George Burke

Alternative Resources for founders, geared for startups with generous free tiers: 1) Papermark - Docsend alternative. 2) Tally - Typeform alternative. 3) Cal.com, Inc. - Calendly alternative. 4) Supabase - Firebase Alternative. 5) Sender.net - Mailchimp Alternative. What else are people using and loving in the founders stack?

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Launching a new feature without knowing its break-even point is like flinging cash into a void. One of the chief regrets I’ve heard from founders was the excessive amount of resources devoted to product development. In particular, developing features without adequate financial planning. Let’s talk about how to avoid this headache (and possibly a financial black hole). You’ve got a shiny new feature idea, and you’re ready to launch it. But wait—have you calculated the break-even point? 🚨 Don’t Launch That New Feature Without This Step! Imagine this: Your team spends months working on a new feature. You’ve poured time, money, and energy into its development. But months after launch, you still don’t see the expected return. What went wrong? Too often, SaaS companies dive headfirst into developing new features without figuring out the break-even point. The break-even point is the moment when your investment in a feature starts to generate profit. If you don’t know where that line is, you’re throwing darts in the dark, hoping to hit a bullseye. 🎯 The Cost of Not Calculating Your Break-Even Point 💸 Skipping this step could mean pouring valuable resources into a feature that never pays off. We’re talking about wasted developer hours, marketing budgets, and opportunity costs that could have been better spent on more viable projects. What’s worse? The financial loss could affect your cash flow, stress your team, and ultimately hinder your growth. What Exactly is the Break-Even Point? 🤔 The break-even point is when your total revenue from a new feature covers the costs of developing and launching it. This includes everything—developer salaries, marketing costs, customer support, and even the less obvious overheads like server costs or software tools. Knowing this point helps you make informed decisions about whether to proceed, pivot, or pull the plug on a new feature. How to Calculate It 🧮List All Associated Costs: Direct costs (like salaries, marketing, etc.) and indirect costs (like software and infrastructure). 🧮Estimate Potential Revenue: Have you received feedback from customers asking for this feature? Are they willing to pay to use this feature? What’s the pricing strategy? Will it be an upsell or bundled with existing plans? 🧮Run the Numbers: Calculate how many units (or subscriptions) you need to sell to cover your costs. This is your break-even point! 🧮Consider Time and Scale: How long will it take to hit that point? Does it align with your cash flow needs and growth targets? Be Prepared, Not Surprised 🎯 Before diving into your next big feature, ask yourself: “Have we calculated the break-even point?” Preparation is key to navigating the chaotic seas of growth. Knowing when a feature will start generating profit isn’t just a smart move—it’s essential. Make every feature launch a calculated, data-driven decision.

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Cannabis tech post: The cannabis industry is finally waking up and realizing the value of offering custom solutions over basic, off-the-shelf implementations. This shift is set to boost the experience for customers, patients, and companies alike. At Kief Studio, we've been championing custom solutions since our inception. As the CT🜁O, I've seen firsthand how tailored software can transform businesses. Custom doesn't mean superficial changes like swapping fonts or pictures; it means building a unique experience from the ground up, one that caters to the specific needs of consumers and employees while molding the software to the business, not the other way around. Having been in the tech industry since 2006, I can attest to the long-term benefits of this approach. Many of our clients have been with us since the beginning when we were just freelancers. A testament to the power of custom solutions coupled with exceptional training and support. It's cool to see larger companies in the cannabis space pivoting to offer custom solutions, likely in response to the growing awareness of its importance. While it may require more work upfront, the payoff is undeniable for the customer. As the industry matures, I'm excited to see how this newfound emphasis on custom solutions will improve the cannabis experience for everyone involved. It's time to do things the right way, not just the easy way. As I've said before, do your research when choosing a custom solutions partner, you'll get a good idea if they can pull it off when you ask the right questions. Even if you don't choose us for the job, we're still happy to provide consultation to ensure you get the right solutions for your company. My wife and I are not motivated by money or power, we're motivated by our core mission, we help good people do good things. The plant's ability to help people aligns with our mission. The more the better. #CannabisTech #CustomSolutions #IndustryGrowth #CustomerExperience #KiefStudio

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Venture Capital Fundraising Deck Template: Carta and Kauffman Fellows present a comprehensive venture capital fundraising deck template to guide General Partners (GPs) in attracting limited partners (LPs). Here’s what to include: 1) Background: Highlight the unique qualifications and track record of your team. LPs are investing in the people as much as the strategy. 2) Differentiators: Showcase what makes your fund stand out—whether it’s your access to networks, industry expertise, or proprietary methodologies. 3) Investment Thesis: Present your vision for the market, future trends, and how your fund will capitalize on these opportunities. 4) Track Record: Include metrics like IRR, multiples, and past successful investments to demonstrate your fund’s potential for generating returns. 5) Terms: Outline the economic terms, including fund size, management fee, carried interest, and target raise. PS. check out 🔔 for a winning pitch deck the template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel https://lnkd.in/ejp-Bhnu

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Wing Venture Capital's Founder Docs project is a unique collection of startup wisdom, by founders, for founders. The authors of the docs are talented founders themselves, sharing their experience on the topics they are most passionate about. I'd like to highlight the contributions of Edo Liberty, founder / CEO of Pinecone. Edo writes about the special opportunities for the scientist / founder (and he is one of the best of this breed!), as well as some of the risks and challenges they face. I got a lot out of reading Edo's stuff and I suspect you will too! https://lnkd.in/g_wyRMiE

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Boldstart Ventures Raises $250M for Fund VII boldstart ventures, based in Miami, US, has successfully closed $250 million for its seventh fund, Boldstart Ventures VII L.P., with support from 68 investors. Led by Founder and General Partner Ed Sim and GP Eliot Durbin, Boldstart invests early in enterprise tech founders, often collaborating with them before incorporation. The firm specializes in "inception rounds," providing initial checks between $500k and $5 million and maintaining ample capital for follow-on investments. Boldstart’s portfolio includes leading enterprise-focused startups such as Snyk, Blockdaemon, Kustomer, BigID, and Superhuman. If you are experiencing difficulties in raising fresh capital and would require warm introductions to new LPs, contact G+QUANT🤝     ▶ Please use G+QUANT's link for inquiries and fund decks, or send your inquiry to [email protected] #VentureCapital #BoldstartVentures #EnterpriseTech #EarlyStageFunding #InceptionRounds #EnterpriseStartups #MiamiTech

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At EMNLP2024 Miami next week? Join me on November 14, 2024, from 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM (Miami Time) for a Birds of a Feather (BoF) session focusing on embeddings, rerankers, and small LMs for better search. This 1.5-hour in-person session will bring together researchers in embeddings, rerankers & information retrieval; offering an excellent opportunity to explore recent advances in search foundation models, share your work with a specialized audience, and discuss emerging trends in search models in 2024. All EMNLP on-site participants are welcome to attend. Topics of interest: - Multimodal, multilingual, cross-lingual, and cross-modal embeddings and rerankers - Late-interaction models (e.g., ColBERT, ColPali) and late chunking - Long-context embedding models - Instruction-tuning for embedding and reranker models - LLM-based embedding and reranker models - Small language models for document reading - Efficient and lightweight embedding architectures, attention mechanisms - Zero/few-shot retrieval and adaptation methods - Contrastive learning approaches for retriever - Matryoshka representation learning, embedding compression and quantization - Hybrid sparse-dense retrieval systems - Task-LoRA, domain adaptation, OOD, fine-tuning for embedding models - MTEB, LongMTEB, RAG evaluation metrics and benchmarks - Embedding models for code and structured data - Privacy-preserving embedding techniques Registration link in the comment below:

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Fresh Carta data shows similar trends - longer fundraising timelines, compressed valuation multiples, and a higher bar to get rounds done. But I believe we’re turning a corner. Seeing many bright spots and plenty of reasons to stay optimistic. I think we’re getting more ‘back to normal’ after some crazy years that skewed data, behavior, and overall expectations. That said, I still believe (with some bias) it’s more important than ever for founders and their investors to find and align with long-term, relationship-focused financing partners. Again, I say this with some bias because I’m committed to and invested in helping founders and their companies with this - primarily by providing hybrid capital solutions (mainly flexible debt/credit investments) as a creative partner and complement or alternative to pure equity. I’m obsessed with this craft because, when done right, it benefits both the founders I want to support for life and their investors (and LPs). I believe this financing approach, especially debt for startups, is still underrated and misunderstood. I will continue working every day to improve as an investor and refine these solutions, which can adapt to the ever-changing market we see today, while also working to shift any negative perceptions so they aren’t overlooked in years to come. See you out there! Note: These views are my own and do not represent those of any company I am a part of.

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From documentaries to selling his first SaaS company - here’s how he did it. Jordan started DropFunnels out of frustration.  He was promoting a new documentary–and it became a full-time job. He learned:  ↳ Launching a small business is hard.  ↳ It takes 5 different software tools  ↳ Those tools don’t work well together He decided to streamline the process with 1 platform: DropFunnels Jordan’s strategy? Sell the product before building it. Here’s what he did: 1/ Launched a Facebook group of founders with similar problems  2/ Gave that community free sales funnel templates  3/ Got feedback from users in real-time  4/ Recruited developers from the group  5/ Sold DropFunnels to his community (at a locked rate for life)  6/ Used that profit to build out the company COVID struck, everyone was selling things online and DropFunnels snowballed. Jordan’s business was thriving, but he was itching to build the next thing—so he decided to pursue an acquisition with us. After a competitive process, we found the right buyer who had a plan to keep the company growing without Jordan needing to stick around. Now, Jordan is building Revatto, a tool that’s already reducing churn by 50-70% for his clients & growing 70-90% month-over-month. Jordan’s new goal? A 9-figure exit for Revatto.  Our new goal? Help him achieve that exit. Thanks again for trusting our team Jordan Mederich – cannot wait to see what you build 💪

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If you’re looking for a great way to up your fundraising game this fall, check out my friends at Socap.ai (YC W23). They’re running a 4-week bootcamp for founders, offering two tailored tracks depending on where you are in the fundraising process. It’s perfect if you need a focused push and practical advice from seasoned founders. Definitely recommend giving it a look if you’re raising this season! You can easily apply on their site. #fundraising #founders

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VC Secondaries are 🔥 (hot), but how do they actually work? 🤷‍♂️ Secondaries in venture capital/private companies have been extremely hot right now. The lack of IPOs over the past few years means there are tons of liquidity needs from founders, investors, and employees. Those of you who are part of my syndicate know that we have been increasingly active in secondary investment opportunities, buying either common or preferred shares from early investors or employees/founders. The process of investing / finding a seller is quite different from a traditional primary round of financing. The company is typically less involved in the process yet needs to approve the transaction and typically has ROFR rights (along with other major investors) who can also buy the shares from the seller if they’d like/find the deal being offered attractive. The pricing of the shares being purchased gets agreed upon from the buyer and seller, unlike a lead VC setting the pricing directly with the company. Brokers play a major role here as they typically take the lead in finding both buyers & sellers. It’s not very easy to understand who is selling, at what price, and what block size they are willing to do, therefore brokers can support all of this. In the world of running SPVs, even when you agree to a price and block size with a seller, there is more to it in closing and an extended timeline typically. It’s clear that this is not well understood among many folks, and for that reason, I am excited to dedicate a Last Money In Media post to go into much greater detail on this process to provide much greater transparency to those interested. Stay tuned - post on the secondary transaction process coming in a few weeks via Last Money In Media. -- I write Last Money In Media w/Zachary Ginsburg. We share tips/discuss all things Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) within the world of Venture Capital.

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Every VC knows 2 things to be true: 1. You must be in a winner. 2. You must own enough for it to matter. I don't think most pre-seed / seed investors make enough investments to solve for 1.

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Venture capital isn’t the only way to fund your startup. For startups with some traction and recurring revenue, revenue-based financing is a better option. So what is revenue-based financing, or RBF? Take the fictional company Acme Inc. Let’s say Acme has 1,000 customers paying $100 monthly. That’s $1.2 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), but the problem is they won’t see all that money until it trickles in over the next 12 months. This is where RBF comes in. Companies like Primary Funding Corporation and Capchase allow startups to access a portion of that future revenue by giving them a loan based on their ARR. For example, you might take out a $500,000 loan and pay back $550,000 over time, using the money you know you will get from your recurring revenue. Why does this matter? For one, it gives you quick access to capital. RBF offers founders a way to get the funds without the long, drawn-out fundraising process—no more waiting for term sheets or investor meetings. Secondly, and probably the biggest perk—you don’t give up equity. You keep ownership of your company, which is especially important for underrepresented founders. More ownership means a more meaningful exit, even if the company sells for a smaller amount. If you own 50% of your company, a $10-$20 million exit could still change your life. In Chezie’s case, we’ve taken $25k in RBF and even opened a line of credit based on the future value of customer contracts. This has helped us grow efficiently without the slow-burn of traditional fundraising and allowed us to maintain ownership over more of the company. For Black founders who face additional challenges in securing VC funding (less than 1% of VC dollars go to Black founders), revenue-based financing offers a way to grow without relying on venture capital. It might take longer to hit certain revenue milestones, but you get to keep more of your company and save more of your time. My advice to founders is not to think of VC as your only option for funding. Revenue-based financing is quick, non-dilutive, and allows you to tap into future revenue to grow your business today. This could be the key to growing on your terms for underrepresented founders especially. #startups #funding #venturecapital

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AMPLE update : Juniper Ventures Signs up to AMPLE Marketplace AMPLE : B2B Marketplace for Fresh Food. Impact Investment. See http://buff.ly/3W32D7p Steve Thomas - CEO/Co-Founder of AMPLE provides an update on a most recent business partnership: "...Juniper Ventures, which supplies over 23,000 meals daily to students in the London Borough of Newham, has become a keen buyer on the Ample Marketplace. Incorporated in April 2018 from the council’s catering and cleaning service, Juniper aims to operate with the social aspects of the local authority but with the business acumen and autonomy of the limited company that it is. Michael Hales, chief executive of Juniper Ventures and vice-chair-elect of LACA, said: “It is shocking that in the UK we waste 13m tonnes of food every year. As a hospitality business we are determined to do all we are able to help reduce this figure....".   Read the full update. https://buff.ly/3WnGEar REMINDER Ample Marketplace is a new B2B channel for unsold fresh food integrating e-commerce, logistics, and digital marketing. Ample is the UK’s first smart marketplace for wholesale food (with expansion plans for the US, EMEA and APAC). Ample creates value by shortening the supply chain, giving more control to sellers and value for buyers.  AMPLE is a portfolio company of XSS Capital. Join us on this investment journey? DM me for more info. #e-commerce #logistics #Impact Investing

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