Fundraising

4 claims2 moments1 on the cutting room floor

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Lenny's Written Position

The best angel investors operate through warm introductions rather than cold emails because warm intros serve as an effective filter for deal quality and prevent overwhelm.

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A strong 'why now' is helpful but not essential for building a large business; companies like SpaceX, Airbnb, Pinterest, DoorDash, and Facebook had little or no why-now at founding.

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1 support1 contradict

Hiring before product-market fit slows you down, while hiring after product-market fit speeds you up, so startups should raise meaningful money only after finding PMF.

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2 supports

A profitable company should raise capital only when confident it can use that capital to attain a higher growth rate worth the tradeoff in dilution.

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Podcast Moments

Julia Schottenstein00:00:00

“M&A is always about creating plan Bs. And the way I would think about it is for any one company, there's only ever two to three buyers that find what you're building to be extremely strategic.”

M&A, competition, pricing, and investing | Julia Schottenstein (dbt Labs) · Julia Schottenstein

Keith Yandell00:00:00

“Every business that you have heard of has gotten rejected by at least a handful of venture capitalists at one point or another. We were weeks of runway situation and had been told no by everyone. And it was just Tony's drive to keep going. The way he explains it is it's just the difference between a founder and a non-founder. If you're really a founder, you just have to find a way. It only takes one yes. But you got to keep going.”

Leading with empathy | Keith Yandell (DoorDash, Uber) · Keith Yandell

Cutting Room Floor

Guest insights on this topic that Lenny hasn't (yet) written about in his newsletters. Potential material for future posts.

Julia SchottensteinUnsynthesized

“M&A is always about creating plan Bs. And the way I would think about it is for any one company, there's only ever two to three buyers that find what you're building to be extremely strategic.”

M&A, competition, pricing, and investing | Julia Schottenstein (dbt Labs) · Julia Schottenstein