Does your pitch deck help with fundraising? Yes and no. No, because no investor makes a decision purely based on a deck. Most don’t even read it that carefully. Yes, because a deck says a lot about the founder. A clean, well-structured deck signals someone organized and thoughtful. An incoherent deck that’s also a 47MB … Continue reading Pitch Deck And Raising
One of the questions I get often from founders: “Should I raise money or bootstrap?” I think this is like asking “should I get married?” The right answer is: marriage is wonderful. But only if you marry the right person. Likewise, raising money can be great – if you raise from the right investor. Good … Continue reading Raise Money Or Bootstrap
I recently shared my startup journey in front of 400+ people at a conference. Of all the things I said, one question seemed to resonate with the audience the most: “Do you have your own thing?” Great founders I’ve met all seemed to have their “thing”. What is the “thing”? It’s hard to put into … Continue reading Your Own Thing
K-pop Demon Hunters is undoubtedly a huge success. It’s the #1 most-watched movie of all time on Netflix! One funny thing I’ve noticed personally: suddenly I’m seeing more people saying they have some sort of connection to the project. Some say they “coached” the direction of the movie and provided a lot of inspirations. Some … Continue reading Success Has Many Fathers
Caught up with one of my mentors, who has been living in Beverly Hills for 20+ years. He loves Beverly Hills and West Hollywood because he’s been in the consumer industry and BH/Weho are the places where you can spot the latest trends before they start catching on. He said “If I hadn’t lived in … Continue reading Where You Live Matters
With AI, resumes have become useless. Candidates are using AI to generate resumes; Hiring companies (and the ATS tools they’re using) are using AI to review them. So resumes are just a container for bunch of keywords used for machine-to-machine data communications. Take this software engineer resume, for example. I grabbed a random one from … Continue reading Resumes Are Dead
One of the biggest red flags in any pitch is when a founder tries to be someone they’re not. It’s quite easy to spot; most investors can see right through it. The thing though is, often this comes from a good intention, i.e. founder trying to listen to too much advice, not because the founder … Continue reading Be Yourself
My friend recently shared that he’s already run more miles this year (just by September) than he did in all of last year. The unlock for him was, last year he ran to train, while this year he runs because he enjoys it. I think the same can be said about startups. Founders have crazy … Continue reading Enjoy The Process
At my previous company, we had finally become profitable and no longer needed to raise money – that’s when we got a term sheet for funding. Because we had a term sheet in hand, we didn’t have to sell the company – that’s when the acquisition offer came in. So, based on my personal experience, … Continue reading The Startup Paradox
At a recent dinner, someone randomly mentioned Whoop, and we spent the next hour gushing about Whoop and Oura. It almost looked like we were competing to see who could be a better brand ambassador or fanboy. No one at the table worked for either company, of course. This is how viral products work. Shows … Continue reading How Viral Products Work