Justin Gorriceta-Banusing

After starting Zoko (YC W21), I quickly noticed how much opportunity exists to build multimillion-dollar startups by solving simple problems. These are problems that people claim to have solved and others believe are solved, but not really. Here are a few examples (with 8-figure potential for builders): → Cold email at scale We spent three months figuring out how to send 20,000 cold emails per month reliably into inboxes. We can now do it. But it's a house of cards built on multiple domains, careful send limits, and complex tracking and forwarding - too complex. There's gold in simplifying this process for startups. → SEO basics Every startup needs it, no one wants to do it. Automating the grunt work of technical SEO - setting headers, writing meta descriptions, structuring content - could be a huge business. It's not sexy, but it's necessary. LLMs open up a huge opportunity for this. → User management Login systems, user roles, permissions - it's a headache every startup faces. A lot of it is solved but its still deceptively hard. A plug-and-play solution could save countless dev hours. Its still not easy as starting an email account. → International payments Outside the US, it's a mess. We had 80% failure rates with some payments outside USA. A reliable, global payment solution with flat fees is a unicorn waiting to happen. → Internal tools Retool hit $1M ARR with just four people. Every startup needs custom internal tools but hates building them. None of these problems are obvious from the outside and still not easy as starting an email account. You only spot them when you're in the trenches, building a company. They are ubiquitous but fleeting pain points. That's why I always tell aspiring founders: Don't overthink it. Start building. The best startup ideas often come from solving your own unsexy problems.

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Western founders in Asia, stop making this 1 mistake. It’s sabotaging your startup's growth. Your marketing materials are all in English. This is a trap I see a lot of foreign founders fall into. I made the same mistake when we launched TendoPay in the Philippines. Our sales reps spoke Tagalog to leads, but all our marketing content was in English. We thought it gave us more ‘control.’ The result? - Limited market reach - Weak brand connection - Lost opportunities with non-English speakers We wondered why our marketing ROI didn’t match our expectations. And in places like Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia, you need to do more to penetrate the market. Here’s the solution: 1. Localize Your Content → Translate all your marketing materials. → Hire native speakers for accurate translations. → Make your message relevant to the local audience. 2. Understand the Cultural Context → Get familiar with local customs and holidays. → Adapt your campaigns to align with local events. → Show respect for local traditions and build stronger connections. 3. Build a Localized Team → Hire sales reps fluent in the local language. → Enhance communication and relationship-building. → Encourage using local sales practices. Follow these steps and watch your brand go from an outsider to a local favorite. SEA founders, how have you approached localization? P. S. If you need guidance in navigating the startup scene in Southeast, comment below or (preferably) shoot me a DM and let’s talk.

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While some VCs may scoff at this strategy, it's actually an interesting one for emerging Southeast Asia where most of VC investing has been likened to "small- to mid-cap PE investing" (s/o to Dmitry Levit). Big opportunity for VCs that bring operator and PE chops. https://lnkd.in/g7N9tYfT

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#TechCrunch2024 Day 1 Recap! It was everything I hoped. Started the morning strong with a track session. ↳ Then headed straight to the TechCrunch event. And it did not disappoint. Highlights included: 1) Insights on scaling startups with world-class leadership by Clayton Bryan. 2) And maximising investor relations with Brent Murri. 3) Watched M C Spano own the stage on the Startup Pitch Battlefield. Also had the pleasure of having lunch with the amazing Semra Ezedin; ↳ Great convo; even better company. → Attended FOUR post-event networking parties. → Booked meetings with 3x people. → Got in a driverless car to get to an event. (yes they exist, and it was like something out of a sci-fi movie!) I'm so ready for Day 2. #TechCrunch2024 #StartupLife #Networking

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UPDATE: For anybody who hasn't received the link: https://bit.ly/3XF773C Raising funding? Here’s an alternative.  +200 Non-VC Funding Sources for SaaS Founders With a list of:   🔹 Accelerators 🔹 Incubators 🔹 Crowd Funding  🔹 Angel Investor Groups Here’s a sneak peek: 🇺🇸 Lair East Labs: 10-week accelerator program for US startups accessing Asian markets, with access to Silicon Valley founders, mentors, and investor networks experienced in Asian markets. $50k investment accelerating 10-12 startups yearly. 🇺🇸 Halo Incubator: Incubator program for early-stage female entrepreneurs, offering mentorship and education on business plans, strategies, and raising capital. 🇺🇸 MassChallenge: Non-profit accelerator program for high-impact, early-stage startups. Accelerated 2.3k startups, 136k jobs created, $2.7b total revenue, and over $5b raised to date. 🇭🇰 Brinc: Global venture accelerator program for tech-focused startups, offering support, mentorship, and investments. 🇧🇷 Wow Aceleradora: Brazil’s largest startup accelerator with over 153 startups, 380 investors, R$53M invested, and 13 exits. 🇳🇱 Rockstart: Early-stage accelerator-VC for agrifood, energy, and emerging tech startups, providing access to capital, market, and expertise through mentors, partners, corporates, and the wider Rockstart network with over 350 startups and €1.3bn value. 🇺🇸 Start Engine: US leading equity crowdfunding platform, hosting over 1.1k successful funding rounds with a community of 1M strong. 🇺🇸 Atlanta Technology Angels: Non-profit angel investor association investing in early-stage tech startups in Georgia and the Southeast. 🔍 Discover the perfect funding match: 🔹 Filter sources by type and location. 🔹Transparent fees and pricing on crowdfunding platforms. 🔹 Gain insights on offerings, including funding, mentorship, legal support, office space, and demo day opportunities. And even direct contact information! Interested? Comment 'FUNDING,' and I'll send you the full list (more countries covered!) Credit: Dan Martell Want to reach out to these investors with a clear, solid pitch? Let's talk! Book a call here. #Startups #Investing #Fundraising #Entrepreneur #Business

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YC Series A Term Sheet Template Below is what a Series A term sheet looks like with standard and clean terms from a good Silicon Valley VC. Bracketed items (besides the names of the company and lead investor) are always or frequently negotiated. Items not in brackets are sometimes negotiated, but this has more to do with the idiosyncratic features of the company or the situation, and generally aren’t terms that parties intend to heavily bargain over during the negotiation. ~~~~~ ♻️ Found this helpful? Repost it so your network can learn from it, too. And follow me, Fazlur Shah for more content like this. #startups #entrepreneurship #venturecapital #investing #finance

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If you want to see a startup's development, this is pretty cool chart. It shows the development of Mental Fitness of the spring cohort for our longest customer (over 300 ppl per cohort). More dark green = higher impact on mental fitness This is the value of constant interation and development:)

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I’m going to invest $27M into early-stage startups in the next 6 months. 45 companies. $600k per investment. 🚨 Big problem statements 🚨 Sector agnostic  🚨 Building in Southeast Asia 🚨 Pre-launch, pre-seed, and seed funding 🚨 Open to individuals who are still ideating, as well as, companies with co-founders that are already building - - - If you’re still ideating, comment "STEALTH" below and I'll message you. If you’re already building, comment "BUILD". Include the country you’re building your company from. If you know people building the most defining technology companies, tag them below or share this with your network. - - - Antler is a global early-stage VC investing in the world’s most driven founders across 30 cities including Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and across Southeast Asia. By investing from day zero, we are the earliest backer for startups as well as a long-term capital partner that provides follow-on funding of up to $10M for growth-stage startups at Series A and beyond. Want to reach us sooner? In addition to the above, connect with us at antler.co/apply

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Founders: Can I interest you in lunch on us? Yes, we’re back with another ecosystem initiative from Tin Men Capital Namely: TINFLUN (There is no free lunch until now) It’ll be held in a unique format: 🔸5-6 VC funds across investment stages will be in attendance. 🔸Fundraising founders get to seat with a GP/VC investing in their stage/sector. 🔸Only 6-8 founders per table. 🔸Conversations will be had, deals could be made. The best of all? Lunch is free for founders! All thanks to our amazing sponsors. For those fundraising from Seed to Growth (Series A/B) stage, It’s a nice opportunity to meet VCs in a casual setting. Especially in the current fundraising climate where interest is tougher to find. As with any of our events typically (and even more so for this), This event on the 30th of August will likely be oversubscribed very quickly. 🥲 Bring an empty stomach and your fundraising-hat. Murli Ravi , myself and our other participating VCs Hsu Ken Ooi , Arshad Chowdhury , Tanuja Rajah , Karan Mohla look very much forward to see you there. P.S. Will leave the link in the comments - more info there. Credits to John T. for the funky name.

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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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🔥 Attention: Visionaries & Builders in MENAP region 🔥 🚀 This call is for all Aspiring VCs and Angel Investors in the MENAP region! Are you ready to level up your Venture Game? Join us for this value packed, invite only, 2-part Masterclass - Venture Investing for Angels - where we’ll dive deep into the essential principles of venture investing. Gain insights that can save time, money, and risk as you navigate this exciting space! Masterclass Details: 📅 Dates: December 13th & 14th @ 4pm (KSA/Egypt), 5pm (UAE), 6pm (Pak) & 9pm (SG time) 📍 Platform: Zoom 🎙 Host: Angel School 🤝 Partner: YouPitchLive Register Now ➡ https://lnkd.in/gsR38CB7 Jed N. who is the founder of Angel School is a self-taught angel investor with 2x unicorns in his portfolio and millions invested, He’ll share his top strategies: 1️⃣ First Principles of Angel Investing 2️⃣ Venture Math Essentials – Fundraising, Dilution & Valuations 3️⃣ Startup Evaluation Frameworks – Making confident, data-driven decisions Don’t miss out on building your strong foundation in venture investing. See you there! Register Here ✅️ https://lnkd.in/gsR38CB7 #startups #angelinvestors #venturecapital #vc #angels

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I never understand people who argue about PMF vs distribution and pick a side. While both are important, preference of one over the other majorly depends on the market for early-stage startups. For example, if a startup is in a crowded market, say beauty for example, then its positioning and market reach are more essential, even before the brand/products are launched. People today have hundreds of known options and would most likely not buy from an unknown beauty brand making distribution less relevant. Apart from market size, market sentiment is also key. For instance, beauty brands in the 70s focused a lot more on product innovation and quality, surviving the test of time till this date. In this case, the market responded better to distribution because it was backed by reliable R&D. Thus, PMF vs distribution is an entirely subjective argument so do what makes the most sense for your market and users.

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BUILDING ATHENA.VC IN PUBLIC DAY 4 So I’ve hit the wall with these daily vlog style videos and I need to change tactics. After getting a ton of positive response from Day 1 and 4,400 views Day 2’s views dropped to 1,900 views, that video shared the results of the Day 1 video on Linkedin, Tiktok, X, and Youtube shorts And the Day 3 video only got 1,300 views. That one was more tactical and educational - it was a tutorial on how I make these videos - so I thought it might do better but it didn’t. Looking at this chart I made, I’m seeing a downward trend so yeah I’m going to change things up. I will say Day 3 did the best on tiktok, it got 14 likes and 4 saves vs 3 likes and 0 saves so the educational content with relevant hashtags clearly works better. The really concerning thing is that the average watch time on that 60-second video is still only 7 seconds. So they’re clearly not providing enough value. Also these videos take about 3 to 4 hours each, that’s a lot of investment for diminishing returns. (Today’s video took 1.5 hours to make so that’s a step in the right direction.) I will keep posting every day but I’ll edit less so I can give myself more time to spend with the Athena founders themselves. I also want to start posting about the startup course itself, how it works. It’s definitely different, paying founders to innovate so I’ll go into that. So keep on following, and I’ll see you at the mountaintop, Jeff #buildinpublic #athena_vc #videoproduction #startups #venturecapital

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🚀 Just completed the Startup Muster survey, and I encourage every founder to do the same! ✅ This survey is crucial for gathering valuable insights that can benefit the entire startup ecosystem. Yes, it takes some time to complete, but the data we contribute will drive meaningful change and support for our community. Let's give back by investing a few moments to make our collective voice heard. I'm excited to see the results and the impact they’ll have on our industry. Let’s make sure we’re all represented! #StartupCommunity #FounderInsights #GiveBack #StartupMuster Murray Hurps

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#TISeed #ImpactBillionsRevenueTrillions #SanjayBhargavaMentoredFund Sanjay Bhargava is on the scaled up disruption path again. I have known him for more than 13 years of more than 20 years, since he and his better half Anita came back post the PayPal buyout in 2002 by eBay. For me the couple has the flavour of Don Quixote, wanting the Muskian Mars-shots on Earth ! They have involved themselves in IAC ( India Against Corruption), Anita has been involved in Clean Up Delhi campaigns, been shadow Municipal Councillor to see how Indian Bureaucracy stymies much progressive movement but then both worked on setting up International Innovation Corps (now headquartered in University of Chicago), to help top bureaucracy get talent from top US & Indian universities to envision & implement big transformations. They were involved in setting up Bharosa Club along with their son and his partner, to encourage direct selling and transparent data analysis of mutual funds. Now Sanjay is going solo. He wants young teams anywhere to attempt impact disruptions of planetary scale, and willing to put 100,000 USD of his own, help raise the other 400,000 USD and mentor through governments and his networks, these pilots. And he desires to see teams from anywhere in the world, working on all sides of the Economic & Social Pyramid, across geographies to build a Balanced Sustainable, Healthy and Prosperous planet, inspired by the Gita, he doesn't care if he succeeds but he is going to do his bit. And the prosperity index for him includes good health of both it's peoples and nature. He believes the world can live better lives with lesser consumption. These are the top professionals, who have seen the West & East and want the enterprise pathways out of the ideological & geopolitical impasses. And what are the ideas that will get this support? There are many trillion dollar impact ideas possible from any domain. These examples are just pointers. Poverty Eradication Not Just Alleviation: Reimagining responsible credit, welfare, and UBI Target: 1B+ users, $10+ ARPU Global Youth Platform: Serving the 18-45 demographic Focus: Community and global prosperity Target: 1B+ users, $10+ ARPU Sustainable Employment: Bridging global labor market inefficiencies Solving worker surplus/shortage mismatches Focus on scalable, ethical solutions Smart Villages: Innovative rural development Climate change mitigation Replicable, customizable solutions Investment Focus Focus on trillion-dollar impact potential Deep involvement until Series A AI-powered solutions for global scale Sanjay's Track Record : PayPal pioneer (Employee #7 at X.com) Former Country Head, Starlink India Led Citibank's growth from 1% to 36% market share in Thailand Scaled Citibank India to process 5% of national GDP with just 6 branches Endorsed by industry titans: Elon Musk Founder & CEO, Tesla, SpaceX Reid Hoffman Co-founder, LinkedIn David Sacks First COO, PayPal

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After 1000+ user conversations over the past 3 years, 3 pivots, and analyzing signals from similar startups, Aaron Torres and I decided, after a bunch of consultations, to sunset Klotho and return the remaining funds to our investors. It came down to believing there's no market for the problem we're trying to solve that sustains a startup, and that the closest problems we could solve with a reasonable degree of risk would require a harder reset in both team and tech which means limited time. I still firmly believe in the vision - it was beautiful seeing early customers and users realize parts of it when using Klotho and InfraCopilot. I'll be cheering from the sidelines for folks looking for a way to get us closer to it. It's never a happy moment to stop a dream before it's realized, but it feels like the right thing to do. A big thank you to believers! The team, users, customers, friends and investors - everyone risks something when believing in what could be next. We are forever grateful! If you want more details, feel free to reach out - I'm happy to share more. I'll be taking a stretch of time off (first time since 2006), reading books, talking to friends, and thinking about what I'd like to do next. So if you need an excuse to re-connect, this is a wonderful opportunity <3 DMs are welcome!

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Addressing product-led growth in early-stage startups often hinges on ideation for impactful features or experiences. In my portfolio, finding the right PLG approach typically involves months of iterations. To determine if PLG is suitable for you now, consider these questions: 1. Do you deeply understand your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and their needs? 2. Is there room to improve your communication and messaging? 3. Can you craft an exceptional initial experience with your product or service? 4. Can cross-functional teams collaborate to support this strategy? 5. Does showcasing your product's value depend solely on sales efforts? If your answers are affirmative, PLG might be within reach. It's time to initiate test iterations.

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Early in my journey with Quuu.co, we had a bold vision of changing the way people share content on social media. But like all great ventures, we hit a wall. We needed to figure out our product-market fit, and it wasn't pretty. In the beginning, we thought we knew our audience. We thought we understood their needs. But the data told a different story. Customers weren’t engaging as we had hoped. Instead of throwing our hands up in frustration, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. We started talking to our users, conducting interviews to dig deeper into their pain points and needs. It wasn’t easy to hear that our assumptions were off, but we embraced the feedback. We refined our offerings based on what we learned and, just like that, the engagement began to soar. What did that teach us? Product-market fit isn't just a number or a metric; it's about truly understanding and connecting with your customers. It requires relentless conversations and a willingness to adapt. The truth is, you can’t please everyone, and trying to is a surefire way to fail. So here’s my advice: don’t shy away from hearing the tough stuff. Embrace the feedback, iterate, and pivot if necessary. Stay clear on your vision, but be flexible on how you get there. It could be the difference between fading into obscurity and creating something monumental.

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Want to take your angel investing game to the next level? Here’s how to start your own syndicate: 1. Gather your network that may be interested in angel investing 2. Create and set up your legal entity and SPV infrastructure via a platform like AngelList 3. Prepare for your first deal - discussions with the founder, collection of deal materials, confirmation of your allocation 4.. Write your deal memo, circulate the deal, collect commitments 5. Close the deal, wire the funds, and celebrate your first syndicate deal Importantly, after wiring the funds, ask the founder if you can pass along future investor updates to LPs so they can stay up to date with how the company progresses over time.

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5 Komento