Henry Shi

Did a fund raising workshop with a group of founders last week. Some of my messages were: 1/ Your job in that first mtg is to get the VC *emotionally* excited about you and your startup. It’s not enough to get them rationally excited. VCs are meeting 2-6 founders every day. Most of those founders are smart and driven. You’re competing for attention against all of them by the end of that day/week. Whoever creates emotional excitement won that first mtg. 2/ Be ready to sell the larger than life vision. Don't be shy about your ambition. Show the passion behind the vision and mission statement. Let the ambition come through. They're betting on you! 3/ Two things drive investor excitement in most early stage fundraises: “Why Me?” or “Why Now?” 4/ Be intentional about the entire process: pipeline of intros, which partner at which firm, who’s making the intros, the scheduling… everything. It’s an enterprise sales process. Don't be casual about any aspect of it. 5/ Be ready to manage your psyche thru the process: The No's come before the Yesses. The best No's can be an input to your thinking. But there are some people who will be dismissive of you or your idea - let those No's become fuel to your fire. 6/ Don't underestimate the importance of quality of partner. Will matter a lot in the end. Do backchannel references and ask pointed questions. 7/ Fund raising is hard. Company building is harder. BUT... people like you and me have done it before and will do it after us. Just remind yourself: "If not you, then who?"

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From what I’ve observed over the last 6 years and > 30 investments is that The best founders… A) progress and iterate with the highest velocity and, B) They nurture as many strategically aligned people as possible along the entire journey

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if you know, you know Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures. nerd. founder. wise. man. been there done that sv. wisdom. it's missing. let's face it. it's always been missing over time. for.ever. so it's a blessing truly to have an o.g. that keeps it for reals. yes we are a fan. much like Jensen Huang Fei-Fei Li ilya sutskever ...and other good people in sv. they are the ones who make this place so special. indeed they do. here https://lnkd.in/exWqey9K we have sam i am that's all that i am sam (alt)man having a 1-1 with the man. this is a must watch to provide a foundational (no llm required here) mindset as to how sv is at it's best (and worse). caution. watch out for the truth bombs. vinod is (in)famous for this style and we <love> him for it. thank g-d he exists. if you meet the dbags in sf/bayarea your experience you will be quickly lonely, dazed and confused. best to listen to these wise words from vinod and from that determine your spot in the sv landscape. with an insight on the sv playbook from a master. well. need i say more. it's about the very spirit of sv that makes it so special. and this is indeed embodied in a few who are masters. deserve our attention. yeah. yeah. i know attention is all you need. although what happens if your attention is being distracted from building. being in the company of those who will join your mission ala brian chesky of Airbnb. missionaries. search for the good missionaries in sv. keep away and keep in mind of the mercenaries. they are there. pg. he's another gift (as opposed to the grifters) paul graham wrote about this too https://lnkd.in/eEYmQwqZ - being a chesky-esque missionary. these are good things to follow on the path of achieving escape velocity as an (ai) startup. oh. hollywood has entered the ranks of sv. yes it has. so there is a bit of performance art that is required. not enough that you've created something that's novel (truly, novel). also requires a bit of showmanship. audacious in fact. it's a well known sentiment that audacious ideas motivate people. sun microsystems. audacious. juniper. audacious. OpenAI. vinod as an early investor. audacious. Vinod Khosla was born audacious. so fitting he found a place in this world where many have benefitted from this sentiment. perhaps years ago a bit on the abrasive side. now with those white hairs. the elder statesman. non-diplomat. rules, the roost of that which allows for others to flourish. note if you manage to thread the needle of vinod means that it's a very very very good beginning. nothing is guaranteed of course. as my lawyer 'friends' like to say. * buyer beware. be aware. Vinod Khosla is. are you (ai)? are you?? perhaps yes. perhaps, non. < . >

Founder <> founder convos are the biggest unlock for company building. I spent the last 2+ weeks in SF. Besides meeting with customers, I spent a ton of time with founders / early stage builders that I deeply respect (shoutout to Abhinav Asthana, Christina Cacioppo, Kevin Van Gundy, Akshay Kothari, Yuhki Yamashita, Tara Viswanathan, Celine Halioua, & Michelle Valentine). I’m extremely grateful to have the chance to spend time with these folks. Some reflections from these brilliant people. 1/ People > everything. A company is a collection of people. Company success comes down to hiring the best people. 2/ Startup problems aren’t *that* unique. Startups are HARD and even if you think your challenges are specific to your company, they’re likely not. Someone else has faced the same thing, and you likely don’t need to reinvent the wheel. 3/ Let some fires burn. Focus > trying to do everything. As a startup, you can’t fix everything at once with limited resources (even if you want to). You need to focus on the stuff that will move the needle the most. Pick the top 1 or 2 problems, fix them, then move onto the next. It’s okay if some fires need to burn for a little in the meantime. 4/ Company operating cadences are key. We’re redoing our cadences now, so it was super interesting to learn how others run their board meetings, leadership meetings, all hands, etc. A consistent theme for board & leadership meetings is to have everyone complete a prompt in written doc, share with each other, then use the time to have meatier discussions. 5/ Be competitor aware, customer obsessed. Competitors cause unnecessary noise. Build products and make decisions based on customer / market need and founder intuition, never based on competition. Are these learnings helpful? If so, can share more founder learning posts in the future!

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"How do I get things started with a cofounder?" This is a question I'm asked often – and one I love talking about at length, drawing upon my own experience of searching for a co-founder for almost two years. And so, when Mark asked about this for his own venture while we were beating the heat with iced lattes last week, I realized that this *had* to be the topic of the next post for "the founder memo", Corpora's newsletter. https://lnkd.in/gMsj8CF6 The highlight? 👉 A detailed list of questions to *definitely, absolutely, positively* talk about with your co-founder. 👈 And want to document it in a Founders Agreement after you do? You're covered there as well – I've linked the template version of the actual agreement Serop and I used, along with tips on if and when to use it. Any other cofounder tips come to mind? Comment below! ___________ 📣 Are you searching for a co-founder? Pitch your startup idea here!  Who knows... maybe that's how you find you future co-founder. #startups #founder #cofounder

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Cyrus Radfar is a builder at heart. He's also a founder, operator, and advisor, having founded 3 companies, held executive product roles, and advised startups, technical leaders, and VCs. He was most recently the Chief Product Officer at Rollbar, where he lead product and engineering teams and oversaw the culture, strategy, vision, and execution of Rollbar's products and engineering. Cyrus & I had a great conversation last week, and we’ll release the full episode soon. In the meantime, this is a great clip where Cyrus talks about why pricing & packaging is so often under-leveraged by startups. Cyrus said a number of things I found really thought-provoking in this interview: 1/ “Pricing & packaging is core to the customer experience, but it's probably not core to your product innovation. Engineers don't build payments or auth, they buy it off the shelf. Same should be true for pricing & packaging." 2/ "Procurement has a massive & under-realized impact on culture. Buy the products that align with the culture you want." When Cyrus & his partner aren't spending time raising two young kids, he's advising engineering and product leaders and consulting with a number of companies ranging from startups to enterprises. #pricing #packaging #b2bsaas

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Two debates steered our most recent FERMÀT board meeting. I think SaaS founders can learn a lot from our internal discussions at the highest point of growth to date: Debate 1) What should we be thinking about as we go from 30➝100 people internally? The biggest takeaway was this: myself and Shreyas can't interact with everybody on the day-to-day like we once could. We need to strengthen our processes and cultural systems so people can operate without founders in the loop. The team is just too large at this point. As such, we've made it a sticking point that both Shreyas and I will interview everybody that we hire so we can ensure they'll fit within the culture we establish. That way, new hires can rock and roll without our assistance from Day 1. From an ongoing process standpoint, this allows us to consistently remind everyone of our company's values, ensuring day-to-day operations run as smoothly as possible. Debate 2) What will our motion for agencies and true enterprise look like? Even more so, we've debated how and if we invest in those areas. For agencies, there's a fair perspective that if you can sell brand direct, you don't need channel partnerships. I disagree—and that's why we're investing in agencies more than before. For enterprise, sales cycles are slow and expensive. There's a 10X difference in the sales cycle for enterprise, but the value of the deals doesn't match. There's a valid argument that enterprise shouldn't be a priority. Many companies focus solely on SMB and mid-market. However, we recognize the long-term importance of enterprise. We will invest, but our approach will be complex and specific. We won't dive in blindly; instead, we'll take a methodical approach that doesn't disrupt our regular sales cycles. If you have any questions about our approach going forward, ask away and I'd be happy to answer!

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We have been debating for a while if it's appropriate to publish our inside jokes:) But since Jack started, we want to add a few things... 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗩𝗖 𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗿𝘆 Let me be transparent = I’m gonna lie to you now Let me be fully transparent = I’m gonna F*****g lie to you now When a VC or an angel introduces a portfolio company of theirs to another VC hoping they’ll invest in it: - They aren’t looking for money = they are always looking for money - They have a long runway = they are looking for money but you’ll pay more - They are raising and we see a lot of interest from multiple VCs = we are really concerned they won’t be able to raise - We are enthusiastic about this company = we’re not gonna invest another dollar in it - We are highly enthusiastic about it = not even a cent - The round is closed and it was oversubscribed = they barely managed to raise and still need money if you want to invest When a VC shares dealflow with other VCs: - We thought it might be interesting to share this investment = we have a problem making it alone Emails and WhatsApp between VCs: - Hi = I need something from you - How are you = I really need something from you - I hope this email finds you well = Can I get to business? What VCs say to entrepreneurs: - We want to move fast = this is going to be a long and excruciating process - We would like to follow = we will only invest if A16Z decides to lead

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How to pitch: The company has zero traction —> “We’re early” You only have 2 customers —> “We’re working with design partners” You currently have no revenue but hoping some pipeline finally closes —> “we’re on track to exit this year at $3M ARR” You’re in the natural kill zone of a FAANG —> “We view them as partners rather than competitors” There’s no way the tech can actually work —>“We’re manifesting the future” And of course: One of your developers uses Co-Pilot to write some front end code —> “We’re an AI company”

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what city should you build your startup in? I was in SF for a few days last week and I've been reflecting on this age old debate what I've noticed about this question, is that people always talk their bags. - if you live in LA, you'll talk about quality of life - if you live in NYC, you'll talk about how cosmopolitan NYC is - if you live in SF, you'll talk about how SF is coming back - if you live in St. Louis or some other random city, you'll talk about how great remote work is having lived in 3 major hubs - SF, LA, and now NYC - I've come up with a simple heuristic for making this decision: there's a spectrum: SF -> NYC -> .... -> middle of nowhere the more advantages you have, the further right you can (not "should") move. advantages include: - strong network (of investors, hires, customers, etc) - experience in startups - experience building great software - strong work ethic - credibility in startups (e.g. multi-time founder, worked at a top tech co) - traction with your company the reality is, because SF has so much density of people who have invested in and built the most influential tech companies in the world (even still after the pandemic) and because there's basically nothing to do there except work, it is the best place to passively accumulate these advantages. this means, for most unproven, non-conventional founders (esp. who are new), SF is the best place to be. and even for folks with every advantage, it's still crucial to visit SF and build relationships with people who live there. I remember hearing a stat that YC companies based in SF were 2-3x more likely to succeed than ones that weren't. so why am I living in NYC instead of SF? family at the end of the day, stacking advantages is irrelevant if you don't have your basics accounted for. NYC is the closest tech hub to a lot of family that lives in Pittsburgh. as I've gotten older, being close to them has become more important to me. additionally, meeting a partner to start my own family is just easier in NYC than SF, which is something I'd like to do soon. I've noticed that my effectiveness as a leader is just exponentially higher when I'm in a loving relationship. having spent 8+ years in SF (on top of graduating from Berkeley and growing up in the Bay Area), I've also accumulated a lot of the advantages listed above. that coupled with staying active on twitter/linkedin and visits to SF nearly every other month, give me many of the benefits of the city without having to live there. there are many exceptions that do not follow this heuristic, but startup success is a probability game and the more things you can do to increase that probability, the better. fwiw SF is also one of the most beautiful cities in the world, this is a pic I took while on a walk during the pandemic

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I 💯agree with Oz Merchant on this topic. Some folks advise founders to pitch very selectively and 'pick your pitch' - you get one shot, choose it wisely? I'm 180 degrees opposite of that - be a promiscuous pitcher! - ABP - ALWAYS BE PITCHING. Because your pitch gets better with every no, take that feedback, learn, iterate. Right now it's taking 50-100 no's for Triangle co's to get funding, it's still tough out there, so get through the no's fast to get to a yes. Check out the event - also go see others pitch, it all helps you get better - pitching is like PMF - lots of iteration, tons of grinding to get through to the other side.

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Founders/CEOs/COOs/CTOs: if you're seeing downtime, defects, and delays… and have been hearing that "we're fixing this internally" but haven't seen much progress… Bad news: You might NEVER see progress. You're in the "quality trap." Here's what's REALLY happening (and what to do about it): 1 - Your testing team is overloaded Maybe you have existing testers; maybe engineers are doing their own testing. No matter what: They are behind. And playing "catch up" in testing is insanely difficult. Almost impossible, unless you radically scale the team. (And even then, it's almost impossible to make fast progress. a.k.a. diminishing returns) 2 - Your engineering leadership doesn't want to allocate more budget to testing. They probably feel like investing in QA and testing is directly competitive to hiring more engineers and build more product. They feel like they're currently understaffed to meet the roadmap goals. AND they feel like bringing you additional budget requests for new testing ideas could be a big risk. What if you say, "Why should you get MORE budget if you're not effectively shipping good software with your existing budget?" When you're in the quality trap… the stress prevents you from making bold, necessary moves. – SO WHAT? YOU, Founder/CEO/COO/CTO, have to bring them new ideas; don't expect them to bring YOU new ideas. My biased recommendation is to look into AI-powered QA services, that can plug in and take a lot of the testing load off your team. If YOU suggest they look into this, and tell finance we need to budget for this, it will happen, and you'll escape the quality trap. If not, expect more of what you've been getting.

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Going from Zero to Product Market Fit is like getting out of a Bermuda Triangle For every direction that works out, an equal and opposite direction works too It is shocking how few get to product market fit Only 15 out of 100 SaaS companies get to a million dollars in revenue When you have PMF, it is an awesome feeling Everything is going smoothly for you It also feels scary and out of control You push one unit, and ten units of progress happen But when you don’t have it…. You push ten units of effort, and not even a unit of progress happens It feels like a Sisyphean punishment Moving a boulder up the mountain In the GenAI age, I hear arguments that go “The focus should be on the core functionality. Like how musicians concentrate on the music itself” This is clearly a faulty analogy Businesses providing playback formats (cassette tapes, CDs) are obsolete today Gen AI brings AI below the API No more does one need to stand up a team in ML Spend a few million dollars to “translate languages” or “transcribe accurately” GenAI now assures that Getting to PMF boils down to the basics - Do you understand the problem deeply - Can you build a 10x better solution - Can you execute & iterate faster - Don’t die in the process (cash) What has worked for you to get out of the Bermuda triangle?

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Building early stage startup momentum? Make sure your speed-to-help is measured in minutes. In today’s environment, you can’t wait days for help. You have to get unstuck fast. With timely advice, execution quickens. Thats the power of a safe-space community that’s built on ‘giving’. It’s our foundational value. You should give what we are building a try.  Zero risk.   DM me to learn more. We’re happy to tee up a call. Happy Wednesday, ya’ll. ———— Please consider ♻️ with founders in your network. As early stage founders, we at times, are a problem away from sinking or propelling forward.

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In the past week we’ve made a whopping $0 at Venture House…and I couldn’t be happier. We’re doing things a bit differently and thought I’d clarify our approach: We started Venture House as a go-to resource and community for rising VCs. Every piece of content is free. Memberships are free. The events we host are free. Yet, every conversation inevitably ends with… “So how are you monetizing this?” Classic venture response to any idea 😂 but that’s the problem. Venture House ISN’T a traditional business. We don’t measure ourselves on MRR, CAC, LTV, pipeline, etc. Our North Star metrics is simply: Did we add value today? Is this sustainable? Heck no. But the people we meet, the connections we make, and the value we add is immeasurable. Cold hard cash is great, but sometimes it’s not the end goal. (With this all said I’m accepting Venmo payments to fund my lavish East Village lifestyle) #venturecapital #community #startups #founders

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Just shipped this week's Diaspora.nz podcast with Paul Copplestone, founder & CEO at Supabase. We talk about: ⚡️why open source is an unfair advantage — as a product development strategy, supercharging recruiting, and helping build customer community. ⚡️how they are building the end-to-end tech stack for AI startups — seeing many customers grow into the millions of users in just weeks, growing to be one of the most tagged products by makers on Product Hunt + most redeemed Y Combinator “perks.” ⚡️raising $116M, and scaling to ~80 people in 30+ countries over the past 4.5 years, operating as a distributed + asynchronous team. ⚡️building three startups over nearly a decade living in South East Asia. Subscribe + listen links in comments below👇 Subscribe at diaspora.nz for weekly episodes 🎧👈

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"Pivotting" is a term bound around the startup community frequently. One of the most relevant references that we often hear about is Slack, who raised money for a video game called Glitch and then shut it down to build what we now know as Slack. However the pivot doesn't necessarily have to be a big bang moment it can be something as simple as iterating on an idea. It is fairly common in startups. The process of “idea iteration” A company that is not quickly ideating, rapidly learning and changing assumptions in the early days may not be moving fast enough. But in my opinion this is also relevant for larger companies. A lack of innovation and idea iteration (amongst other things) is what saw the demise of the likes of Blockbuster, Kodak and Blackberry. When we first started Boodil our focus was heavily weighted towards ecommerce payments, developing integrations into all major platforms including Shopify, Woo, Adobe Commerce and Aero Commerce. However we very quickly realised that when a customer was presented with an array of payment options at the checkout from Apple Pay, BNPL solutions and Paypal it was a very difficult battle to try and convince the customer to pay via Boodil’s PaybyBank solution. This left us with a small percentage of the overall checkout volume. We shifted our roadmap to start building more useful technology around the open banking infrastructure and developed out a series of tools that enabled businesses to collect payments in a fairer, faster and more cost effective manner. One part of this was our payment portal enabling merchants to send out payment links via email, SMS or embed into an invoice. This has been a pivotal shift in the business and even though we still work with hundreds of ecommerce businesses our focus has pivoted to making it more seamless for businesses to collect payments. A pivot is just a change in strategy without a change in vision. #payments #openbanking #startup #business

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Just posted a half baked idea on X - and shot my shot to one of the startup founders there Am thinking this demo day will have both talent looking for their next thing in startups, and VC’s as well Kind of like a demo day + mixer of sorts Asks: 1) Who wants to team up with me to execute on this? 2) Where should we host it? 3) Who should I invite as a startup founder or VC ? 4) Which community builders should I connect with? DM me or comment below This is more a weekend project, side thing

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🚨 Announcing the 2nd cohort of the FundraisingHackers.com “Seed+ bootcamp” we’re hosting together with Slava Solonitsyn (ex-VC and top YC founder, $180M+ raised), read below. A few weeks ago we ended the 1st cohort and it truly was a blast 🎇 14 startups across Seed, Seed+/Series A stages (and US/Europe/Asia) participated, including YC alums and exited founders. A bunch of them have already successfully raised. Some are in the process right now. Some have postponed their raise saving them a bunch of time/nerves not spent on failed fundraising. This pic is from the final workshop we’ve hosted. If you’re fundraising (or planning to in the next 3-6 months) you defo wanna check this out. This is not a course — we’ve already outsourced our “parallel fundraising playbook” (comment with “playbook” if you want the link). Instead, we provide you with a deep dive into YC-style best fundraising practices and give you a supportive environment to go and raise, period: 1. Share the “off the record” ins and outs of the parallel fundraising playbook with real-life examples/stories we’re never going to share anywhere else publicly 2. Help you understand your momentum and fundraising timeline so as not to make the wrong (too early/too late) decision 3. Provide you with an accountability group of peer founders (your first taskforce members if you don’t have any yet!) 4. Help you to refine your story/narrative and pitch materials to meet the expectations of top VCs 5. Work through your challenges/questions during office hours/group workshops 6. Give you access to our exclusive FundraisingHackers.com workspace with tons of useful content: from investor databases to guides, tools, templates, and much more Places are limited and you can get in on a first come first serve basis, so hurry up and apply, link is in the comments.

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