Tim Grassin

Most Pioneer Fund companies send monthly updates (some quarterly), and we read every update across the portfolio of 500+ companies. I actually still personally read every update. Most startups send updates with these sections, and it works well: - High level metrics (revenue, maybe another key metric or two like GMV or MAU, growth since last month, cash in bank, burn rate, runway). Many of the most consistently-growing or fastest-growing companies also include a revenue graph. - Highlights - Lowlights - Investor asks - Maybe a couple investor shoutouts from last month - Some short commentary on what the current priorities are, what's coming next, etc. Some founders like to include a special section or two. A few of my favorites: - Photos or videos of technical progress for hardware companies - One of our founders sends a self rating on a scale of 0-10 for the month, along with detailed explanation. Pretty impressive. - A zoomed out view of how the mission/vision/strategy is specifically evolving - Some have very detailed additional sections that are specific to their business. E.g. manufacturing updates, distribution updates, regulatory updates, etc. Each investor update may only take a few minutes to read, but they are the summary of the hard work of an entire team for an entire month, often fighting uphill or sprinting downhill or exploring the idea maze. We're always grateful reading them.

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Yesterday I reviewed 2 pitch decks for investment. Here’s what I learned: A good friend sent me two decks from promising startups based in Asia. Both had potential, but they were at very different stages, with unique challenges and opportunities. The first one was a telemedicine startup that caught my attention right away. I’m familiar with the telemedicine space, especially in Eastern Europe, where I’ve seen several founders develop strong solutions, and I’ve even invested in a few. What makes this one stand out is the massive market potential. The only red flag was the current revenue, it seemed a bit unclear, so I’d want to dig into the details there. But if everything checks out, this could be the kind of business I’d love to invest in. Pro Tip: Always make sure your revenue story is crystal clear. It’s a key factor investors will look at, so don’t leave any room for uncertainty. The second deck also had strong potential, but it raised more questions. My main concern was their go-to-market strategy, especially given the scale of markets they’re trying to penetrate. It’s going to take a really solid plan and execution to get this right, and I’d want to see a more detailed roadmap before making any decisions. Pro Tip: A great product is only part of the equation. A well-thought-out go-to-market strategy can make or break your success in large markets. Both startups show a lot of promise, but as always, the devil is in the details. Whether it’s refining revenue communication or crafting a clear go-to-market strategy, these are areas founders can’t afford to overlook. P.S.: We just launched a free pitch deck guide. It’s meant for entrepreneurs looking for help with building a pitch deck. You can get it on my profile!

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I just set up Relay.app to sync our portfolio database at Tiferes Ventures from Notion to Airtable on an ongoing basis, and it took me less than 10 minutes to set up and test! The challenge we were having is that our source of truth for this data is in Notion, yet some of our team need to operate out of Airtable. I tried setting up a data syncing solution but was having technical difficulties and the solution was charging $99 per month...This morning I remembered that Relay.app recently added a trigger to watch changes in Notion database pages so I figured I'd give it a shot. In less than 10 minutes I had the full solution live and tested! Check out this simple automation below which saves us hours of manual data entry every month and saves us $99 per month. 💪

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The Ultimate Cheat Sheet collection for SaaS leaders & Founders - by Vencha, Included #VC & Notion Capital Here you have 15 cheat sheets on marketing, sales, fundraising, pitch decks and more: 💵 How to price and package your software ? 🎢 The 5 prospect stages 🚀How fundable is your company? 💸 Leadership transitions at different stages of business growth 🎯 SaaS monetisation in 8 steps 🕹️ Identifying your market: TAM, SAM & SOM demystified 🛠️ How to skyrocket SaaS sales? ⚖️ The ICP Grid, goal setting and how to prioritize ? #Fintech #saas #CheatSheet #isaphr #isapone #isapsolutions #starthubagency #isapinvestments www.isap.group www.isap.one www.isap.hr www.isap.agency www.isap.investments iSAP Solutions ltd iSAP ONE iSAP.HR StartHub.Agency iSAP Group Investments ltd Tino Herold

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Founders: Learn to say "tell me more." When faced with challenging questions or negative feedbacks in a meeting with an investor or a customer, or when in a tough negotiation, your instinct will be to respond and counter immediately because you don't want to look bad. Don't do that. Instead, say "tell me more." In most cases, such challenging questions or negative feedbacks are only a very small expressed part of the entire context. By saying "tell me more" you can extract more context behind them and better understand what that someone on the other side of the table really wants to know or concerns about, and it will help you regain the control over the conversation. Especially with investors, if you're a seed-stage company, most of the seed-stage VCs ask challenging questions just to see how you can clearly and logically think and respond as we understand that you may have to change your strategy, product, etc, going forward. In tough negotiations also, even when some things seem non-negotiable with the other side, there are alonost always second best and third best alternatives which you could find simply by saying "tell me more." Of course sometimes those tough questions, negative feedbacks or tough negotiations are the indicator of flat-out 'No’s.' But in such cases, just by simply asking them to tell you more, you’ve just - at the very least, learned a new perspective. So learn to say "tell me more."

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[Minimax Strategy] A Startup's Secret to Surviving Uncertainty. Startups face high risks—product failures, cash flow issues, competition. The key to thriving? [Minimax] A decision rule focused on minimizing the worst-case loss. Rather than betting on the best possible outcome, the minimax approach urges startups to protect against catastrophic failures. Here’s how to apply it: [Identify Worst-Case Risks] Cash flow problems, market rejection, etc. [Minimize Exposure] Keep overhead low, validate early with customers, and diversify revenue streams. [Plan for Scenarios] Consider what could go wrong and create contingency plans. [Iterate and Adapt] Stay flexible to re-evaluate risks as the business evolves. By focusing on minimizing potential losses rather than chasing big wins, startups can ensure long-term survival. [even in the face of uncertainty] This approach isn’t about eliminating risk; it’s about being prepared when things don’t go as planned. #StartupTips #MinimaxStrategy #RiskManagement #Entrepreneurship

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Learn from OpenAI’s playbook: Prioritizing key projects and empowering a mission-oriented team are essential for startups aiming to make a significant impact 👇 ➡ 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗲: Sam Altman, CEO at OpenAI and Brad Lightcap, COO at OpenAI 🔌 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗿: Harry Stebbings, Founder at 20VC ✏ “20VC: OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Brad Lightcap on The Future of Foundation Models” ⭐ 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗔𝗜 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝗮 𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗱 𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲: "There are two strategies to build on AI right now: [...] (1) to assume the model is not going to get better and then you kind of build all these little things on top of it; [...] (2) to build assuming that OpenAI is going to stay on the same rate of trajectory and the models are going to keep getting better at the same pace." ⭐ 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗮 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀: "At any given point in a company's life, there's only one to three things that really matter. And that spills over into how we run the team because [...] if we can align on what those things are, [...] then it helps me to translate down to the teams that I'm building." ⭐ 𝗘𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗔𝗜 𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆: "I think people criminally underrate how important it is and how much return you really get on just giving people access to the technology. [...] Someone who used to spend two days doing something now spends two minutes doing it and is freed up to do 85 other things in their daily life." ⭐ 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆'𝘀 𝗳𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻: "I watched what has happened to other tech companies when they just become the place you want to work because it's a good resume item. [...] I think companies that lose their mission orientation and get taken over by mercenaries usually come to regret that." ⭐ 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮𝘀 𝗼𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘂𝗻𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲𝘀: "Find a way to make sure that there's this very flat and even playing field when it comes to how you look to the team for perspective, decision-making, judgment, and creativity." ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

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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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Good framework on SaaS valuation

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Valuing Pre-revenue Companies One of the most common questions that every founder has is: How do investors value pre-revenue companies? Even most angel investors are not aware of the factors leading investors consider when valuing pre-seed or seed-stage startups. If you have similar questions, check this guide by Kauffman Venturing to learn about how to value pre-revenue companies... 👇 Check out my free newsletter for more insights: https://lnkd.in/eggvJJRE . #startups #vc #funding #valuation #founders #investors #venturecapital #founder #startup #startuptips

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Valuing Pre-revenue Companies One of the most common questions that every founder has is: How do investors value pre-revenue companies? Even most angel investors are not aware of the factors leading investors consider when valuing pre-seed or seed-stage startups. If you have similar questions, check this guide by Kauffman Venturing to learn about how to value pre-revenue companies... 👇 Worth a read! 💫 Check out my free newsletter for more insights: https://lnkd.in/d3QaTQwC . #startups #funding #founders #fundraising #money #founder #investors #invest #valuation #value #fund #investment

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A lot has been said about PMF—Product Market Fit, which is about having a product (or service) that the market repeatedly buys, recommends and from which you make money. However, there is a second type of PMF—Product Marketing Fit. Let's call it PMF2. PMF2 is when you devise a marketing or sales plan that at least brings your one-year LTV divided by CAC to 1. That means when your one-year sales value (including repeats from the same cohort), say it's Rs. 1000 from a cohort, your CAC for that cohort should also be Rs. 1000. Even better, if your CM1 from the sale is Rs. 400, then your CAC for that cohort is also Rs. 400 or lesser. However, most founders struggle with this; their CAC is too high to give the all-important CM1 (for the year)/CAC = 1 From what I have seen, there are three big causes: A. They are impatient and don't realise that buying is a journey. They put out offers and other ads, pushing people to buy. They set up "sales" campaigns on online platforms. While this produces some quick wins, it causes CAC to remain high: because CPA performance is low! The correct approach is to take customers on a journey known as AIDA: Awareness Interest Desire Action At the 1st stage, Awareness, you make customers aware of the problem they have: for example, your smartphone is too slow. Next, at Interest, you deepen that message: Expert opinions on what could be done with a faster smartphone. Then, at Desire, you get them to the point where they really want the product: testimonials from people who benefited from the faster smartphone. Lastly, at Action, close the deal by giving them an offer, or addressing objections they may have: Smartphone with 0% EMI (BTW, Apple got AT&T in the US to bundle the iPhone with their subscription plan and that is what made it a huge hit). B. Extensive research shows that people need to see your message 16 times before it registers! Till then your brand is invisible. Not keeping this in mind, many marketers try and close the message with just a few exposures. Even when using AIDA, less than 16 is too few. C. Many marketers stick to a single type of media. Such as Digital. Even worse, they may only use one channel, like Meta. Yes it's easy, load up some creatives and let the algorithm do the rest. Result: High CAC. What is needed is a multiple media approach: Digital, TV, Billboards, Event, Newspapers, etc. Hope this help. Good LuCAC ! Ps. The above with suitable tweaks works great for B2B as well

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What is the common point between Instagram, Delicious, and OpenTable’s growth strategies? They all used the “thin edge of the wedge” strategy, popularised by a16z crypto’s Chris Dixon. "Good startups think about the whole wedge from the start. They build an initial user base with simple features and then quickly iterate to create products that are enduringly useful, thereby creating companies that have stand-alone, defensible value." #oldbutgold #venturecapital #startups

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99% of VC will pitch to their investment committee. This is why knowing this is a game-changer: When you get to a later stage in the fundraising process. An investor will have to pitch internally to their IC. All to decide if they want to give you a term sheet. Now... Not everyone in the IC will have seen you before. So a VC has to create an "IC paper" to give a run-down of their thoughts on you and your company. This will have thoughts on why they are excited. And also why they are anxious. This can be a game-changer for how you pitch yourself to investors. Because having a IC paper example to look at before your fundraise allows you to see how an investor: - Analyses you - Gets excited to invest into you - Speaks about your company internally Luckily for you: I am giving an example away for free! All you have to do is: → Like this post → Comment "Memo" → Connect with me And i'll send you 100+ examples of it! Let me know what you think.

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Want to know why your search across ecommerce and product led sites sucks now? I spoke to a former alibaba and gojek lead engineer and found out why. Investment Asian investment streams are forecasting for a down market. Keeping users on site longer inflates usage numbers and vanity KPIs to potential backers Audience Forcing users to put more complex queries in searchbars as opposed to allowing a simple size/review/location filter, allows them to store, disseminate, repackage market data and sell to businesses. making you flip through dozens if not hundreds of listing's until you find something suitable Product lanes Basically this looks at previous queries and tries to force purchase of a higher priced item similar to the one you were searching for. Again disregarding filters, in this case sort by price or review Previous search Wishlists and previously searched items will continue to bombard you until you wipe your saved items and cart. Even so earlier searches insert into new searches even if completely different from what you're looking for (TEMU and Aliexpress). Dark social, tiered pricing and just frustrating experiences are on the horizon with Facebook and Amazon following many of these emerging trends. Thankfully I adopted for functional minimalism years ago.

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Founders, if you are having trouble selling your product, you don't need to immediately pivot your product. Instead, I recommend pivoting your goto market first. Check out the video below to find out how.

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🔥 tracking all open calls for startups 🔥 Generate hot leads on autopilot 2x a day 🤖👇 We used to pay a team of people for this - but the turnaround was never so fast! This is a trigger-based workflow monitoring all the open calls for startups from accelerators, VC funds or corporates looking to join acceleration programs or innovation challenges. There is so much opportunities for startups every day! The workflow, powered by N8N, Apify, and our proprietary APIs and outreach platform, is designed to: -> Monitor feed for any relevant keywords -> GPT-4 summarize and decide if relevant or not -> Push notification to Google Chat or Slack -> Turn relevant posts into leads -> GPT-4 rephrases the post -> Find the most relevant people to contact -> Add relevant leads to an always-on campaign -> Waterfall Email enrichment -> AI-personalized outreach -> Rotate multiple inboxes and go low volume for best deliverability Tomorrow, I'll be hosting a workshop at The Marketing Festival, where I'll be excited to teach people how to build trigger based - AI-powered workflows like this one. Do you WANT a blue-print how to build workflows like this? 👇 —> COMMENT to get a template —> Like it /repost if you want to see more content like this

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Startups are PASS/FAIL Garry Tan spitting truth: People playing startup house think “build a demo” or “get a first customer” is some sort of check mark in order to join a club or pass a test Do you understand starting a company is do or die? Either your product is something people want or not. We want you to make a great demo or build something awesome not as check mark on the way to something. Either you make it or you don’t. There is no other bar to hit. Those things we want you to do are literally the necessary steps it will take to win in a market. Startups are pass/fail.

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Analysis on YC's first-ever fall batch? - Record-breaking growth: First batch in YC history to achieve 3X revenue growth during the program - Strong returns: Previous batches show impressive multiples (15.7X top decile, 8.9X top quartile) - AI revolution in full force: 80 out of 93 companies building with AI/ML - B2B dominance: 74 companies focused on business solutions - Developer-first: 24 companies building developer tools Key insight from YC President Garry Tan: "We're in the middle of the Revolution... we haven't seen years at YC like 2024 before with this kind of Revenue growth." I'm going to be sharing more insights in my newsletter, if you want to be added, reply and I'll message you :)

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