James Saulsky

🤨 What do I look for in co-founders ? 🤨 This is the question I get asked the most often, and I (finally) have a good answer! At Hexa, I partner with entrepreneurs ~3x/year, a CEO and CTO for each project— essentially “marrying” 6x/year to build the best partnerships. I look for 4 key traits in my co-founders ⤵️ ⚡️ Energy booster Building and growing a company is about convincing people to follow you—investors, clients, team members—and the person’s natural energy is a key factor in achieving this. I call these people exothermic: they move things around them simply by the energy they exude. How do I test this? I need to feel more energized at the end of a meeting with them than I did at the start. ⏰ Sense of urgency The higher the velocity in a startup, the faster it will grow. Having a deep need to act and get things done sets the fast-paced tempo I’m looking for. 🧑‍🏫 Thirst for self-improvement Founders who are constantly looking to improve by proactively seeking feedback and showing vulnerability have an endless strength to overcome the (inevitable) challenges of entrepreneurship. 🏋️‍♀️ Commitment Being a founder means making your company part of your top priorities, it’s a journey that’s all-consuming. If you believe you embody these traits and are ready to build a transformative company, let’s connect!

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One of the biggest challenges for improving performance on Meta is teams beeing held accountable for daily (and sometimes hourly) results. This isn't enough time to try new strategies or products. So by optimizing towards a daily ROAS goal in the short term, might hurt performance in the long run as you could be missing out on new solutions.

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🚀 Attention Founders: The Power of Pro Rata Rights 🚀 Having been on both sides of the table - as a VC and a founder - I can't overstate the importance of pro rata rights in seed-stage investing. Why it's a win-win: +It keeps early believers invested in your success 🤝 +It helps maintain a balanced cap table 📊 +It can lead to smoother future funding rounds 💰 Why it's a pain for founders: -Later-stage investors may try to block seed investors' pro rata -Founders need to manage this dynamic carefully! As you navigate your funding journey, remember: fair terms build lasting partnerships. Maybe this round is hot, but what about the next when you need an extension? Keep your earliest supporters close and bought in! Go deeper into this topic with Scott Orn, CFA's insightful article - link in the original post. #StartupStrategy

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Looking for VC investment in your Open Source based company? this is what is important says Maxime Corbani #opensource

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Sifted just released their list of the most promising SaaS startups in Europe. https://lnkd.in/erxJRGzi If you are looking to leave your corporate job for a startup but aren’t sure where to get started, do this. 1. Look at sifted lift of promising startups and pick 10 that really interest you. 2. Based on your skill set, use linked look up the lead of the department you think you would be interested in. For example, if you want to get into sales then look up the VP of sales. 3. Send them a DM on why you want to work for the company and what impact you could have in your first 100 days working there. Don’t send your CV until asked for it. 4. Follow up diligently every few days. If after the third try, no one has got back to you, move to the next 10 on the list. It sounds simple, and it is. Recruitment is the hardest thing for growth stage startups, and no one enjoyed paying 25% recruiter fees. Good luck

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I had the great pleasure of having lunch yesterday with Xavier Lefevre, the former lead PM of Inato. He's starting a new company, in stealth mode for now 👀. And he 𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 the "test small & iterate fast" approach. So here's the thing. Xavier is a seasoned PM, and a Theodo alumni. His discovery phase has been going on for a few months and he's discovered wonderful user anecdotes (ping Steve Anavi), statistics, etc. He's developed a product concept, and shows a summary of it to discuss easily and gather allies. The summary showcases key pieces of the system, and a few key screen designs. So far, so good. But then some people would react telling him “Oh wow you've got everything you need, you should release a single feature, see how it goes, you'll learn a ton. Don't stay in analysis paralysis! Test fast and iterate, dude!” [full disclosure, they probably didn't say “dude”] So Xavier carefully explained that he wants to test his 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺, not a single component. And he was met with disbelief. Yesterday at lunch, he was expressing his frustration with the “test & iterate” approach. When it came to his concept, I found it amazing, and couldn't help but notice a few gaps in the way he was 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 his product aimed to resolve and how, not in his “testing” approach. At the end of our lunch I said, “Look, I think the crux of the issue you're encountering is about basic stuff—PDCA” (Plan - Do - Check - Act/Adjust). I took some time out to think and then we had the exchange I share (with Xavier's full permission) below. If you don't read French, here's the transcript: — Xavier: Thanks for this exchange, refreshing challenges that change the classic: test small & iterate fast — Flavian: oh yeah, super cool! — Xavier: When you want to innovate and be ambitious, when you don't want to get stuck into a local maximum (😉 ), you need to adapt the definition of “small” and “fast”. — Flavian: in fact, I don't even think that's the question. — Flavian: A high iteration speed is a good thing, as long as the problem is well-defined. — Flavian: Frame the problem with care, test small & iterate fast, adjust accordingly — Xavier: even then... you have to define “iterate”, because it can help you learn about the problem. — Flavian: yes it's the adjust phase — Flavian: The point is that the initial frame guides the experimentation and makes you look at the thing differently. In the end we converged: → 𝗔 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲. A good frame includes at least: the emotions, the performance, the target cost, legacy & heritage considerations → 𝗔 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗮 “𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 & 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲” 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁, as the frame guides how we're looking at the experiments and what we learn from them. This is Xavier's point on the "local maximum". What do you think?

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Insightful look into bioplatform strategy, and what it takes to raise a Series A from my partner, Omri Amirav-Drory: https://lnkd.in/dFv7GbF6

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one of the weirdest learnings I think a lot of first-time founders go through: startups are usually more about avoiding innovation than innovating when i first started a company, there were soooo many decisions to make and each one felt like an opportunity to do things better/different/our way/galaxy brain: - every product feature (obviously) - what software to buy - comp philosophy - how we run meetings - how we make decisions but treating every decision as an opportunity to be different is (a) exhausting and (b) introduces so much unnecessary risk. startups are already risk, why introduce more risk unless you're super confident? rule i try to use: innovate AS LITTLE as possible. conserve innovation. only innovate when it aligns with the fundamental bets of your company.

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Thrilled to finally reveal the launch of FlexAI, led by the incredible Brijesh Tripathi and Dali Kilani, which just raised a $30M seed round to make AI compute infrastructure more efficient and accessible to everyone. Our investment thesis: 1. Strong macro-tailwinds - Compute for AI is a mature market with sustainable demand growth from new models over the next years - But the compute demand is already exceeding data center capacities and supply of GPUs, creating a supply constraint for Nvidia’s top units - AI model development is attracting large amounts of funding, much of which will be dedicated to computation and costs/performance will matter more and more. 2. The need for a European AI infrastructure - Compute power is high on the geopolitical agenda. Who will control AI will control the world. - European AI model companies rely today on US-based hardware and US-based cloud providers to build "European" AI models - If Data sovereignty and security matter, then there is an urgent need for a European AI compute platform 3. An exceptionally skilled team to build this European AI compute platform - Brijesh has built customized systems and hardware for AI use cases at NVIDIA and Apple before, and designed + scaled compute systems for autonomous driving at Tesla and Zoox, as well as with the Intel super-compute platform - Dali has a demonstrated track record of executing and delivering both hardware and software projects, and leading engineering teams (this is the second time we back him, not a coincidence!) - both have known each other for a long time and worked together at NVIDIA. have built GPUs themselves and were there when Apple and Tesla decided their launch their own chips for the exact same reasons (cost and performance trade-off + reduce dependency on third party suppliers). - They have already demonstrated the strength of their network by signing key partnerships even before product launch and have assembled Tier 1 advisors around FlexAI. Thrilled to be partnering with Alpha Intelligence Capital, Heartcore Capital , Elaia , Frst and Motier Ventures to build the AI compute infrastructure the world needs, made in Paris (with love). https://lnkd.in/e3aXXZSB cc Partech

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Why does YC keep talking about "launch early, launch often"? By default.. people don't know that you exist. It's your job to be the squeaky wheel, and let people know "HEY I EXIST", "HEY I CAN SOLVE YOUR PROBLEM" You may have seen my many posts talking about Skyvern hitting star count numbers Those didn't happen out of the blue. We kept launching, and launching, and launching. Trying to spread the word about us. Trying to learn about which use-cases we're best suited for. Trying to solve anyone's problem! Not all of the launches were effective.. but if you're curious about all the launches we've done, get ready. 1. (Pre-idea) November: I cold emailed ~100 different founders that had talked about web-automation in random online forums -> Led to our first customers + 3 pilots (and tons of lessons) 2. (First launch) January: Launched with a barely functional API and a landing page to the YC Community -> Led to our second customer and a very important disqualification criteria: we don't automate tasks on LinkedIn 3. (Second launch) February: Did our first public launch via Launch YC with a slightly more featured API + landing page -> Led to a lot of prospects we couldn't serve (healthtech companies) -> Gave us conviction that we should open source 4. (Third launch) March: Open sourced + did a ShowHN (anyone can do a ShowHN) -> This is when we first felt market pull. Our product was still just an API (no UI) with a demo that disqualified anyone who didn't want to work with startups. This went viral -- we got to 3K Github stars + we got a handful of new customers 5. (Fourth launch) June: We shipped a MVP of Skyvern Cloud (with a UI) and launched on Product hunt -> We got a handful of inbound leads but ended up #10 on the day and didn't generate much interest 6. (Fifth launch) October: Launched Skyvern Cloud on Hackernews -> went viral again and went from 6K -> 9K github stars in 4 days. Made it to #1 on Github trending daily + weekly. You'll notice that as our product got more mature, we started launching less frequently. This is because the gaps in our product became more and more clear as we talked to more users. This meant that we had market fit, but not product market fit. We still needed to iterate on the product This was obvious before the launches though.. so why launch early? Well.. more often than not, our customers ended up caring about features we thought were unimportant (ie cancelling tasks), or some features (instant live-streaming) ended up being way more important than others (debugging workflows). How would we know precisely what to build without this feedback?

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We're thrilled to announce that MedScout has closed a $15M Series A funding round led by Fulcrum Equity Partners, with continued support from our existing investors, Stage 2 Capital and LiveOak Ventures. After three and a half years of working closely with over 100 companies, we couldn't be more excited about reaching this milestone. From day one, our vision has been clear. If we built the platform that every medical device sales rep in the field NEEDED to have, everything else would fall into place. This new capital allows us to bring this vision to life in ways we've only dreamed of until now. In our search for the right partner, we wanted to work with a team that deeply understands both healthcare and vertical B2B SaaS. Fulcrum fits the bill perfectly. Having Philip Lewis and Jason Moore in our corner, with their invaluable experience from Stratasan, Florence Healthcare, and other ventures, changes the trajectory for our next phase of growth. Reflecting on the journey so far, I'm so damn grateful. I'm thankful for each of the talented individuals building their careers with MedScout. I fundamentally believe startups are a team sport, and I'm proud of how this team supports each other and our customers every single day. I appreciate all of the companies trusting us with their sales enablement needs and every rep who's taken the time to give us feedback. They've taught us invaluable lessons about commercializing medical devices and what it takes to make an impact within healthcare. The guidance from our board members - Mike Marcantonio, Venu Shamapant, Mandy Cole, and Anubhav Maheshwari - has been incredibly instrumental as we've navigated building a venture-backed company. Finally, I'd be remiss not to acknowledge Parker Chase-Corwin, Mike Boyden, Mike Moore, Lisa Bichsel, Paul M. Edwards, Charlie Whelan, J. Scott Heinzelman, and everyone else who has lent their time and expertise along the way. As we embark on this next chapter, we're committed to pushing the boundaries of what it means to commercialize medical technology. Every advancement we make in our ability to turn complex data into clear insights and powerful tools not only improves sales processes but also helps ensure that life-changing medical innovations reach patients more efficiently and effectively. I'm more excited than ever about this mission and can't wait to see what the future has in store for MedScout. https://lnkd.in/g8xUYzA7

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Lots of misconceptions about what product-led growth really is. So I sat down with the man himself, Wes Bush to go deep on: - what PLG really means - Who it's for (and who it's not for) - How you can think about implementing a true PLG motion in your business. Even if you're sales-led today, this is a great listen cause it talks to the psychology of a buyer a lot. https://lnkd.in/d4VvJmru

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【My 1st startup: Sharing the 12 reasons why I failed】 Reflecting on my failures from my first idea as a first-time founder, I've come to realize that there are common mistakes that many startup founders make. Despite reading books and watching videos on entrepreneurship, I made a critical mistake that I thought I could avoid. However, it's hard to change the dynamics once something starts moving forward like it's hard to fix the dum once the water starts pouring out. As a fresh college graduate and first-time founder, there were many things I had yet to experience as an entrepreneur and business person. I used to be ashamed of the mistakes I made, but I've learned that these mistakes have been methodized because it's hard not to be aware of but not to fall into. Now, I'm not ashamed of my path because I learned a lot from my experience, not just from books or YouTube. I'm working on my next idea, and I'm open to collaborating! My new idea is related to toilets - the Lux Porta Potty for VIP outdoor event-goers. Check out the link for more details on my experiences and why these things happen. We never have a 100% success rate, but I believe I can do better 100%. I embrace and appreciate my failures and all people who have offered to help me and given an advice! I'm not giving up, and excited for the next one! This is the link to the 12 reasons why I failed! You can read more details about why/how happened in my case while I highlighted each title here. I hope this will help as a future reference for another first-time founder, and help get rid of the stigma of sharing own failure. https://lnkd.in/gbQsBkf3 Project Management Learning 1: Have a trial phase and set the reasonable (SMART)GOAL (and set traceable actions) Learning 2:Setting Weekly Goals and Reflections Learning 3: Preserving the Trajectory of Ideas Team Learning 4: Building a Team Based on Needs Over Skills Learning 5:Don’t be a president (Having Mentors, Bosses, and Advisors who check on you regularly) Sales Learning 6: Overcome Shame, Rejection is a good opportunity to learn Learning 7:Sales, Sales, Sales: Get the first deal to build confidence!  Learning 8: Highlight the reason, not the emotion. “Go talk as a customer” Product Learning 9: Don’t start building. (Even if you know this word) Learning 10: Drawing Insights>Pitching Idea Learning 11:Building a Community from Potential Customer Interviews Decision Making Learning 10: Conduct User Interviews with Co-Founders (Big Impact on Decision Making) Learning 11:Don't Trust 'Likes' from Entrepreneurs and Investors: Prioritize Real User Needs and Payment Willingness Learning 12: The Pitfalls of the Tarpit Idea

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Learn how to fine-tune your product to meet market demands with strategic customer conversations and data-driven feedback mechanisms 👇 ➡ 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗲: Brian Long, CEO & Co-Founder at Attentive 🔌 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗿: Nick Moran, General Partner at New Stack Ventures and Nate Pierotti, Principal at New Stack Ventures ✏ “The Playbook to Finding Product-Market Fit, When Founders Should Begin to Scale, and Lessons from Building Attentive” ⭐ 𝗦𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗮𝗺𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀: 💬 "I think that what we got right were two things. One, I think that we talked to a tremendous amount of customers, before we started building things. So we learned to hear their problems, hear their issues, and then start building and assaulting those, you know, rather than kind of just jumping right into build-build-build, so that saved us a lot of time." ⭐ 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸, 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗯𝗶𝗮𝘀: 💬 "I think you're also looking at things like NPS, you know… because if that number starts dropping, it's often because you're no longer solving the problem." ⭐ 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴-𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺 𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆: 💬 "I think that we've taken an even longer term focus. We know what can be big. And we know it's dangerous to start getting an ego to think you can do things because it's always very hard. You've always got to think towards taking a longer term view, having a thesis around that view, and then understand how the pieces can come together for success." ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

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IT IS TIME *Rafiki voice* Skio is growing (nay, DOUBLING) its partnerships squad: 1 -> 2 Here's the TL;DR on who I'm looking for: You LOVE putting points on the board. 3+ years in quota-carrying roles in the Shopify ecosystem (Saas, agency, merchant) You're a power prioritizer. There is always a gazillion things going on. It's your job to understand where the leverage is, what is truly urgent, and respond + place bets accordingly You have a "win together" mindset. Internal partnerships are as important as our external partnerships You get energy from being around people. Shaking hands and IRL meetings are natural for you You nerd out about product and can wrap your head around the technical bits. No expectation that you can code but you'll be speaking with dev teams regularly. This is actually about empathy and understanding how product translates into value for your partners You're a great writer + comfortable creating content. You will be communicating with partners over Slack, email, in private newsletters, in ebooks, and LinkedIn posts/DMs every day. It helps if writing comes naturally. Expect limited marketing support Sound like you or someone you know? Apply here and share this with your fav partner people :) JD: https://lnkd.in/e5EXBvdW

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Big News: Stellar is launching a game-changing product for startup CEOs and CPOs. Let me explain. I share a strong belief with Stellar’s CPOs (co-founded by Timothe Frin of the podcast Clef de voûte): Product is a discipline meant to serve the business. This sounds obvious. And yet, Product is still seen as theoretical and secondary by many European startup CEOs. Many leaders believe Product: * Is based on abstract methods * Forces its rules onto other teams * And is a job without tangible ROI. This perception won’t change without concrete arguments. When Timothe Frin and David offered me to help build a set of measurable indicators to track the Product’s impact on business growth, I immediately said YES! Here’s their idea: Build a set of measurable indicators to track Product’s impact on business growth. Just like what exists for Sales or Marketing teams. The goal? To raise awareness among executive teams in tech companies about Product’s potential to drive growth. After 6 months of hard work, Stellar is now exclusively launching its first product: the Stellar Health Check (SHC). With the SHC, startup founders can assess their Product function's health within 10 minutes. Right afterward, they’ll know: * If their organization is performing * If their processes are effective * If their product truly supports their business * What changes to prioritize * And the potential gains for key business metrics. The Stellar Health Check has already been tested and approved by 30+ startups, including Maze, Livestorm, and Ornikar. It’s the first product created by CPOs for CEOs. Stellar’s ambition? To make it a go-to tool across the European tech ecosystem. Are you a startup leader looking to test your Product function's performance? Sign up here to try it out (100% free): https://lnkd.in/e2GZgfPD

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Anne Sraders at Sifted reported on the results of a new survey from the publication that found 44% of startup founders score their investors a “1 out of 5” on helpfulness, saying their relationships with their VCs have gotten worse in the last 12 months. 👫   So, what’s driving the reported decline in these relationships? According to the survey, economic constraints seem to be behind it all – with investors asking founders to cut costs and trim staff. According to the survey, founders are also looking for help with go-to-market strategy and support for managing mental health concerns.    With these pressures weighing on founders, working with the right people is more important now than ever. Having a mentor to guide a founder through this landscape, who is there for them through thick and thin and knows what it is like to be in their shoes, can be a game-changer. 🏃‍♂️   These mentors can provide expert guidance on managing the relationships between a startup and a VC by leaning on their expertise and knowledge of the global startup ecosystem. Tenured entrepreneurs guiding rising entrepreneurs can give founders the resources they need to make their startup successful. 🚀   What is one piece of advice you wished you were given when starting your entrepreneurial journey? Leave some advice for your fellow founders in the comments! 👇 https://lnkd.in/d2mn2YMm #VCs #Startups #Founders

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Before becoming an entrepreneur I worked as a ski instructor in the Swiss Alps. Teaching people how to navigate difficult slopes taught me one thing: → Trust is EVERYTHING. Leading a remote team is no different: - You have to trust your team’s ability to navigate their work. - You can’t be there to hold their hand, but you can provide guidance. - Trust allows everyone to take ownership and succeed. Just like on the slopes, remote work requires clear communication and confidence in each other. How do you build trust in your team? 🎿 If you enjoy my content, follow me, Keilian Knudsen for more content like this.

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Simple, and very clear advice from Harry. This will also drive your focus on the right thing: what should you prove during this funding iteration to be ready for the next one (or default alive so you don’t need more money)

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