Techcrunch makes fundraising look like a breeze. You just mosey on over to Silicon Valley, and there are dollar bills lining the road! Unfortunately, this is NOT reality. While fundraising for my company LaunchBit, I was a wreck. The actual process of going to meetings to talk about your company was not difficult, but the … Continue reading Why fundraising takes so long (for most entrepreneurs)
One of the more taboo topics in “Startupland” is around having a family while starting a business. When I was about to have my first child while working on my company LaunchBit, I was catching up with a friend of mine who was also an angel investor in my business. And then he asked me, … Continue reading Some thoughts on balancing family and a startup
The other day, I tweeted. “Contrarian perspective here – it’s ok to *not* meet a founder in person before deciding to invest.” This set off a tweet firestorm — mostly with people telling me in some form or fashion that I was wrong. (Side note: what I love about the VC industry is that people … Continue reading Why I don’t (usually) meet startups in person
We recently announced at Hustle Fund that we will start investing in Southeast Asian software startups, and my new business partner Shiyan Koh, who just moved back home to Singapore, will be leading the charge on that. I was in Singapore last week, and I was blown away by the amazing opportunities that Southeast Asian … Continue reading A dumb American’s perspective on investing in Southeast Asia
People often ask me what startups I want to fund. I hesitate to write this list because I’ve found there’s actually very little correlation between areas that I would love to fund and what I end up funding. This is because beyond business ideas, there are so many factors that make a great business. For … Continue reading What problems do I want to fund and solve?
In my last post, I talked about how to write an email requesting an investor intro, but I didn’t talk about whom you should ask. tl;dr – in order, the strongest referrals to investors come from: Portfolio founders who have raised recently from that investor (i.e. not enough bad stuff has happened at their company to … Continue reading Who is the best person to ask for an investor intro?
Here is a typical conversation I have with a portfolio founder just about every week: Founder: I’m having a tough time closing our round. Me: How much are you raising, and where are you now? Founder: I’m raising $1m, and we’ve got about $200k committed from angels. Me: Got it. How many meetings have you … Continue reading My 5-100-500 rule to close your seed round
One of the things that VC-mentors of mine recommended when we first started Hustle Fund was to start thinking about succession planning now. That sounded crazy at the time, because who thinks about generational planning when they’re first starting a company? But having now seen a lot of longstanding VC firms go through transitions, I … Continue reading Expanding our investment team at Hustle Fund
At Hustle Fund, we just announced that Dunky AI, our cute, lovable, purple hippo-esque friend has taken our the company and has gone rogue today on April 1, 2025. Hopefully we can wrestle back the company tomorrow! In the meantime, Dunky AI has chosen to write a strange comic book, set in a mythical place … Continue reading How I created a 50+ page comic book with no artistic talent in a couple of weeks
When news of DeepSeek hit recently, friends and family came to me asking: What does this mean? Is this the end of NVIDIA? Is AI taking over? Should I be worried about my job? The stock market, predictably, went into a frenzy. But taking a step back, the real story behind this isn’t about the … Continue reading DeepSeek Disruption: AI, NVIDIA, and the Future of Venture Capital
