There are some core elements that will show you an investor is a red flag. Number one, they put an exploding term sheet on the table. What does that mean.It means there's an expiry to their offer. Very often, it will be very close to when they give it and it's trying to force you to make a decision before you can actually consider it properly. Again, this is a marriage.No marriage should be made in terms of decision under forced or constrained timelines. ...

You know, if you're a 25-year-old recent grad from an elite university who is perceived to be an AI expert, you can get a $50 hundred million pay package right now. And if you are a brand name that everyone recognizes your name, you can get a billion dollar pay package right now for a single individual. I think they're symbolic of this sort of desperation in the ecosystem where it's like we need to ek out progress.We need to prove that all these investments are worth it. And I think there's this logic that ...

The best trade of 2025 was the AI power trade. A lot of Wall Street people made a lot of money betting on the fact that power was going to be the constraint and we're going to move away. You know, you hear Sam Alman now talking about gigawatts every day.He's not talking about dollars anymore, right. So, we're moving away from dollars and we're moving toward gigawatts. And I think that transition has fully happened in the last. ...

I do think we're in an AI bubble. You can see the fragility. Everybody can see the fragility.The thing that I think is more interesting is who's going to survive the bubble. Consumers of compute benefit from a bubble because if we overproduce compute, prices go down, your COGS goes down, and your gross margin goes up. The lesson that punches you in the stomach in venture is you can't make a company succeed.How would you respond to Sequoia were asleep at the wheel when it came to defense not being in Helsing ...

One of the most powerful UGC strategies actually that I've seen is turning UGC into a whitelisting ad strategy. So for those who maybe aren't familiar with the concept of whitelisting, it's essentially where you work with a third party who's not necessarily directly employed by your company and you can actually promote your content directly through their account. There's a lot of benefits to doing that.Firstly, that it feels less salesy when it's not you that's talking about the product that's at hand, but ...

The first is looking at competitors and saying, "This thing really worked well for them. Let's copy it over and do it better." You get very jealous when you look at other companies. You hear about how well they're doing and then you think, "Let's copy it." A great example is during my time at Pinterest, we were trying to solve that onboarding problem that I was telling you about earlier where Pinterest does require a bit of a shift in understanding on how to use the product because you go from local file st ...

Branding & Positioning - Early-stage companies should avoid overly narrow market segment focus in their branding and positioning [1] - A more horizontal value proposition allows for multiple entry points to attract different customer segments [1] - Targeted entry points, reflecting specific use cases, can effectively engage customers [1] User Behavior & Conversion - Over 50% of users arriving from specific landing pages navigate to the homepage as their second action [2] - The homepage plays a significant role in driving overall conversion rates [2] - The homepage boosts conversion rates by showcasing the broader product value proposition [2]

All the other music startups based in the US got strangled at BERT by lawyers because it was all about IP property rights and little old Spotify got going in a bunch of European countries that let's be frank your average big five record label didn't really focus on. So they got a much more attractive licensing deal while in the US all these guys were wrestling with shitty gross margins and litigation with the music companies. So they got critical mass early on, built an excellent product and then gradually ...

Market Strategy - Doubling down on the largest companies may be the easiest way to generate profits in 2025 [1] - Over-romanticizing verticals in the age of AI could lead to TAM exhaustion [1] Risk Assessment - Any deceleration due to saturation or slowdown could invalidate current estimates [2] - In a bull market, aggressive risk-taking appears smart until a crash occurs [2] - The current market environment feels exceptionally challenging [2]

Investment Focus & Market Trends - Venture Capital firms are analyzing the potential overhype in AI verticals [1] - The discussion includes the "Covid mistake" in AI investing, suggesting lessons learned from previous market behaviors [1] - The report highlights the increasing costs associated with competing in the AI sector [1] - The analysis covers whether AI markets will experience a boom or deflation, indicating uncertainty in the sector's future [1] Company & Valuation - Revolut's $75 billion valuation is discussed, providing insight into high-value startups [1] - OpenAI's billion-dollar cloud play is examined, showcasing the company's expansion into cloud services [1] SaaS & AI - The report addresses the truth about vertical SaaS, offering insights into this specific business model [1] - AI's impact on the legal industry is explored, demonstrating AI's transformative effects across sectors [1]