We thought: we need money to build our vision, so let’s go talk to some investors.
WRONG.
Nobody gave a fuck that we needed money. We needed to prove we deserved their money.
At Udemy, we were 3 first-time entrepreneurs trying to raise seed capital. We made every mistake in the book.
We got 200+ no’s and wasted 12 months fundraising.
We eventually pulled through, just barely. 😅
This thread shares our mistakes as lessons for founders.
**Read On**
We thought: we need money to build our vision, so let’s go talk to some investors.
WRONG.
Nobody gave a fuck that we needed money. We needed to prove we deserved their money.
Few decision-makers wanted to meet with us.
We should’ve stopped there.
If getting meetings is hard, it will take you forever to raise.
Instead, spend your time building product + getting traction.
Learn to understand and appreciate investors. Follow them on Twitter, listen to podcasts from @HarryStebbings or @eriktorenberg.
An investor's job isn't easy.
They only win if you become a billion dollar company.
Don’t kid yourself - if you aren’t the right fit, bootstrap.
Risk-adjusted, bootstrapping can make you happier and more successful.
Investors don’t give a shit about next year. They care about the next decade.
Paint a picture of 10 years in future: how will the world be different and how will you build a $1B+ business?
Everyone said no except one Turkish billionaire.
Don’t trust Turkish billionaires. Don’t trust any investors who are outside of the Valley ecosystem.
The billionaire ghosted us.
We had made a huge mistake: we didn’t launch! Investors could smell our launch anxiety and didn’t invest because there was no traction or urgency.
Show the investors you’ve got chutzpah. Press the button.
🚀
We were on top of the world, and sent some follow-ups to investors.
They didn’t care.
Don’t succumb to SV hype - investors are (mostly) smarter than that.
Simple: we found true believers. @darian314 and @bubba put their name behind us after watching us for a year.
There is a “whisper network” amongst investors: they all share notes. If you want to raise a round, get into the network.
Once you get your first yes, close everyone else quickly. If you have a good first investor, you should be able to close the round within 3-4 weeks.
Keep everyone updated with your progress, create momentum, and close as fast as possible.
For practical stories about entrepreneurship, join my newsletter at https://t.co/ZIqQt0cadZ
More from Startups
.@zapier built a $140M ARR business on $1.4M in VC that has become the logic layer of the no-code industry.
But it has the potential to be something even bigger: the Netflix of productivity.
Our report and a thread 👉
We believe @seqouia and @steadfast got a good deal buying into Zapier at $5B.
We value Zapier at $7B based on:
- 30-50% YoY growth over the next five years
- Zapier’s monopoly status in the solopreneur/SMB market
- 30-40% YoY growth of no-code TAM
No-code is huge and growing, but as @edavidpeterson has written, no-code is about more than tools: it’s about a philosophy that emphasizes interoperability and customizing your software to your needs.
https://t.co/UJY6BRtXwl
.@zapier enabled interoperability by building a solution to one of the intractable problems in SaaS: APIs that don’t talk to each other.
The product took off and hit $100M ARR in just 9 years, comparable to companies that have raised 100x as much money.
https://t.co/0Thk42eRpJ
Zapier was riding an explosion in APIs that started the same year they were founded—2011.
Suddenly, every SaaS business wanted to offer its users extensibility, but not spend time figuring out what integrations to build or building them.
That’s where Zapier came in handy.
But it has the potential to be something even bigger: the Netflix of productivity.
Our report and a thread 👉
We believe @seqouia and @steadfast got a good deal buying into Zapier at $5B.
We value Zapier at $7B based on:
- 30-50% YoY growth over the next five years
- Zapier’s monopoly status in the solopreneur/SMB market
- 30-40% YoY growth of no-code TAM
No-code is huge and growing, but as @edavidpeterson has written, no-code is about more than tools: it’s about a philosophy that emphasizes interoperability and customizing your software to your needs.
https://t.co/UJY6BRtXwl
Trying this on for size\u2026
— David Peterson (@edavidpeterson) January 14, 2021
\u201cNo code\u201d isn\u2019t a coherent category. It\u2019s a design philosophy.
But tools built with this philosophy in mind will be the biggest winners of the next decade.
Let me explain what I mean by way of analogy.
.@zapier enabled interoperability by building a solution to one of the intractable problems in SaaS: APIs that don’t talk to each other.
The product took off and hit $100M ARR in just 9 years, comparable to companies that have raised 100x as much money.
https://t.co/0Thk42eRpJ
Ever notice that Zapier is doing $100m+ and has no direct competition? Found their niche and crushed it \U0001f44c
— Tyler Tringas (@tylertringas) November 7, 2019
Zapier was riding an explosion in APIs that started the same year they were founded—2011.
Suddenly, every SaaS business wanted to offer its users extensibility, but not spend time figuring out what integrations to build or building them.
That’s where Zapier came in handy.
if you are a software engineer, this is your call to arms 👇
when we put our Fast Checkout button on websites LOTS of people start using it to buy things
our goal is to put out Fast button on EVERY website in the world
the speed of our growth is primarily limited by our engineering resources
we already have some of the best in the world, our VP of engineering built much of Apples identity infrastructure before building Uber's new commerce stack
we engineers who have spent decades among the earliest engineers at LinkedIn, Nest, Google, Cisco, Lyft, Uber & more
our team have built identity, commerce and payment systems that support BILLIONS of people, and they are now building the next platform to do that: @fast
we have a chance to fix commerce, to fix the way the internet works, for BILLIONS of people
we need more help, we need your help
there is not often an opportunity as big as this, make the best career decision of your life and get ready for huge professional growth
reach out to us:
@domm @PeterGrassi1
[email protected]
[email protected]
let me pitch why you need to join 🚀
when we put our Fast Checkout button on websites LOTS of people start using it to buy things
our goal is to put out Fast button on EVERY website in the world
the speed of our growth is primarily limited by our engineering resources
we already have some of the best in the world, our VP of engineering built much of Apples identity infrastructure before building Uber's new commerce stack
we engineers who have spent decades among the earliest engineers at LinkedIn, Nest, Google, Cisco, Lyft, Uber & more
our team have built identity, commerce and payment systems that support BILLIONS of people, and they are now building the next platform to do that: @fast
we have a chance to fix commerce, to fix the way the internet works, for BILLIONS of people
we need more help, we need your help
there is not often an opportunity as big as this, make the best career decision of your life and get ready for huge professional growth
reach out to us:
@domm @PeterGrassi1
[email protected]
[email protected]
let me pitch why you need to join 🚀
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Recently, the @CNIL issued a decision regarding the GDPR compliance of an unknown French adtech company named "Vectaury". It may seem like small fry, but the decision has potential wide-ranging impacts for Google, the IAB framework, and today's adtech. It's thread time! 👇
It's all in French, but if you're up for it you can read:
• Their blog post (lacks the most interesting details): https://t.co/PHkDcOT1hy
• Their high-level legal decision: https://t.co/hwpiEvjodt
• The full notification: https://t.co/QQB7rfynha
I've read it so you needn't!
Vectaury was collecting geolocation data in order to create profiles (eg. people who often go to this or that type of shop) so as to power ad targeting. They operate through embedded SDKs and ad bidding, making them invisible to users.
The @CNIL notes that profiling based off of geolocation presents particular risks since it reveals people's movements and habits. As risky, the processing requires consent — this will be the heart of their assessment.
Interesting point: they justify the decision in part because of how many people COULD be targeted in this way (rather than how many have — though they note that too). Because it's on a phone, and many have phones, it is considered large-scale processing no matter what.
It's all in French, but if you're up for it you can read:
• Their blog post (lacks the most interesting details): https://t.co/PHkDcOT1hy
• Their high-level legal decision: https://t.co/hwpiEvjodt
• The full notification: https://t.co/QQB7rfynha
I've read it so you needn't!
Vectaury was collecting geolocation data in order to create profiles (eg. people who often go to this or that type of shop) so as to power ad targeting. They operate through embedded SDKs and ad bidding, making them invisible to users.
The @CNIL notes that profiling based off of geolocation presents particular risks since it reveals people's movements and habits. As risky, the processing requires consent — this will be the heart of their assessment.
Interesting point: they justify the decision in part because of how many people COULD be targeted in this way (rather than how many have — though they note that too). Because it's on a phone, and many have phones, it is considered large-scale processing no matter what.
I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x
The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x
Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x
The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x
It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x
As someone\u2019s who\u2019s read the book, this review strikes me as tremendously unfair. It mostly faults Adler for not writing the book the reviewer wishes he had! https://t.co/pqpt5Ziivj
— Teresa M. Bejan (@tmbejan) January 12, 2021
The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x
Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x
The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x
It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x
