There are 2 paths to success:

1. Be Top 1% in the world at 1 thing
2. Be Top 25% in the world at 3 things

Top 25% is achievable by most people.

The problem is most people focus on being Top 1%.

Work on combining “3 pretty goods” and stay at it.

It’ll pay off big.

There’s a lot of bad advice out there on how to pitch your startup.

Last year, I invested $1M+ and heard 200 companies pitch.

Every great pitch I've heard nails 5 ingredients.

In this thread, we'll go through each to help maximize your chances when fundraising

Let's dig in👇

1/ Every pitch should have 5 ingredients:

- Problem: Is this an issue
- Solution: Do you have the fix
- Market: Is this a big enough issue
- Business: Can you make money
- Team: Are you the people to do it

The best pitches nail all 5. Good ones hit 4. Subpar hit 3 or less.

2/ PROBLEM

The problem statement is an explanation of why a set of circumstances is painful for a set of users.

There’s one word in that sentence that is most important: painful.

If your problem is not painful enough, it's a vitamin.

The best startups are pain killers.

3/ SOLUTION

The solution statement is an explanation of how you address the pain felt by your users. If you don’t have the right solution, you won’t get customer traction.

Customers don’t buy your thesis on the pain point. They buy the actual thing that solves their pain point.

4/ MARKET

In tech, only businesses that have outsized potential get funded.

To have outsized potential, you have to either be in a:

(a) small, but rapidly growing market or
(b) large existing market that can be resegmented

If not, the business is not venture backable.

0/ Nothing pisses me off more than Lawyers ripping Founders off when putting investment docs together.

The worst part is most Investors aren’t helpful - 85% push the bill to Founders.

As an ex-lawyer, I saw all the inside tricks.

Here's how to reduce your legal bill by 90%:

1/ First, it’s important to understand how lawyers make $.

A legal bill has nothing to do with the end deliverable.

Wait what? That’s right. Lawyers make money via the billable hour.

Regardless of quality, you get charged based on how many hours the lawyer(s) spent with you

2/ The second cost variable is hourly rate.

Hourly Rate is a function of seniority of the lawyer you are working with.

Why is this important? Because the hourly rates go up FAST at top law firms.

Junior Associates = ~$400/hr
Senior Associates = ~$1000/hr
Partners = $1000+

3/ Most financings are very routine.

This was obvious at Seed (hence YC Safe), but it's also the case at A.

The problem is, as a Founder:

(a) You don't know what you don't know
(b) You don't want to mess it up
(c) You want to close fast
(d) You want to move on to your biz

4/ And that’s how you get trapped.

If you let the lawyers run it, a financing process will easily cost you $150k+.

You need to do 2 things: (1) pick the Lawyer and (2) establish the ground rules.

This week I interviewed someone who:

- Built a $1.5B company as COO
- Sold a $1B company to Microsoft
- Invested in 25 🦄🦄🦄🦄

Here’s 10 timeless lessons from one of the greatest tech entrepreneurs of our generation:

is a legend and man of many titles:

Founder, Executive, Investor, Coach, Filmmaker.

He’s also a down to earth guy that’s incredibly generous with his time.

This convo was a follow on from a dialogue we started earlier this year.

Alright...onto the lessons:

Lesson #1: Startups should NOT “do things that don’t scale”

The whole point of technology is to find an elegant, scalable approach.

The sooner you do that, the better off you are.

When you glorify doing things that don’t scale, you end up with a startup that doesn’t scale.

Lesson #2: You can’t do it alone, no matter how great you are.

To win big, surround yourself with:

A. Other greats
B. Role players
C. A system that brings out the best in everyone.

All three of these are equally important and allow organizations to thrive.

Lesson #3: Silicon Valley is no longer a place. It’s a way of doing business

20 years ago SV was the home for innovation.

Today it's now spread to many other places.

Risk Capital + Knowledge + Support = a more inclusionary and global ecosystem.

That's a great thing.

India is on the verge of a once-in-a-generation explosion in edtech.

I've invested in 2 co's that are growing like wildfire and want to do more. Let's talk if you're building in this space.

Here's what's going on and why you should pay attention now, if you weren't before:

1/ There are 5 factors that are simultaneously driving the rapid rise of edtech in India.

- Favorable demographics
- At scale internet adoption
- Deteriorating incumbent quality
- Declining budget / capacity
- Cultural relevance

Let's talk about how all 5 are interconnected.

2/ The quantum of "digital first" Indians that will need to be educated is like nothing the world has ever seen.

India has:

- 500M+ people under 25
- 125M+ English speakers
- 250M+ people that will be added to its population over the next 40 years (est. peak is 1.6B)

3/ In parallel, increased internet accessibility at very low prices has resulted in a massive surge of online users

- 830M internet users in 2021 (+83% from 2019)
- 860M smartphone users in 2022 (+84% from 2017)
- 8.3GB monthly data consumption (+100x from 2014)

4/ India's existing education system is rampant with outdated curricula, low quality instructors and inflexibility. India:

- Ranks 49/50 in higher ed
- Spends <5% GDP on higher ed
- Teaches "to the test" - the system is oriented around entrance exams

People that expect the worst of others, bring out the worst in themselves.

Whether negotiating, leading a team, or just having a coffee...expect good things.

How you approach every interaction matters. Your expectations always influence outcomes.

Hide your intentions not by closing up (with the risk of appearing secretive, and making people suspicious) but by talking endlessly about your desires and goals - just not your real ones.

By being unabashedly open you make yourself so predictable and familiar that it is almost impossible to respect or fear you, and power will not accrue to a person who cannot inspire such emotions.

Investing in stocks, startups, crypto, real estate, and whatever else can create a lot of wealth.

That's great.

But truly achieving happiness and success in life starts with one thing:

Investing in yourself 🧵

Our lives often get more hectic the more successful we become.

And it gets more difficult to justify taking the time and energy to invest in ourselves.

Instead we just focus on short term gains in our careers, often at the expense of ourselves.

This is a mistake.

I attribute a lot of my success to continuously making sure I am my best self.

But to do that well, you need to focus.

These are the categories I invest in:
1. Education
2. Physical Health
3. Mental Health
4. Relationships

If I get these things right, I know I am doing well.

1/ Education

For me, learning is about doing. That's why I prioritize having strong mentors.

Investing in your education means paying for experiences, trying new things or skills.

This investment should be in something that will have an impact, not just in knowing more stuff.

2/ Health

Health is finding a way to stay fit as your life style changes over time.

I don't do the same workouts I did in college or even the same ones I did before I had my boys.

If you don't invest in a health routine that matches your lifestyle, it's doomed to fail.

"You can define a free person precisely as someone whose fate is not centrally or directly dependent on peer assessment." - @nntaleb