Richard White

This is a must listen to for anyone B2B founder. How to figure out Product Market Fit. One of best frameworks I've seen in a while. https://lnkd.in/ghSmhVNB

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Imagine you’re meeting a VC today and pitching your company. Now, also imagine the VC goes home tonight and tells his or her spouse about the meeting with you. How do you think the VC would (or should) describe your product to the spouse? Remember, this is for someone who doesn’t have any context, and probably doesn’t have time to listen the whole story. If you can think of a story version that's plain and simple -- how you want the VC to describe your product to the spouse -- perhaps that version should be your pitch in the first place?

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We believe in extreme vetting of our founders. You can't build a unicorn if you spend time on silly stuff, like seeing family and friends. Grow up, and focus on investor returns. #vc #startups #investment

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You don’t need to raise VC to build a business with big impact, *even in a market that has heavily VC-funded players*. Case in point: Excalidraw is an open source alternative to Miro. Excalidraw is bootstrapped and revenue-funded, Miro is VC-funded ($476M raised). Miro just added a comparison page to Excalidraw - meaning that they saw enough demand for people searching for Miro vs Excalidraw that they added this page.

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Let the wave begin! Pioneer Fund company Recall.ai *grew their revenue 10x* in the past year, has 300 enterprise customers, and just raised a $10M Series A led by Ridge Ventures. David Gu and Amanda Zhu dropped out of college at age 19 to start the company. They've grown it exponentially with a tiny team. They make it easy to build meeting bots that are cross-platform. They're aggregating all these different APIs into one unified API, the way Twilio did with cell phones. At first it "sounds" easy to build a meeting bot -- just integrate with the Zoom API. But in fact there's a huge long tail of things you need to build, security and privacy pitfalls, automations, transcription complexities, integrations, the calendar invites where someone is using Google Meet or Teams, staying up-to-date with the libraries, etc etc. Recall takes care of all of that. It's WAY easier to build on top of Recall.ai and focus on the features that make you unique. Congratulations to the Recall team!

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Trying to get from $0 to $1M ARR? Find your PMF. Obsess over identifying a problem that a big enough market urgently needs solving. Talk to your customers about their most painful problems and validate your assumptions. Not all feedback will be valuable. Focus on insights from your early adopters—they become your ICP and shape your product. Stay true to your core customer profile. Chasing revenue or artificially widening the PMF dilutes your product's effectiveness. Your product can only meet so many needs. Tailor every feature to your ICP. Your first version is your Minimum Sellable Product (MSP). Make the MSP easy to use and beneficial. With customers using your product, continually collect feedback to improve: 1 - Offering 2 - Marketing messages 3 - Sales calls 4 - Pricing structure 5 - Demo flow If you reach $1M ARR, congratulations! Your product has real demand. Next, it’s time to think about scaling to $10M ARR. More on that soon.

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Why you need to start fiscal year planning NOW (...even if you're a small startup) Most early-stage startups think fiscal year planning is only for big, established companies. But the truth is, you NEED to start the process ASAP...no matter how small you are. Here's why: ✅ Capture critical data early - You need historical data on key metrics like average sales price and lead-to-account conversion rates. The sooner you start tracking, the better. ✅ Align on core assumptions - Fiscal planning forces you to define and agree on key assumptions with leadership. This keeps everyone rowing in the same direction. ✅ Adapt to real-world results - Initial assumptions are fine! The key is having a process to modify them as you gather real data. Planning lets you course-correct to stay on track. ✅ Build a strong foundation - Even if your first plan is rough, starting the process sets you up for success. You'll be amazed at how quickly your planning will improve. The longer you wait, the harder it gets to catch up. So don't delay - put a stake in the ground and get started today. Your future self (and investors) will thank you! If you need help kickstarting your fiscal year planning process, let's chat. I've helped countless startups go from "winging it" to winning with data-driven plans.

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Alternative Resources for founders, geared for startups with generous free tiers: 1) Papermark - Docsend alternative. 2) Tally - Typeform alternative. 3) Cal.com, Inc. - Calendly alternative. 4) Supabase - Firebase Alternative. 5) Sender.net - Mailchimp Alternative. What else are people using and loving in the founders stack?

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Starting to feel that the Series A/B markets are warming up. Over the past year+, most founders preferred to avoid a distracting and lengthy Series A process in a slow market. Instead, they often raised a quick seed+ round, and focused on building and growing past the usual Series A metrics. Recently, we've seen some startups close quick/oversubscribed Series A/B rounds, and more founders are considering raising now. It's still closer to anecdotal than robust data, but we'd be among the first to notice at Pioneer Fund, with our large portfolio of strong YC startups. I plan to post here again if the trend continues or not.

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Let's finally get rid off the "VC alphabet song" and redo the system to become more founder friendly. "The benchmarks set by funding stages are often arbitrary and not necessarily aligned with the actual development needs of individual startups." #vc #venturecapital #founder #fundraising #startups #fundingstages #funding #fundingrounds #pitchbook

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What sets off alarm bells in my head? 🫨 Hearing early-stage founders make statements like, “We have a consumer product and a business product.”  🚨 Or “We are expanding to four new vertical markets this year.”  🚨 Or “We’re going to light up our reseller channel now.”  I see a lot of startups on the other side of getting stuck and I can tell you lack of focus is a huge problem. I get it: Staying true to your core—the one thing you do well—is tricky when you feel the pressure to grow from investors or people you hired to grow the business.  What’s key is being in deep alignment with your board and team around the reality of the learning process and what really matters. Stay lean and disciplined until you have proven your “one thing” beyond a doubt. Then you can raise money and grow faster when it’s irresponsible not to.  #Startups #Entrepreneurship #Reignition #Focus #Metrics

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Today is a fricking masterclass in product-led growth with one of the OG’s Adam Gross. “If you’re doing paid acquisition sub $100M ARR you’re not PLG.” “Product-led growth is not a go-to-market motion, it’s a business model.” “It doesn’t matter what alignment methodology you use. If you are doing it right, you can feel it viscerally.” My 5 key takeaways 👇 1. PLG Is a Business Model Not a GTM PLG is not for everybody. It’s a way of architecting your product, business, & entire organization. It’s not a random distribution channel to add on. You have to be really intentional about it. 2. If You Have Paid Sub 100M You Are Not PLG Good PLG businesses have discovered one effective acquisition mechanism. It contributes up to 70% of their customer acquisition volume. Doing paid acquisition sub $100M ARR isn’t PLG. 3. The Poet & Librarian of Hiring There are two types of hires: Poet: Creativity-driven, experts in domain knowledge. Librarian: Process-oriented, experts in systems & efficiency. Know which one you’re hiring & find a mix. 4. Importance of Team Alignment  An organization’s attention & focus is the most precious resource you have. I am a big believer in planning methodologies to align teams. It doesn’t matter which methodology you use. When a team is genuinely aligned, you can feel it. 5. The Seasons of Software A leader should align everyone in “seasons”. We do quarterly updates through blogs, web posts, etc. It creates a rhythm everyone can align to. It’s one of the most powerful yet simple things you can do. (links in comments) #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup #seed #funding #growth #SaaS

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Starting a new fun project with Victor Lee - an AMA series with early stage founders. There are many podcast shows featuring successful, famous entrepreneurs. But what about those who are still relatively early in their journey, perhaps just one step ahead? The zero-to-one founders who have recently cracked the product-market fit and raised Seed or Series A capital. They may not have figured out everything yet, but they have fresh, relatable tips and advice to share. We’ll invite early-stage founders for a one-hour AMA session. Afterwards, we’ll create a public webpage featuring each Q&A session with media clips and transcriptions. This will be 100% free and open to the public. Our first AMA (June 11 1pm PST) will feature Will Drewery, whose company (Diagon) recently raised $5.1 million in Seed funding. We’ll get to know Will better and cover topics such as tips on raising funding in this tough environment. It will be a fun AMA, and you can register for free using the link below. RSVP now!

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Founders, don't become foie gras. Overfeeding your startup with capital won’t get you to IPO any healthier (or faster). Just figure out what’s enough and push forward. Constraint fuels creativity. Urgency forces prioritization. Uncertainty sparks clarity.

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Bootstrapped Founders I work with are figuring out how to drive profitability. VC-backed Founders I work with? They're trying to figure out how to skip a round. If you're a SaaS Founder working to build a differentiated GTM Machine so you can control your own destiny, then grab a complimentary copy of my 5-Point SaaS Growth Strategy Guide. Follow the link in the comments below 👇

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How does David beat Goliath aka early-stage startups close candidates also interviewing at FAANG / larger companies? Generally, they don’t, but here’s what @SingleSprout's data (80% offer close rate in last 6 months) says: 1) $30k: If the offer from a big company exceeds yours by over $30k, you're very likely not going to get that candidate. 2) # of Competitors: A candidate considering one large company might still be within reach. However, the more large companies they entertain, the less likely you'll get them. 3) Motivation: Understanding why a candidate genuinely prefers your company is crucial. Look for and test for interest in impact, equity, and the entrepreneurial journey. Unfortunately, most startups hiring on their own can't get this level of information from a candidate, and sadly waste a lot of precious time :(

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Started to read The SaaS playbook. Will report findings. "... this is the playbook for launching and growing a SaaS startup to millions in revenue without raising buckets of venture capital." https://lnkd.in/gSVTCQAY

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👥 Attention Startup Founders! 🚀 I recently met with a promising startup in SF. Ten minutes into our meeting, my friend (an experienced mentor) asked: "If you, the founders, are here, who is selling?" The CEO joked that sales were "on pause." My friend’s advice? "Adjourn this meeting and go back to selling, now." As a startup advisor and former product leader, I've seen the biggest mistake early-stage SaaS companies make: neglecting customer-facing roles. To avoid this, you need strategic hires that drive revenue from day one. There are 5 customer-facing hires you must make to ignite revenues. 1. Digital Marketer/Content Creator: Develops content that positions you as a thought leader. Want to know the other four and dive deeper into why these roles matter? And how to set your startup on the path to success? Read the full article for detailed insights! 📈💡 https://lnkd.in/g9X5mryf #Startup #SaaS #Sales #Marketing #GrowthHacking #Entrepreneurship #ProductMarketFit

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