Romain Afflelou

🚀 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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We had Alex Norman, partner at N49P Ventures, do a Q&A for our cohort at Antler today and address our questions on finding product market fit, what traits distinguish great founders, and how to land investors. It was super insightful! These were my key takeaways: 🔸 Early founders often make the mistake of looking at each venture firm as if they are all one and the same, but that is not the case (you should look at the size of the fund, their portfolio companies, what they typically invest in, etc.) 🔸 If everyone wants to finance you, there’s probably too much competition; find angels or VCs excited about the particular space you're building in 🔸A sure sign of finding PMF is when customers want to literally rip it out of your hands (gave an example of a portfolio company which had 3000 enterprise waitlist sign-ups) 🔸 Sometimes it can be an advantage to not be a domain expert, as it could lead to more unique insights (it's easier to go against the grain of the conventional thinking in the industry) Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today Alex Norman! 😀 ----------- #startups I'm currently part of the 5th cohort at Antler Canada, and I'm sharing my learnings as a first-time founder as I go along this journey 🚗

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I was just talking to a founder about the Stella Service business model that Jordy Leiser had built--where you test the customer service experience at a brand and then charge them in various ways for the results, either showing them how to improve or licensing them a seal of approval. The founder hadn't heard of that model and wondered in what other areas it could apply--and it got me thinking about a repository of models and business structures. Has anything like this been built? Pay to get unbiased recs--a la Angie's list. Good for X, Y, and Z markets. Pros, cons. A plugin that pops up information about each site as you visit it, a la Honey, SiteAdvisor (Chris Dixon's old startup before Hunch). It would be great for founders stuck on something to be able to say I've got X, Y, and Z information flowing from here to there, and it has this criteria, or these types of community members, this kind of power dynamic, etc... What models work for this? Otherwise, you wind up with "Uber for neurosurgeons" without realizing that "Uber for" only works with relatively commoditized services.

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Pump fakes vs. *actual* signal - both can be indistinguishable to a founder but produce drastically different results. Let me explain.... In venture, a 'pump fake' results in a founder building a bespoke solution for a customer under the false pretense that the solution/product has broad applicability for many customers. Customer product requests are intoxicating, especially in PMF phase, because it makes teams feel that 'we're onto something' and there's a market for our product. Pump fakes can be company-killing b/c it sends a team with limited resources down a path that ultimately becomes dead-end with little runway to pivot. Here's how you can avoid the perennial pump fake and keep pushing forward: (1) Don't just hear the customer, *listen.* Hearing is a passive and involuntary activity resulting in zero info retainment. Listening is active and voluntary process that forces you to absorb and react to information. By listening, you're able to translate customer feedback into measured actions. (2) Speak to *many* prospective customers BEFORE you start building. This helps you internalize the true hair-on-fire problem customers are facing and filters out atypical feedback not shared by a customer cohort. (3) Understand customer nuances and recognize that not all customers are created equally. When evaluating prospects, try to understand the composition of their business (team, fundraising, revenue, ICP, etc..) to triangulate why your service is needed for a particular customer. Often times, pump fakes are missed simply due to lack of customer context! https://lnkd.in/euYZ-TKk

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Our product team at SparkLayer B2B have been on an absolute roll over the last 3 months... 30+ features published in our release notes, and that excludes all the under-the-hood improvements we’re making 👀. Many of which will help lay the groundwork for some humongous updates later in the year! Here’s just a selection of what’s fresh out of SparkLayer HQ: == Frontend experience == 🎨 Product customisations: B2B customers can now add customisations to products (e.g. freeform text) 📜 Purchase history: customers can easily see their recent order history and 1-click re-order 📊 Barcode support: customers can upload orders via a CSV file just by using barcodes == Sales agent tooling == 📅 Order history: letting sales agents keep tabs of their recent orders ⚙️ Custom settings: sales agents can set custom product rules (e.g. pack sizing) 🔍 Search improvements: making it faster for sales agents to find their customers == Order workflows == 🚦 Order approvals: company roles can be set up that limit who can/can’t place orders 👀 Order visibility: customers can now see “draft” orders placed right within their account We use the word “cadence” internally to describe how we build and release, and there’s nothing more satisfying in software than reaching a rhythm within your team. And getting stuff done! Our website only scratches the surface of what SparkLayer B2B can do and what our team delivers, head over to our help docs if you want to see what our solution is capable of!

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This is an excellent article (loong one, pls note) on a step by step guide to hitting PMF or product-market fit. Love how PostHog cofounder 🦔 james hawkins visualises PMF akin to a game, with 5 levels and how to jump levels. More relevant for B2B / SaaS founders than B2C given James' experience w Posthog. One quibble would be keeping the ICP definition process on Level 5, whereas it should be something that you freeze on with picking the problem (his Level 1) ideally. While James describes this as getting to PMF, in my #pmfplaybook this is actually PPF or product to problem fit. In my definition, PPF + MMF (GTM Motion to Market Fit) = PMF. Repeatable scaling post this stage (5 reference customers) via a scalable GTM playbook is what is truly PMF. But this is my opinion against his opinion + track record of building to $20m ARR. This is a truly masterful resource for iterating to PMF. Every B2B / SaaS founder starting out or an aspiring B2B / SaaS founder should eyeball / read this. https://lnkd.in/ghGhBn-v

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Next up in the series of posts about starting a startup for non-technical founders: 2. Finding a co-founder How do you even find one in the first place? For anyone who's tried, it's exceptionally hard. Let's start with the framework. You want to find: (a) Someone that has complimentary skills. Think one plus one equals three. (b) Someone equally passionate about the same problem. If you’re not equally excited about the challenge you’re tackling, it’s going to be hard to keep the momentum going. (c) Someone that is available - Timing. You both need to be available and ready to commit at the same time. After you go down this list, you might be lucky to know one or two people in your immediate network to work with. In terms of what you can do to navigate this stuff, there were 2 things that I thought would give me the best shot. One was immersing myself in a founder-dense environment like SF. Another was co-founder dating. The best matching platform I’ve seen is from YC. They have tons of profiles and make it simple to meet a lot of people quickly. None of this is easy, but all of it is possible. I will be sharing learnings from the process that Tennison C. and I went through (very different; I met 8 new people vs Tennison met 80 new people)—hope they’re helpful for anyone experiencing this.  --- Yesterday, we covered "Things you can’t say as a non-technical founder." For the remainder of the week, I will write about 3. Importance of a deep trial period 4. Investing in your co-founder relationship

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if you want to learn about how we built the company and what makes it unique, https://lnkd.in/eQS2VRKf is a really really well written article about us by Bill Kerr - better than what I have managed to put together so far!

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We just launched our new Fundraising Co-Pilot on top of our existing network that makes it 25x faster and more efficient for founders to identify, research, and target their most ideal investor profiles. And we're giving 2 months of it away for free to 1 founder... But first, here's how the product itself works ⬇️ 1️⃣ M.L. Investor Matching: The backbone of our platform is a network where investors interact with startups. We use the tens of thousands of unique data points that we have on our network to find the most relevant investors for your startup using a proprietary algorithm based on their thesis, the firm's thesis, their portfolio, real time activity, and much more. 2️⃣ A.I. Research Agent: The most effective outreach is well-researched and personalized. Our research agent aggregates all relevant information about an investor to supercharge your outreach so the process takes seconds as opposed to 30 minutes. 3️⃣ Getting connected: Warm intros are often the best way to get in touch with the right investors. We help you find the best way to get in touch with the right investors (warm intros or cold messages), and then help you build the actual message. 4️⃣ Tailored outbound message generation: Messages have to be highly curated in order to stand out. We've built a model that is trained on successful outreach messages, combines all the right pieces of your information and theirs (from the research agent) to help you catch the eyes of any investor. It also learns to sound more and more like you the more you use it. 5️⃣ Status management and CRM: With our integrations, we make it easy to track the status of the raise and get insights into the startup's performance. You're also fully a part of the network and can track how organic investors engage with your startup. 🚀 The coolest part of all of this is you can try it for yourself in 10 seconds. We've built it into our landing page so all you need to do is put your website link in here https://theorcanetwork.com and watch the magic happen. Customers have been loving it in the 2 days since it has launched, so we decided to have some fun with a little giveaway: 🤑 Any founder who tags another founder in the comments gets entered into a raffle where the winner will win 2 months of the Co-Pilot plan for free. That's 9 days, 17 hours, and 20 minutes saved. Tag fellow founders below to be entered! As Charlie Wehan alluded to in his post, the fundraising co-pilot is just the tip of the iceberg in regard to the future of ORCA. A lot more to come with the power of the data we're collecting and the models we're building. Stay tuned 👀

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Whether you have raised a fresh round or you're moving towards the next, #revops is what ensures you can execute on your growth, and position yourself well for the next round or exit. Our COO Joseph Zaghloul highlights the not so obvious connection well 👇

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This year is all about survival. I've seen enough data to call it. Multiple reports are showing Flat -> No growth. Wayflyer/Iris Finance report had Q1 overall growth at +4% YoY. Common Thread Collective Index has same store sales flat YoY. What does this mean? This year is about survival. The industry as a whole isn’t growing. We can blame this on whatever we want. But the outcome remains the same. Instead of obsessing about your topline growth. (Which is a steep mountain to climb.) Focusing on growing your bottom line. In a low topline growth year, spend time becoming more profitable. 100% YoY growth doesn’t do you any good if you’re out of biz in 2 years. The goal needs to be surviving to 2025. #shopify

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🚀 The State of Shipping Report 2024 is here 🚀 “There’s a pretty obvious shift towards more consumer-centric delivery. It’s all about convenience, really, and there’s plenty of great new tracking tech out there to support real-time updates and a better overall delivery experience.” Andy Evans, Co-Founder of humii We're so proud to have contributed to Shippit's landmark 2024 State of Shipping report that was just released. Download it now to unlock exclusive data and insight into what customers are asking for versus what retailers are offering. What you’ll learn:  The most important trends and innovations: Find out what delivery options, speeds and costs retailers are offering and how this has changed over recent years Key stats to support decision-making: Exclusive insights from our recent State of Shipping Survey on where retailers are investing, and what they're concerned about. Plus, we highlight key trends we're seeing based on Shippit platform data Perspectives from industry leaders: Learn from those who have taken action with contributions from our customers and partners who provide context to our findings Download for free, link in the comments

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When we asked CPG founders who they wanted at Founderland... Their answer was clear: People who can help them grow their business & achieve their goals. Specifically: - The top retailers - The most founder-friendly investors, and - Other founders they can learn from and share with This conversation that I'm hosting at Founderland is a perfect representation of this group, plus one BIG bonus. We're also including Joel Toledano and ChargeUp.ai which is one of my favorite tech companies that is supporting consumer brands today. They automate the retail deduction and chargeback process for brands, saving them an insane amount of time and money. Such a cool co. Excited to teach, share and connect...and get some deals done, while of course having lots of fun. Joel Toledano Jen Zeszut Kim Coffin Deb Conklin

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Founders, Don’t have too many divas/likes to give advice - investor types in your round. They won’t act according to their check size. They might act like they led the entire round, and you might end up having a large board dynamic at seed when you don’t even have an official board yet. Normally, one manages the investors, but more often than not, first-time founders who have yet to build confidence let the investors run their way and can find themselves with a large board dynamic, which is almost always a bad idea, but at seed when you should be building the product and talking with customers. small board => great discussion big board => E.T. wants to go home

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💲Order Legend has generated 121,502 orders worth over $7.61 million in revenue for Shopify merchants so far and counting... https://lnkd.in/ejEmV6cT 📈 Check the legends chart link above, highlighting the top 100 Shopify merchants that have benefited the most to date! This updates daily. 🤯 What did merchants have to do? A couple of clicks, mental right... Install the app, type a goal and agree to usage-based billing. We'll do everything else, including funding Google shopping campaigns with our money and running them end to end. Merchants only pay a fixed percentage on orders generated. ❓ If you know anyone running a Shopify store in Europe, they should try the Order Legend app, you have nothing to lose. #shopify #advertising #ppc #shopifyplus #marketing #marketinghack #googleads #googlecss

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Very proud moment as Parcl Labs Real-Time Rental Price Feeds are now available to trade on Parcl. 3 rental markets are now live on Parcl: 🌆 Chicago 🏔️ Denver 🗽 USA Why does this matter? It unlocks powerful new use cases: 🔓 if you rent: hedge against annual rent increases. Recent FBI raids 👀 highlight how powerless renters are to fight back against this dynamic. Not anymore. 🔓 If you charge rent: manage cash flow risk from vacancies, delinquencies, and unexpected price market changes in real-time. The foundation of all this is trusted, representative, and daily updated rental feeds. At Parcl Labs, we’ve built this using millions of daily data points, publishing a transparent methodology, and making them freely available to anyone in the world via our API. In addition to rental pricing, we provide sophisticated analytics like rental supply, gross yield, and competitive investor insights. These are the metrics that top rental operators have identified as critical for running their businesses. Now, anyone can access these powerful tools to gain a competitive edge and make informed decisions when trading, renting, or running a rental business. Real estate is for everyone. Real estate data is for everyone. Brick by Brick.

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Building a bulletproof food business doesn’t have to be overcomplicated. After 20+ years in the industry, I’ve learned that success boils down to three things: 👥 People – Build a team that aligns with your vision and values. 🍴 Product – Deliver something unique, whether it’s on the plate or in the experience. 🔥 Passion – Sweat the small stuff and never stop improving. 💡 Bonus: Technology is your best friend—use it to focus on what truly matters and stay agile enough to adapt when needed. The food business is tough, but with the right approach, it can be incredibly rewarding. What’s your biggest challenge right now? Let me know in the comments. #FoodBusiness #HospitalityLeadership #Entrepreneurship #FBStrategy

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If you're looking for VC funding in the UK, check out FundFinder.live If you're one of those people that likes to just play with all the circles on an Apple Watch because it's super satisfying, but struggle to pick one because playing with the interface is too satisfying, then maybe don't go to this website :) FundFinder has a similar interface to Apple Watches, but on web. Thank you Hector Mason, Jack Richardson, and the team at Focal for sharing this. Simultaneously showing me a very useful tool that could save me time in research, but also could waste lots of my time thanks to my brain (not sure if ADD or something else). And thank you to Concept Ventures and Justified Studio for building it. Oliver Kicks - who deserves the credit? #random #fundraising #startup #vc

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When we started Revenew the responses we were getting from platforms and marketplaces went like this: 😕 "We think we are making money on each payment" "We don't think we have any loss-making payments" "We are not sure how refunds impact our fees and margins" "We really need more confidence in the revenue stream before we roll it out fully" ✅ It's amazing to see our customers turning this around and beginning to fully own, control and improve their payment margins. The responses we are getting now are: 🤓 "How do we tweak our pricing specifically for international Amex corporate cards with a foreign currency?" "I now know who my most profitable connected accounts are and how I can incentivise them to stay" "It's amazing to identify buckets and cohorts to focus on this month to drive top-line growth" "I can now negotiate payment pricing for each account knowing their unique payment margins and mix" "We can now roll it out to the other 95% of our customers knowing they will be profitable" I can see it already in the month-over-month improvements in their payment margins, in some cases over 1% for their top connect accounts. For platforms doing between $200m-$1bn annually, this is meaningful (to say the least). To see a platform go from 😕 to 🤓 in a matter of a month is super encouraging! Revenew = Payment Margin Intelligence

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