you put on that debt, it makes you more vulnerable to big disruptions in the market.”

The All-In Podcast

79,095 次观看 • 3 个月前

Ep. 33: TBPN (John Coogan & Jordi Hays) - Inside Tech's Water Cooler John Coogan and Jordi Hays are the hosts of TBPN, a daily live show covering the technology business. TBPN was launched only about a year ago, but has become a mainstay in tech culture and a center of gravity for terminally online technologists. John was previously an EIR at Founders Fund and tech YouTuber. He co-founded Lucy Nicotine and Soylent. Jordi has co-founded and invested in many business including Party Round/Capital and Branded Native, a podcast and youtube ad network. We cover the origins of TBPN, or the Technology Business Programming Network, from its beginnings as "Technology Brothers" to the interplay between John's love for technology and Jordi's for business. They share how they've built a media business in an era of infinite competition by leaning into high volume and constant iteration, all while treating media as the "main thing." We discuss brand building and innovating on form by borrowing ideas from outside the tech industry—from Formula One and SportsCenter to Hollywood films—to avoid tech's tendency toward circular references. We also talk about their focus on X/Twitter and a niche, highly informed audience, rather than trying to go too wide. We also chat about what makes their partnership work and how they take the work incredibly seriously while not taking themselves seriously at all. Timestamps: 0:00 - Opening Highlights 3:18 - Intro & Background 6:08 - Technology vs. Business and the Strategy behind TBPN 12:08 - Building a Media Business when Distribution is not Scarce 22:26 - Being Entrepreneurs and Talent 30:33 - Avoiding Audience Capture 35:57 - Why Advertising is a Good Model 44:04 - Technology's Circular References and Borrowing Ideas from New Places 53:20 - Narrow vs. Wide Appeal 59:44 - X (Twitter)-First Content and Other Platforms 1:14:35 - Making Content People Want to Share and Taking Yourself Seriously and Unseriously 1:20:28 - Valuing Brand 1:30:10 - Balancing Focus and Iteration 1:35:25 - Endurance & Evolution 1:40:34 - A Day in the Life of TBPN & Learning to be Newscasters 1:49:59 - Jordi & John as a duo, Will Manidis, and the beginnings of TBPN 2:02:57 - Grab Bag: Bias to Action, 15 Minute Interviews, Not Journalism, Talent, and Domination of Spirit Available on all platforms. Full transcript and all links available below.

Dialectic with Jackson Dahl

170,839 次观看 • 9 个月前

Marc Bhargava (Marc Bhargava) Managing Director at General Catalyst on how 'AI Roll-Ups' are unlocking software-like margins for a much larger TAM "Why hasn't everyone in VC rushed to invest in services businesses? like accounting legal IT insurance? Well they historically have not been that profitable. So they sort of break-even generally in many cases, well obviously as you get to scale in that $1T of revenue in software the marginal cost is really low & they can become very profitable & have amazing cash flow Companies like CrowdStrike or ServiceNow or others you know kind of show this model And of course the hyper scalers like Amazon, Google, Microsoft There are all these amazing proven examples in the software field of having very strong free cash flow & on high margins. Our thesis somewhat is well these un-sexy services industries that were break even or 15 to 20% EBITDA margins net income obviously much lower they can look like software from a margin profile 'Cause once you take out the repetitive tasks & you take out 30-40-50% of what people do & free them up to do the hard stuff with the same cost basis you can 50% grow the revenue or double the revenue ..your margin profile now looks much much more similar to software. So we think in this much larger TAM than software, you can have software-like margins."

Molly O’Shea

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Q: What are VCs looking for in the companies they fund? Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape and venture firm a16z, explains in the clip below that venture capitalist business is a game of outliers: “The conventional statistics are that about 200 of the 4,000 venture-fundable companies per year will be funded by a top-tier VC. About 15 of those will someday get to $100MM of revenue, and those 15 will generate something on the order of 97% of all of the returns for the entire category of venture capital in that year.” He continues: “Venture capital is such an extreme feast or famine business. You’re either in one of the 15 or you’re not.” Most VCs are looking for extreme outliers, and when they’re evaluating your startup, they’re asking themselves if this business is one of the 15 businesses that year that will get to $100MM in revenue. One principle Marc believes helps firms invest in outliers is: invest in strength rather than lack of weakness. “The default way to do venture capital is to check boxes: really good founder, really good idea, really good product, really good initial customers. Check, check, check, check. ‘Ok this is reasonable, I’ll put money into it.’ But what you find with those checkbox deals is that they don’t have something that makes them really remarkable and special. They don’t have an extreme strength that makes them an outlier.” The takeaway for founders here is to make sure they highlight to VCs during the funding process that they have a really extreme strength across an important dimension.

Q: What are VCs looking for in the companies they fund? Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape and venture firm a16z, explains in the clip below that venture capitalist business is a game of outliers: “The conventional statistics are that about 200 of the 4,000 venture-fundable companies per year will be funded by a top-tier VC. About 15 of those will someday get to $100MM of revenue, and those 15 will generate something on the order of 97% of all of the returns for the entire category of venture capital in that year.” He continues: “Venture capital is such an extreme feast or famine business. You’re either in one of the 15 or you’re not.” Most VCs are looking for extreme outliers, and when they’re evaluating your startup, they’re asking themselves if this business is one of the 15 businesses that year that will get to $100MM in revenue. One principle Marc believes helps firms invest in outliers is: invest in strength rather than lack of weakness. “The default way to do venture capital is to check boxes: really good founder, really good idea, really good product, really good initial customers. Check, check, check, check. ‘Ok this is reasonable, I’ll put money into it.’ But what you find with those checkbox deals is that they don’t have something that makes them really remarkable and special. They don’t have an extreme strength that makes them an outlier.” The takeaway for founders here is to make sure they highlight to VCs during the funding process that they have a really extreme strength across an important dimension.

Michael McGuiness

587,670 次观看 • 3 年前

Anthropic's Sholto Douglas describes the concept of a software-only singularity: "It's one where the models are far better at digital tasks than they are at physical ones. And so we see rapid change in the digital world with models, and relatively little change in the physical world. So information and software changes dramatically, and this ends up having some pretty weird effects." "It means that maybe like the drivers of what have been the last couple decades of progress in the economy turn around." "And I think we'll see that flow on into the physical world but at a delay. So you get much better at doing chip design. You get much better at training AI models. AI models get a lot faster. Chips get a lot better. The general economy gets a lot more efficient because the sort of information and message parsing that is much of the rest of the economy ends up becoming much more efficient." "But at the same time you don't yet have robots providing limitless physical abundance. Science probably progresses really fast up to the degree that you need interaction with labs or larger particle colliders or something like this. And then you go, 'Okay well I need to build the robots.'"

Anthropic's Sholto Douglas describes the concept of a software-only singularity: "It's one where the models are far better at digital tasks than they are at physical ones. And so we see rapid change in the digital world with models, and relatively little change in the physical world. So information and software changes dramatically, and this ends up having some pretty weird effects." "It means that maybe like the drivers of what have been the last couple decades of progress in the economy turn around." "And I think we'll see that flow on into the physical world but at a delay. So you get much better at doing chip design. You get much better at training AI models. AI models get a lot faster. Chips get a lot better. The general economy gets a lot more efficient because the sort of information and message parsing that is much of the rest of the economy ends up becoming much more efficient." "But at the same time you don't yet have robots providing limitless physical abundance. Science probably progresses really fast up to the degree that you need interaction with labs or larger particle colliders or something like this. And then you go, 'Okay well I need to build the robots.'"

TBPN

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John and Jordi go back and forth on the usefulness of essays like the one from Demis today: Jordi Hays: We keep seeing these letters and proposals. And they always come with a request for urgent action. But they rarely come with super concrete, near-term scenarios. I want, "Here's what's going to happen in 6 months. Here's what's going to happen in 12 months." John Coogan: Or like a trigger. It would be interesting if somebody said, "If the unemployment rate goes above 10%, I would recommend a stimulus check of $1,000 to everyone, and means test it so it only goes to the middle and lower class." Jordi: If you tell DC, "AI models are very good at hacking computer systems and they're going to get better at hacking computer systems," there's not really much for them to do with that. Because hacking computer systems is already illegal. And the solution there is for companies to beef up their own cybersecurity, make sure they're using the most advanced models, etc. So if you play out more concrete scenarios, for example a timeline for the trucking industry and potential job displacement within trucking, or any of these other categories, I just think it allows people in Washington, actual lawmakers, to start thinking about this [more effectively].

John and Jordi go back and forth on the usefulness of essays like the one from Demis today: Jordi Hays: We keep seeing these letters and proposals. And they always come with a request for urgent action. But they rarely come with super concrete, near-term scenarios. I want, "Here's what's going to happen in 6 months. Here's what's going to happen in 12 months." John Coogan: Or like a trigger. It would be interesting if somebody said, "If the unemployment rate goes above 10%, I would recommend a stimulus check of $1,000 to everyone, and means test it so it only goes to the middle and lower class." Jordi: If you tell DC, "AI models are very good at hacking computer systems and they're going to get better at hacking computer systems," there's not really much for them to do with that. Because hacking computer systems is already illegal. And the solution there is for companies to beef up their own cybersecurity, make sure they're using the most advanced models, etc. So if you play out more concrete scenarios, for example a timeline for the trucking industry and potential job displacement within trucking, or any of these other categories, I just think it allows people in Washington, actual lawmakers, to start thinking about this [more effectively].

TBPN

23,880 次观看 • 1 个月前

John Collison on three things founders can learn from Elon Musk Stripe co-founder John Collison says he found the Walter Isaacson biography of Elon Musk to be a useful resource for studying “The Elon Method.” John came away with three important learnings from it: #1 Pick the right high-level metric to optimize for John observes that Elon always picked a sensible metric to optimize for with every business he ran. With SpaceX, for example, Elon focused the company on “dollars per kilogram to orbit.” Tesla’s focus on “deliveries per week” is another non-obvious example: “You could’ve focused on revenue, profitability, or deliveries per year,” John observes. “The focus on the number of deliveries per week rolling off the factory line was itself an interesting choice for a high-level metric.” #2 Create a sense of urgency “People talk about this as ‘inventing crises,’” John explains. “But I think the generous version is shortening the time horizons. Elon was talking about (when he was sleeping on the gigafactory floor) how ‘Tesla will go bankrupt if we don’t do this and figure out Model 3 production.’ Tesla was a $200 billion company by market cap at that time . . . but he created a sense of urgency with sleeping on the factory floor, which clearly shortens the timeline.” #3 Be capital efficient “I think hardware companies can be really self-indulgent with capital, where they say, ‘Venture capitalists will fund my vision of exploration for five or ten years.’” John gives robotics as an example: “It’s like, ‘I’ll do my science project for ages and then I’ll maybe figure out a product and how to commercialize it,’ . . . but Elon’s companies have always been very capital efficient. They build a bad one and then build a good one. The Boring Company bought commercial tunnel-boring machines before they started developing their own. Tesla had the masterplan where they built the low-volume roadster before they got to the high-volume stuff. SpaceX, for what they do, has never actually burned that much capital.” Video source: Stripe (2025)

John Collison on three things founders can learn from Elon Musk Stripe co-founder John Collison says he found the Walter Isaacson biography of Elon Musk to be a useful resource for studying “The Elon Method.” John came away with three important learnings from it: #1 Pick the right high-level metric to optimize for John observes that Elon always picked a sensible metric to optimize for with every business he ran. With SpaceX, for example, Elon focused the company on “dollars per kilogram to orbit.” Tesla’s focus on “deliveries per week” is another non-obvious example: “You could’ve focused on revenue, profitability, or deliveries per year,” John observes. “The focus on the number of deliveries per week rolling off the factory line was itself an interesting choice for a high-level metric.” #2 Create a sense of urgency “People talk about this as ‘inventing crises,’” John explains. “But I think the generous version is shortening the time horizons. Elon was talking about (when he was sleeping on the gigafactory floor) how ‘Tesla will go bankrupt if we don’t do this and figure out Model 3 production.’ Tesla was a $200 billion company by market cap at that time . . . but he created a sense of urgency with sleeping on the factory floor, which clearly shortens the timeline.” #3 Be capital efficient “I think hardware companies can be really self-indulgent with capital, where they say, ‘Venture capitalists will fund my vision of exploration for five or ten years.’” John gives robotics as an example: “It’s like, ‘I’ll do my science project for ages and then I’ll maybe figure out a product and how to commercialize it,’ . . . but Elon’s companies have always been very capital efficient. They build a bad one and then build a good one. The Boring Company bought commercial tunnel-boring machines before they started developing their own. Tesla had the masterplan where they built the low-volume roadster before they got to the high-volume stuff. SpaceX, for what they do, has never actually burned that much capital.” Video source: Stripe (2025)

Startup Archive

106,755 次观看 • 10 个月前

Marc Andreessen on what VCs look for in startups “The conventional statistics are that about 200 of the 4,000 venture-fundable companies per year will be funded by a top-tier VC. About 15 of those will someday get to $100MM of revenue, and those 15 will generate something on the order of 97% of all of the returns for the entire category of venture capital in that year.” He continues: “Venture capital is such an extreme feast or famine business. You’re either in one of the 15 or you’re not.” As Marc explains, VCs are looking for extreme outliers, and when they’re evaluating your startup, they’re asking themselves if this business is one of the 15 businesses that year that will get to $100MM in revenue. One principle Marc believes helps firms invest in outliers is investing in strength rather than lack of weakness. “The default way to do venture capital is to check boxes: really good founder, really good idea, really good product, really good initial customers. Check, check, check, check. ‘Ok this is reasonable, I’ll put money into it.’ But what you find with those checkbox deals is that they don’t have something that makes them really remarkable and special. They don’t have an extreme strength that makes them an outlier.” The takeaway for founders here is to make sure they highlight to VCs during the funding process that they have a really extreme strength across an important dimension. Video source: Y Combinator (2014)

Marc Andreessen on what VCs look for in startups “The conventional statistics are that about 200 of the 4,000 venture-fundable companies per year will be funded by a top-tier VC. About 15 of those will someday get to $100MM of revenue, and those 15 will generate something on the order of 97% of all of the returns for the entire category of venture capital in that year.” He continues: “Venture capital is such an extreme feast or famine business. You’re either in one of the 15 or you’re not.” As Marc explains, VCs are looking for extreme outliers, and when they’re evaluating your startup, they’re asking themselves if this business is one of the 15 businesses that year that will get to $100MM in revenue. One principle Marc believes helps firms invest in outliers is investing in strength rather than lack of weakness. “The default way to do venture capital is to check boxes: really good founder, really good idea, really good product, really good initial customers. Check, check, check, check. ‘Ok this is reasonable, I’ll put money into it.’ But what you find with those checkbox deals is that they don’t have something that makes them really remarkable and special. They don’t have an extreme strength that makes them an outlier.” The takeaway for founders here is to make sure they highlight to VCs during the funding process that they have a really extreme strength across an important dimension. Video source: Y Combinator (2014)

Startup Archive

23,116 次观看 • 4 个月前

The. Best. Want to nurture your baby’s early language? It’s really not rocket science, but it does take your time and attention. First, your baby is never too young to be spoken to. It may seem odd to have a conversational partner that can’t yet respond in conventional ways. But your baby is soaking your language up like a sponge. And never forget they learn language from YOU. Not a screen. Speak face to face with your baby. Make eye contact. Put down your phone and light up that developing brain 🧠. Talk, talk, talk. Engage, engage, engage. You’ll be amazed by the results - and you will have set your baby on the path toward a lifetime of success.

The. Best. Want to nurture your baby’s early language? It’s really not rocket science, but it does take your time and attention. First, your baby is never too young to be spoken to. It may seem odd to have a conversational partner that can’t yet respond in conventional ways. But your baby is soaking your language up like a sponge. And never forget they learn language from YOU. Not a screen. Speak face to face with your baby. Make eye contact. Put down your phone and light up that developing brain 🧠. Talk, talk, talk. Engage, engage, engage. You’ll be amazed by the results - and you will have set your baby on the path toward a lifetime of success.

Dan Wuori

1,217,988 次观看 • 3 年前

Jeff Bezos: “Focus on the controllable inputs to your business instead of the outputs” Jeff gives the example of companies trying to drive up their stock price by actually going out and trying to sell their stock: “[A higher stock price] is the final output…. That’s not going to be sustainable. It’s a silly approach.” Jeff recommends working backwards from a higher stock price to its controllable inputs instead: “What are the inputs to a higher stock price? Okay, well, free cash flow and return on invested capital are inputs to a higher stock price. Let’s keep working backwards. What are the inputs to free cash flow? And you keep working backwards until you get to something that’s controllable.” He points out that a controllable input to free cash flow would be something like a lower cost structure: “If we can improve our picking efficiency in our fulfillment centers and reduce defects - reducing defects at the root is one of the best ways to lower cost structure - that starts to be a job you would accept. If you’re a reasonable person, you would say, I have no idea how to drive up the stock price - I can’t manage that directly. It’s not a controllable input. But I can make your picking algorithms more efficient, and that will reduce cost structure. And then you follow that chain all along the way. That’s what you do in all of these businesses.” Video source: Business Insider (2014)

Jeff Bezos: “Focus on the controllable inputs to your business instead of the outputs” Jeff gives the example of companies trying to drive up their stock price by actually going out and trying to sell their stock: “[A higher stock price] is the final output…. That’s not going to be sustainable. It’s a silly approach.” Jeff recommends working backwards from a higher stock price to its controllable inputs instead: “What are the inputs to a higher stock price? Okay, well, free cash flow and return on invested capital are inputs to a higher stock price. Let’s keep working backwards. What are the inputs to free cash flow? And you keep working backwards until you get to something that’s controllable.” He points out that a controllable input to free cash flow would be something like a lower cost structure: “If we can improve our picking efficiency in our fulfillment centers and reduce defects - reducing defects at the root is one of the best ways to lower cost structure - that starts to be a job you would accept. If you’re a reasonable person, you would say, I have no idea how to drive up the stock price - I can’t manage that directly. It’s not a controllable input. But I can make your picking algorithms more efficient, and that will reduce cost structure. And then you follow that chain all along the way. That’s what you do in all of these businesses.” Video source: Business Insider (2014)

Startup Archive

18,881 次观看 • 1 年前

Founders and VCs fall into the same growth trap year after year: A startup launches in a niche market. Early traction looks great, everyone’s cheering, and capital chases the curve. Then the curve flattens—because the total addressable market (TAM) is already tapped out. Growth stalls, morale tanks, and the company fades. "The walking dead". However, the truth is, the growth treadmill never stops. If you raise venture money, you’re stepping on a treadmill that can’t slow down: • $10M in revenue this year? Next year has to be $20M. • $100M this year? Next year needs to be $150M. • Hit $1B? Now shoot for $1.2B—minimum. That pace only works when your market is huge and continues to expand. Otherwise, momentum dies the moment you hit the ceiling. Take a certain company that raised $15M+ to build a...precision tea infuser. The early signs were great: • Design awards • Media buzz • 500K servings brewed across 20 countries But most casual tea drinkers didn’t want a $999 machine, and true tea lovers preferred hand-brewing. The TAM was tiny. Growth flat-lined, and the company shut down in 2017, not because the product was bad, but because the ceiling was low. Whether you’re building the company or investing in it, the growth trap looks the same: early numbers sparkle, emotions spike, and rational TAM math goes quiet. Here’s how to keep your footing on either side of the table: Founders: • Decide upfront: is it a lifestyle business (great!) or venture-scale machine? • If it's venture-scale, remember revenue must compound aggressively every single year. • Validate the ceiling, not just initial demand. VCs: • Don’t get hypnotised by the first uptick. • Pressure-test the TAM and the speed at which it caps out. In other words - if you concentrate on building a company that can truly have world impact - you'll escape the gravity of the growth trap. But incremental ideas simply will not. It's what people call "a feature not a product". Early traction is proof you’ve built something people want. It is NOT proof there’s enough headroom to keep doubling. If the honest answer to “Can this keep compounding?” is no, then change the plan—or the funding model—before the treadmill throws you off.

Founders and VCs fall into the same growth trap year after year: A startup launches in a niche market. Early traction looks great, everyone’s cheering, and capital chases the curve. Then the curve flattens—because the total addressable market (TAM) is already tapped out. Growth stalls, morale tanks, and the company fades. "The walking dead". However, the truth is, the growth treadmill never stops. If you raise venture money, you’re stepping on a treadmill that can’t slow down: • $10M in revenue this year? Next year has to be $20M. • $100M this year? Next year needs to be $150M. • Hit $1B? Now shoot for $1.2B—minimum. That pace only works when your market is huge and continues to expand. Otherwise, momentum dies the moment you hit the ceiling. Take a certain company that raised $15M+ to build a...precision tea infuser. The early signs were great: • Design awards • Media buzz • 500K servings brewed across 20 countries But most casual tea drinkers didn’t want a $999 machine, and true tea lovers preferred hand-brewing. The TAM was tiny. Growth flat-lined, and the company shut down in 2017, not because the product was bad, but because the ceiling was low. Whether you’re building the company or investing in it, the growth trap looks the same: early numbers sparkle, emotions spike, and rational TAM math goes quiet. Here’s how to keep your footing on either side of the table: Founders: • Decide upfront: is it a lifestyle business (great!) or venture-scale machine? • If it's venture-scale, remember revenue must compound aggressively every single year. • Validate the ceiling, not just initial demand. VCs: • Don’t get hypnotised by the first uptick. • Pressure-test the TAM and the speed at which it caps out. In other words - if you concentrate on building a company that can truly have world impact - you'll escape the gravity of the growth trap. But incremental ideas simply will not. It's what people call "a feature not a product". Early traction is proof you’ve built something people want. It is NOT proof there’s enough headroom to keep doubling. If the honest answer to “Can this keep compounding?” is no, then change the plan—or the funding model—before the treadmill throws you off.

seth sternberg

21,432 次观看 • 1 年前

you might want to take a look at this too, Will Ashley. we never forget the people who started and fueled the hate — those who made it a cycle, turning small issues into constant attacks. they may not be officially affiliated with your team, but since they promote you and your projects, their actions still reflect on you and your fandom. if we’re going to talk about kindness and accountability, it has to go both ways. you can’t preach empathy while turning a blind eye to the same toxicity coming from people who claim to represent you. fandom come and go, but decency should never be situational.

you might want to take a look at this too, Will Ashley. we never forget the people who started and fueled the hate — those who made it a cycle, turning small issues into constant attacks. they may not be officially affiliated with your team, but since they promote you and your projects, their actions still reflect on you and your fandom. if we’re going to talk about kindness and accountability, it has to go both ways. you can’t preach empathy while turning a blind eye to the same toxicity coming from people who claim to represent you. fandom come and go, but decency should never be situational.

dee

42,384 次观看 • 9 个月前

Some personal hot takes from AI: engineer Miami follows... 1. Software development is a dead-end profession because anyone can be a software developer now. 2. Anyone can use Cursor or any other tool and generate code. Being a coder and being a software engineer are different. 3. Computers used to be gated; now everyone has the power to make computers malleable. Everyone is a software developer now, but that does not mean they are software engineers 4. If you cannot demonstrate how a coding agent works, you are just a consumer and have imposed an artificial glass ceiling on your career as a software engineer. 5. If you are curious, you will have a job. If you have not been curious in the last two years, you are replaceable. 6. SaaS per-seat economics may become unstable as customers need fewer people to achieve results, prompting founders to think about new unit economics 7. Most companies will take two or three years (or more!) to figure out AI transformation. 8. Some companies are already building AI native teams of five to ten people who can build with the grain of AI 9. There will be an explosion in the number of software developers. Software development is now essentially free, and tokens are cheaper than humans 10. Not enough engineers know what it means to be a product engineer 11. JIRA ticket monkeys are cooked 12. If your company has banned AI, you should quit that company 13. AI is more like a musical instrument than just a tool play with it, make discoveries, build intuition learn where AI is good and where it fails

Some personal hot takes from AI: engineer Miami follows... 1. Software development is a dead-end profession because anyone can be a software developer now. 2. Anyone can use Cursor or any other tool and generate code. Being a coder and being a software engineer are different. 3. Computers used to be gated; now everyone has the power to make computers malleable. Everyone is a software developer now, but that does not mean they are software engineers 4. If you cannot demonstrate how a coding agent works, you are just a consumer and have imposed an artificial glass ceiling on your career as a software engineer. 5. If you are curious, you will have a job. If you have not been curious in the last two years, you are replaceable. 6. SaaS per-seat economics may become unstable as customers need fewer people to achieve results, prompting founders to think about new unit economics 7. Most companies will take two or three years (or more!) to figure out AI transformation. 8. Some companies are already building AI native teams of five to ten people who can build with the grain of AI 9. There will be an explosion in the number of software developers. Software development is now essentially free, and tokens are cheaper than humans 10. Not enough engineers know what it means to be a product engineer 11. JIRA ticket monkeys are cooked 12. If your company has banned AI, you should quit that company 13. AI is more like a musical instrument than just a tool play with it, make discoveries, build intuition learn where AI is good and where it fails

geoff

64,193 次观看 • 1 个月前

In 2026, Venture Capital will eat Private Equity It used to be that venture capital and private equity lived on two separate planets: VC = San Francisco PE = New York They targeted completely different universes of companies: --> PE - people heavy biz services, stable/low growth, predictable cashflows --> VC - tech-forward, high growth, high risk, massive TAM What was the playbook for B2B VC backed startups? --> Grow to unicorn scale by selling to other early adopter tech companies, then Fortune 500s XX> SMB and mid-market services - think field services, IT staffing, accounting, construction, recruiting - were always tough to sell into for startups Why? -->Thin margins, high labor costs, and small IT budgets >> But as AI eats labor, these businesses are in play << There are 3 ways where VC and PE are colliding: 1/ Private Equity funds will become channel partners for startups. PE funds are focused on financial engineering and cost optimization. Startups building AI products and services can sell across their portfolio to automate the backoffice and uplevel sales and marketing. PE funds have made AI their #1 strategic priority and have hired central leaders to oversee their portfolio adoption efforts 2/ PE portfolio pages are a startup idea menu Private equity will often buyout vertical software companies whose TAM didn’t allow venture scaled returns. As software evolves from data storage and collaboration to agents taking action and completing work, AI should massively expand the TAM for these categories. Founders will set their sights on unseating these legacy incumbents backed by private equity. All they have to do is look at their portfolio pages for category ideas 3/ AI Rollups This is one of the most direct ways that VC is eating PE VC backed AI platform businesses are not just selling software but acquiring legacy business services companies to own the value chain end to end. As an example, our a16z speedrun 🧊 company AgentAstra is acquiring freight forwarding services businesses with mostly debt and integrating AI deeply into their operations These companies aim to increase margins by at least 2x and make them “AI native” tl;dr - While the west coast, Patagonia-wearing VCs and the east coast, PE suits used to live in different universes, in 2026 with AI, I believe, those worlds converge

In 2026, Venture Capital will eat Private Equity It used to be that venture capital and private equity lived on two separate planets: VC = San Francisco PE = New York They targeted completely different universes of companies: --> PE - people heavy biz services, stable/low growth, predictable cashflows --> VC - tech-forward, high growth, high risk, massive TAM What was the playbook for B2B VC backed startups? --> Grow to unicorn scale by selling to other early adopter tech companies, then Fortune 500s XX> SMB and mid-market services - think field services, IT staffing, accounting, construction, recruiting - were always tough to sell into for startups Why? -->Thin margins, high labor costs, and small IT budgets >> But as AI eats labor, these businesses are in play << There are 3 ways where VC and PE are colliding: 1/ Private Equity funds will become channel partners for startups. PE funds are focused on financial engineering and cost optimization. Startups building AI products and services can sell across their portfolio to automate the backoffice and uplevel sales and marketing. PE funds have made AI their #1 strategic priority and have hired central leaders to oversee their portfolio adoption efforts 2/ PE portfolio pages are a startup idea menu Private equity will often buyout vertical software companies whose TAM didn’t allow venture scaled returns. As software evolves from data storage and collaboration to agents taking action and completing work, AI should massively expand the TAM for these categories. Founders will set their sights on unseating these legacy incumbents backed by private equity. All they have to do is look at their portfolio pages for category ideas 3/ AI Rollups This is one of the most direct ways that VC is eating PE VC backed AI platform businesses are not just selling software but acquiring legacy business services companies to own the value chain end to end. As an example, our a16z speedrun 🧊 company AgentAstra is acquiring freight forwarding services businesses with mostly debt and integrating AI deeply into their operations These companies aim to increase margins by at least 2x and make them “AI native” tl;dr - While the west coast, Patagonia-wearing VCs and the east coast, PE suits used to live in different universes, in 2026 with AI, I believe, those worlds converge

Troy Kirwin

187,300 次观看 • 8 个月前