BC VC

1/ Some signs to look for that suggest your startup equity won't be worth shit

(note: there are probably exceptions but generally, these will steer you right)

2/ Companies who talk about innovation in HR and other functions more than they talk about innovating on the product

Gimmicky isht like this is never a good sign
3/ Billion dollar valuation pre-product
4/ Mid- to later-stage company and the about us page is all about their investors

That's ok at the early stages but eventually you gotta build some shit for customers

If you're bragging about your investors at Series B, C, the actual biz model is fundraising
5/ Where the revenue/raised ratio is totally f^cked aka low

This is co revenue / total raised

Esp problematic as companies get more mature

The best companies are machines at turning $ raised into revenue at some point

Bit more here https://t.co/xo0rNZ631n
6/ Media articles where the co's revenue projections keep changing

In 2020, they said they'd do $25M in revenue to a journalist

In 2021, tell other journo they did $15M in 2020 and are expecting $50M in 2021

Beware of team good at storytelling but who stink at actual delivery
7/ Early stage founders (Seed/Series A) lecturing others on how to build a business vs actually talking about their business

Personal brand building founders trying to be 'gurus' are almost always a total dumpster fire
8/ Founders that rush into raising $ to build a co in a hot space to become player no 10

These folks aren't actually motivated by the problem they're solving. They just see an opportunity for a quick flip

They'll get bored when the momentum dies and then they'll pivot to web3
9/ Related - worth understanding this also when evaluating a startup offer

https://t.co/46NzVF6Gu5
10/ Related - more tips on how to ruin your startup

https://t.co/VF2ySmZb7k

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A brief analysis and comparison of the CSS for Twitter's PWA vs Twitter's legacy desktop website. The difference is dramatic and I'll touch on some reasons why.

Legacy site *downloads* ~630 KB CSS per theme and writing direction.

6,769 rules
9,252 selectors
16.7k declarations
3,370 unique declarations
44 media queries
36 unique colors
50 unique background colors
46 unique font sizes
39 unique z-indices

https://t.co/qyl4Bt1i5x


PWA *incrementally generates* ~30 KB CSS that handles all themes and writing directions.

735 rules
740 selectors
757 declarations
730 unique declarations
0 media queries
11 unique colors
32 unique background colors
15 unique font sizes
7 unique z-indices

https://t.co/w7oNG5KUkJ


The legacy site's CSS is what happens when hundreds of people directly write CSS over many years. Specificity wars, redundancy, a house of cards that can't be fixed. The result is extremely inefficient and error-prone styling that punishes users and developers.

The PWA's CSS is generated on-demand by a JS framework that manages styles and outputs "atomic CSS". The framework can enforce strict constraints and perform optimisations, which is why the CSS is so much smaller and safer. Style conflicts and unbounded CSS growth are avoided.