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Many tech workers have never experienced a job market like this.
Losing a job suddenly is more than a financial shock. Many of us invest so much of who we are in what we do for a living, which means that being fired can change our social and emotional lives overnight.
Cutting your expenses and polishing your LinkedIn page is the right move, but investors tell me it’s still a good time to start a startup.
Getting fired early on proves that you have a high tolerance for risk. How much are you willing to bet on yourself?
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Depending on where you’ve worked and what you’ve done, you may have the experience that investors are looking for in order to reach the market and solve engineering problems.
I surveyed six seed and early stage investors to get their tactical advice for retired tech workers thinking about starting up. Most of them were very open to accepting positions and said we could include their contact information.
They each provided details about the type of deals they are currently looking for and how they prefer to be pitched.
Here’s who I spoke with:
- Rex Salisbury, Partner, Cambrian Ventures
- Christine Tsai, CEO and Founding Partner, 500 Global
- Anna Barber, partner, M13
- Dr. Galim Emanbayev, Partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners
- Deena Shakir, General Partner, Lux Capital
- Stephanie Palmeri, Partner, NextView Ventures
Thank you very much for reading
Walter Thompson
Editorial Manager, TechCrunch+
@your main actor
A decade of fintech failures: 4 innovations that didn’t live up to the hype.
Image Credits: Jeffrey Coolidge (Opens in a new window) / Getty Images
The tech industry and the media that cover it thrive in hip cycles.
Sometimes, constant clamor can pay off: misguided personal digital assistants from the 1990s turned into sleek smartphones a decade later.
Other times, what seems like a revolutionary idea turns out to be someone trying to jump on the bandwagon. (Let me know if you remember Google Barge, Juicero, or iSmell.)
Grant Easterbrook looks back at the past decade and outlines the five fads that have occurred in fintech and the underlying reasons why fintech hasn’t changed “the way its founders first envisioned.”
He explains how a black YC alum raised $107 million.
Image Credits: Andrew T. white (Opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Black entrepreneurs face different challenges, but Captain founder Demetrius Gray raised $107 million after his Y Combinator experience.
“People see the headline that $107 million has been raised. “What they don’t really understand is that it’s a process of building relationships over time,” says Gray.
In an interview, he breaks down his fundraising strategy and shares several strategies for connecting with investors.
“You have to be social; you have to get out in front of people and make connections.
Building a growth marketing team the right way
Image Credits: Greek (Opens in a new window) / Getty Images
For his latest TC+ column, growth expert Jonathan Martinez explains how to grow a marketing team that supports “key growth pillars” like lifecycle marketing, paid acquisition, and SEO.
“As startups grow, so do their marketing budgets and the required testing intensity,” he wrote. “All this begs for more defined group structures.”
Drawing on his experience at companies like Coinbase and Postmates, Martinez breaks down each team member’s workload and identifies key hires who complement their efforts, such as designers and data scientists.
In the run to Series B, strategy is more important than metrics.
Image Credits: Miguelangelortega (Opens in a new window) / Getty Images
If all goes well, the funds raised in Series A will last long enough for you to generate steady income. But not everything is good.
SaaS founders are under pressure to maintain a runway while maintaining growth and achieving profitability, but these goals are not contradictory, say Blossom Capital’s Ophelia Brown and Imran Ghori.
“Forget planning your business based on metrics from the past decade,” they write. “We live in a new world order.”
In this article, we’ll take on three questions that every software startup faces:
- How angry should we grow this year?
- How should we plan our expenses?
- How should we think about runway and capital protection?
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