pascal's notes

February 22, 2024

January 29, 2025

At startups, too often, too much of the cap table is owned by individuals who left before things started to work, causing resentment amongst the ones who made it work. Early vesting needs rethinking.

October 19, 2023

January 29, 2025

What it takes to raise capital in 2023

The fundraising environment remains tricky to navigate for startups. Frameworks, like Point 9’s renowned SaaS funding napkins, offer a good a good temperature check on the early stage funding market.

September 29, 2023

January 29, 2025

Cold Outbound is Under-Appreciated

To get to their initial B2B customers, most founders first tap into their network. That works well for some, but leads many others down a wrong path. Cold outbound is an under-appreciated alternative.

September 21, 2023

January 29, 2025

The Relationship Between Risk and Return

Howard Marks' latest memo dives in on risk / return in the world of investing. Lots of frameworks and lessons from the piece can also be applied to business building.

September 18, 2023

January 29, 2025

Supercharge your Fundraise with an Investment Memo

A pitch (intro) deck is a great tool to get into the initial fundraising meeting. From there, a long form written text document is a much more powerful tool to move the process along.

September 14, 2023

January 29, 2025

8 lessons from YC(S23)

Great read on lessons learned from YC(S23), written by a founder that just went through the badge.

August 10, 2023

January 29, 2025

Get your SaaS Startup Off the Ground

20 tips to getting a SaaS startup going - from Jason Lemkin of SaaStr.

August 3, 2023

January 29, 2025

How to Succeed with Founder Led Sales

July 27, 2023

January 29, 2025

How to Go About Customer Reference Asks

We’ve had a founder ask us at what point during a diligence process with a VC is it the right time to make customer introductions and how to best go about it? Here’s my take.

July 20, 2023

January 29, 2025

It's tough(er) out there for "red ocean" startups

Red vs. blue ocean describes whether a startup goes after a crowded existing vs a “new” market. What bucket the startup is put into has big implications re what's needed for fundraising, selling, etc.

July 13, 2023

January 29, 2025

Write like an Amazonian

Amazon is known for its writing culture - they famously banned powerpoint and force everyone to write 6-page memos for meetings. It's an incredibly powerful tool. Here's how they write.

June 30, 2023

January 29, 2025

Diligence at the Pre-Seed

Every pre-seed fund goes about their diligence differently. Yet, there are common, "more tactical" areas that matter to most and relate to the financing, cap table, etc. Make sure to get these right.

June 22, 2023

January 29, 2025

SaaS metrics 2.0

Read Kyle Polar's piece on "Your guide to SaaS metrics 2.0 - the case for next era metrics playbook in the age of product-led growth".

June 15, 2023

January 29, 2025

3 areas where founders must leverage Gen AI

After diving in, I'm even more convinced that if founders are not thinking about how to boost productivity + create better products for their customers leveraging Gen AI, they will get left behind

June 1, 2023

January 29, 2025

The power of spaced learning

Within two days of learning something new, we only retain ~1/4. This includes products and brands. Spaced learning is an incredibly powerful tool to combat this.

May 25, 2023

January 29, 2025

Intensity beats strategy

At startups, turning up the intensity will far outweigh a shift in strategy almost every time. Here's why...

May 18, 2023

January 29, 2025

What's your "Popsicle Hotline"?

In a world saturated with choices, how do you stand out as a startup? One way is to craft unique, defining moments such as the "Popsicle Hotline". Let me explain...

May 14, 2023

January 29, 2025

150+ places to launch your product

There are lots of places to launch a product but not all are created equal. Figuring out what works best for your target customer / audience is key.

April 20, 2023

January 29, 2025

Cut Through The (Inbox) Noise

Everyone is just an email away. The problem: Most cold outreach emails suck! A well written email can go a long way - here's how I think about writing an email that stands out.

April 15, 2023

January 29, 2025

Two Great Reads

As I spent the week on the road, I'm sharing two great quick reads instead of writing my own newsletters. Both I highly recommend thinking about as an early stage founder / operator.

April 6, 2023

January 29, 2025

Lessons Learned From Two Startups

I came across a Reddit post from a 2x tech founder/CEO. He wrote down what he learned across the two startups. Lots of great lessons for others to learn from.

March 30, 2023

January 29, 2025

Fundraise Deliberately

Don't enjoy fundraising? You're not alone. Unfortunately, if you want to make it far as a VC backed startup, you have to master it, there's no way around it. Deliberately trying to get better pays off

March 23, 2023

January 29, 2025

Tell Me How You Work

Stripe, Netflix, Hubspot, etc are doing it and so should you - even as a small startup: Have everyone write a "working with me" guide. Its benefits are vast, especially when you start scaling.

March 16, 2023

January 29, 2025

Keep Calm & Communicate Well

We all just went through a crash course on crisis communication. Witnessing many founders do an exceptional job at it, I captured what stood out in terms of great crisis communication.

March 9, 2023

January 29, 2025

Your #1 Job: Don't Run Out Of Runway

A startup CEO's most important job is to not let the company run out of runway. Easier said than done - especially in today's fundraising market. Here are ways to make more with less.

March 2, 2023

January 29, 2025

What can you help me do better, right now?

I argued against bringing on advisors for early startups to focus on angels instead. If you still want to add them, then read today's post. It discusses when to consider them & how to best go about it

February 23, 2023

January 29, 2025

Angels > Advisors!

Adding advisors early on rarely adds much value to your startup. Oftentimes, it's even a net negative. Rather, bring on the right angels. It aligns incentives better and is a much stronger signal.

February 18, 2023

January 29, 2025

Our breakup message is SO successful

Cat Noone, Co-Founder & CEO of Stark, shares her breakup message and the why behind its success.

February 9, 2023

January 29, 2025

Send A Breakup Message

We’ve all been there: You had a great meeting and follow up promptly. Then a second follow up. No response - getting ghosted sucks. What now? Send a breakup message!

February 3, 2023

January 29, 2025

Execution Trumps Strategy

Spinning your wheels? Not moving as fast as you like? Thus eager to pivot to “the next big thing”? Sounds tempting but don’t be too quick to do so - great execution compounds!

January 27, 2023

January 29, 2025

Sell The Value, Not Your Product!

When articulating your product’s value proposition, focus on “what value are your customers buying” vs. “what are you selling to them”. Sounds obvious? Reality shows it isn't.

October 8, 2021

January 29, 2025

Price Before Product

As an early stage startup, understanding your customers' willingness to pay should happen as early as possible. Ideally, before you even start building your product.

June 18, 2021

January 29, 2025

Speed Is Your Greatest Ally

Today’s insight is from: Ron Goldshmidt, the Chief Revenue Officer and co-founder of Briq, a startup building the construction data cloud and a new way to look at financial data in the construction industry. Briq’s clients are among the largest builders in the world and use Briq to drive their processes and decision making. They also just raised their $30M Series B lead by Tiger Global (we are proud investors in the company).

June 4, 2021

January 29, 2025

Iterate Until You Nail It Before You Scale It!

Today’s insight is from: Connor Murphy, the CEO and founder of Bridge, a startup that helps you own, build and help your personal network—starting with intros. Prior to founding Bridge, Connor was a Managing Director at Techstars and the CEO and founder of Datahug (exited to Nasdaq: CALD). On top, he’s also a prolific angel investor and writer.

May 21, 2021

January 29, 2025

As an Entrepreneur, Nurture Your Brain, Body and Soul Like an Elite Athlete

Today’s insight is from: Lizelle van Vuuren, the co-founder and CMO of Undock, a startup that provides the fastest way to find time and meet with anyone – i.e. the super calendar with scheduling that works like autocomplete. Lizelle is also the founder of Women Who Startup, a learning community for female entrepreneurs, and Mile High Tech, a community for all things entrepreneurial and tech in Denver and Colorado.

May 7, 2021

January 29, 2025

Forget MVPs, create Minimum Lovable Products

Today’s insight is from: Cat Noone, the co-founder and CEO of Stark, a startup that aims to make the world’s software accessible to everyone. More than 500,000 designers, developers and product managers at companies of all sizes use Stark’s integrated suite of tools already to make their software products more accessible and compliant. Cat is a product and design expert as well as a prolific writer herself.

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