art-of-war

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The Art of War: A Warriorʼs Guide to Raising Money in the Battlefields of the Silicon Valley"

© copyright 2011 Steve Newcomb all rights reserved ! page 1

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WARthe art of

© copyright 2011 all rights reserved

A Warrior’s Guide to How to Raise Money on the Battlefield of the Silicon Valley



bnWHOI am Steve Newcomb. I am most commonly known as the founder of Powerset, which is now the Microsoft Bing search engine. I have been part of building 12 other startups and none of my startups have ever failed. Many things define me, but above all else is my endless appetite to learn and to discover new things.

HOWGet notified each time a new essay is released: www.blognewcomb.com

phone: (415) 290-0787email: [email protected]

twitter: @stevenewcombfacebook: stevenewcomblinkedIn: stevenewcomb

WHATI am a man, 41 years old with some brown hair that seems to have its own agenda. I stand 6 foot 1.5 inches, but I'm convinced I have shrunk at least 1/4 inch.

Sometimes I have facial hair, sometimes I don't, it seems to depend on how close or how far I am away from being in the Caribbean.

WHEREI live in South Berkeley in a normal house. I'll work anywhere I can get to the Inter-tubes or any place where I can meet someone interesting. I particularly like coffee shops, but I usually donʼt order coffee. I love iced tea, it is my elixir of choice (only with Splenda of course).

WHYThere are far too few entrepreneurs that stop long enough to share their stories and knowledge. If just a few of us stop to take the time to write down what we have learned so that we could pass it on, we would make the paths for future entrepreneurs just a little bit easier to blaze.

The essays that I write are for the benefit of founders of startups.

My intent is to offer a no bullshit approach to

advising people. I try to always include lessons

learned from my experiences in creating

my companies. If you are a first time

founder, or considering

becoming one, I hope that my essays can give you raw insight into what it was like for me. And while I donʼt think that my

experiences could ever represent all of the

knowledge necessary to become a great founder, I do think that I have a few

nuggets of uncommon and perhaps unique

insights.BlogNewcomb



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Raising money is war. Knowing how to raise it, when to raise it and who to raise it from are important skills of a founder warrior. You must know how to raise it

well. Heed this and your startup may win the battleground; ignore it and you will die

WARthe art of

Declaration of WarThere is hardly anything more difficult, more worthy or more inspiring than being a founder. What defines us is that despite the risks, the fears and the fact that almost all of us who try fail, we start companies with the intent of changing the world. And we do so not as the consumers or dependencies of the initial spark that ultimately creates value, but rather as the producers, the irreducible primaries of it. As such, our evolutionary path, our successes and our failures not only affects us, but also radiates out to the entire startup ecosystem.

Yet, despite the importance of our quest, our path is rarely made easier by our own kind. We, the founder cognoscenti, are so rapt with our own efforts that we rarely lift our head, or rather our minds to help our own brethren. We, the great producers of value, seem to flip, becoming only the consumer of knowledge rather than the producer of it. As a result, we unwittingly end up stifling our community instead of helping them in ways that seem obvious.

While founders may have no formal leader, no formal structure and our borders may be unbound by geography, doctrine or rules, we are a community. To create a shared sense of our current state through the act of sharing knowledge or taking a position on important topics that affect us is the very act which binds us together into a community, declares our state and consummates our union. To repudiate such an attempt to share abdicates our responsibility to one another, contradicts our nature as producers and worst of all can doom us to a solitary existence where we set each other adrift in what are already tempestuous waters. Let us instead share the secrets of the trails we have blazed with so many others that the right paths become obvious, proven and safe and the wrong ones become forgotten.

In a world which irrationally values quips over explanations, summation over detail, kind of getting it versus really getting it, it is essential to recognize the need for depth when depth is necessary. So however long, flawed or perilous this attempt may be, if just one founder is able to extract a single shred of knowledge that completes a circuit of understanding, then it will have been worth it.

To those who dare to be founders. This is for you.

- steve newcomb



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您的第一��争 Your First WarHow does a first time entrepreneur raise money in the Silicon Valley? One with no assets other than a smelly futon, a MAC and an idea, someone that has a network so weak that they have more X-Box Live friends than real friends and their financial prowess could only be described as barely able to throw a small, but crappy, pizza party.

After 20 years of creating startups (and I’m still not done mind you), I did my best to compile the best of the lessons that I have sometimes joyfully and sometimes painfully learned. I also attempted to maximize information that is not found in other essays, writings or blog posts and has high utility value so that it could serve as a reference for current funding situations, but abstracted in such a way that its value has permanence.

The format I have chosen to write this essay is as a very loose adaptation of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War translated to describe the art of raising money in the Silicon Valley.

This essay represents no one’s thoughts but my own.

Preparing for War 5

Am I a Warrior? - how to tell if you are a founder that’s going to succeed or if you’re an unrealistic hope monger that’s just going to get your ass handed to you 6

The Path of a Warrior - before you choose the path of the founder, there are truthsthat the older warriors know, but often don’t talk about in public 8

Before You Begin - funny, irreverent and true facts, irregularitiesand oddities that you need to know about raising money in the Silicon Valley 9

Battlefield Tactics 11

How to take a Hill - how to figure out and traverse your way to the alpha investorsyou want most 12

Mapping out the Battlefield - use big data to understand the social graph and market waves amongst the top investors in the Valley 13

Flanking - how to create a chaining strategy that enables you to traverseyour way to the top alpha investors by starting with your idiot roommate 14

Reconnoitering - how to break down a venture fund in less than two minutes toqualify an investor and to know whether to be in pitch or advice mode 14



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Triangulating - trying to encircle to that one investor that you’d love to get, but youjust don’t know? How to find multiple paths to target investors 16

The Ambush - push versus pull dynamics in managing the first meeting with investors 16

Sniping - a single message, that’s the right message, sent exactly at the righttime to the right person can make all the difference in the world. 17

Bombing - when to use the press to influence a large group of investors 17

Preparing Your Assets for Battle - having the right assets for the right battle can makethe difference between victory and a very confusing defeat 18

The Use of Conscripts - how make a potential investor your biggest cheerleader 19

The Use of Insiders - avoid getting inadvertently screwed by an administrative assistant 19

Getting Battle Ready - how to practice your pitch, test your investor materials and knowyou are ready before you ever step in front of an alpha investor 20

Timing, Cadence and Tempo - the timing of every touch with an investor matters 21

Executing a Full Frontal Assault - the pitch and giving it everything you’ve got 22

Fighting in Changing Weather Conditions - the impacts of macro economic swing eitherin the Valley investment ecosystem or country wide 22

Solidifying Your Supply Lines - trying to raise money while running on little moneyis difficult, doing it running on fumes puts your back up against the wall 23

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt Tactics - how to leave all of your competitors dying onthe battlefield by starving them of the money they need 24

When to Retreat - how to screw yourself in battle, retreat and prepare for another day without losing the war 25

Using the Booty of the Hill - once you’ve got an investor, and their money,what should they do for you? and how do you get them to do it? 25

The Unspoken Truth - from an old warrior that’s still fighting 29

Conclusion - keeping it real 31



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Preparing for War

Imagining what it’s like to found a company for the first time is a lot like trying to imagine what it must be like to battle an ostrich to the death while

being naked and having a spork as your only weapon*.

No matter how long you think about it, it will never replace actually doing it.

*ref bet with Scott Lock that is still unresolved



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我是否一位�士 Am I a Warrior?The things that can make a great founder may seem irrational, illogical and even sometimes ridiculous, but are nonetheless true.

I have no way of telling you whether or not you are a founder. But I can share with you the traits I have noticed over the years. They are as follows:

• deep, hard fought confidence that can express itself in a range anywhere from quiet confidence to complete dickishness. I think in some super weird way, that there’s nothing wrong with being cocky ---> as long as you deserve it ;

• self-reliant to the point of masochistic behavior - I like people who like to learn about everything by doing, by trying it themselves and not only don’t need other people’s help, but can even scoff at the very thought of it;

• someone who, by default, challenges all thinking - I want the person that when they were a kid, they would say “Why, why, why, why” I can tell you this: when I have a kid and they begin asking why, they are in for a big shock and a very long conversation about everything;

• someone who has overcome their own worst fears - Every single person on earth is faced with their own difficult challenges. Whether you were beaten as a child, or you’ve been discriminated against or just that you never fit in at all - if you’ve overcome your own greatest fears you’re my kind of person, because compared to facing your own worst fears, startups are a cakewalk;

• not enchanted by other humans. I have very few people that I actually admire. I have found that people who are easily impressed or are affected by a lot of “mentors” or “heros” generally never become impressive people themselves;

• justifiably not easy to convince of anything - I like people who are not pushovers, who have a belief system, a credo of their own and ideas that they truly do believe because they can back them up with reasoning;

• paranoid, questioning themselves but malleable - in what may seem as direct opposition to what I just said above, I also want someone that’s malleable, who can listen to advice, who does question themselves and understands that as smart as they are, they can be 10 times smarter if they surround themselves with other people who’ve been down the road they are going;

• reality distortion field - Steve Jobs had it. The ability to make people believe in the impossible. It’s what can make a good employee a great one, a good product a superior one and an idea into an idea that changes the world;



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• the JFK effect - to convince people to leave a perfectly good job to join you is difficult, to convince people to give you money is difficult, to see all of the possible moves you could take and make the right ones, the ones that make you a great company, takes someone who can move mountains;

• a killer inside. whenever I talk to a 18-20 year old founder who looks at me like they want to eat me, I get excited. In my very first interview ever, the CEO of the company asked me where I saw myself in five years and I said “taking over your job” He hired me on the spot;

• unafraid and in some cases even excited about failure. If you truly believe there is a way to success, then it is really only a matter of time. If you try all alternatives, then eventually you will reach the one that succeeds. Every failure is simply an elimination of one more alternative - which actually is one step closer to success;

• young enough to take the risks necessary to build a billion dollar company - I do not like old people, except for myself - and even then I question myself about that one sometimes. It takes a special kind of crazy to build a billion dollar company and most people lose that crazy over time. Fortunately, I’m as nut-balls as ever;

• a coder - not being able to code in today’s world and trying to be founder is like trying to be an author without knowing how to read. No excuses;

• anal, with incredibly high standards - one of the best ways in the world to see how a company is going to do is look how they keep their office, look at their first people they hire, look at how they hold themselves against normal standards;

• the joy of being a complete spaz - I like to jam with someone and completely spaz out with them. It is the most raw and true form of passion there is;

• addiction - I like founders who aren’t even for a moment questioning their path. I want people who are addicted to startups and cannot even imagine getting a j.o.b.;

• weirdly divorced from money - great founders don’t even care about how poor they are now and don’t let short term personal finance situations affect their decisions. A great founder must believe, naturally, that they will be rich, that it is a foregone conclusion and therefore is not part of the decision making process at all;

• wizardry, apotheosis and the Jesus complex - a small, but palpable belief that either 1) you have the ability to move things with your mind and one day it will be discovered that you are a wizard, or 2) you will live forever, or at least you will participate in figuring out how to do so, or 3) you will die before the age of 40.

.........or any combination of these three things.



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�士的道路 The Path of a WarriorThe only thing worse than destroying the world with evil intentions is destroying it because you have none at all.

As a founder you are not only building a company, you’re building yourself such that you can lead your company. Things to know before you begin.

• you must actually believe something - As a warrior, you must accept your path, and to accept it, you must know it and to know it, you must be able to write it down and read it out loud without feeling like a douche bag. My battle cry is posted on the front of my blog and I believe every word of it. My credo is part and parcel of every essay I write.

• if you aren’t honest with yourself, you will fail - Your success in your path will have more to do with your own honesty and the degree to which you adhere to your path than any notion of rightness or wrongness of your path. In other words, good people don’t win, winners win - good or evil is an option. Please choose good.

• you will cry, I mean really cry - It doesn’t really matter how tough you think you are, eventually you will cry and cry hard you will. Whether it’s firing your co-founder, getting fired by your co founder or some other mind blowing event, you’re ultimate destruction as a human being is inevitable. But it is also beautiful, because if you can live through it when it happens, then you can learn from it and come back from it with a vigor and fury that could change the world.

• if your company doesn’t make bold decisions in the beginning it never will. Culture is set early. If you can’t fire an employee just because you like them or you can’t admit the need to pivot when you know you need to, you’ll never succeed.

• your words carry a weight you may not understand. As a founder, you must realize your words carry a different weight than other people or even your old self. Watch what you say because just as you can inspire someone, you can also crush them and you may not even notice.

• you are they. As a founder, the buck stops at you. Maybe your whole life you’ve rebelled against authority, but in a startup you are the authority. You are they. This is your chance to be the type of “they” you wish “they” would be.

• everyone will come to complain to you. I don’t know why, but your employees will think that just because you are CEO that you can solve all of their problems. Memorize this line “I can’t make you happy, only you can make you happy.”*

* ken page reference



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在开始之前 Before You BeginFoundation Capital has the best coffee, Mayfield has good cookies, but nobody beats Kleiner Perkin’s smorgasbord, especially when they order up the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Also, A16Z’s bathroom is super cold.

Here’s a few things you should know before you begin:

The Slow No is your Greatest Enemy. One of the cruelest, but understandable, truths in the Valley is that many investors never say “No” to you even when they are at a “No” in their minds. Why? Well it’s simple. There no incentive whatsoever to say “No” to you. Here are just a few rational reasons why an investor would not want to say “No” even when they are at a “No”.

• It could make you an enemy of them;

• which means you could say gnarly things about them;

• which hurts their brand in the community; or

• you could turn out to be a big deal later on;

• and they’d want back in if they can.

All of these reasons are logical and not necessarily evil as some people tend to say. However, first time entrepreneurs often don’t know how to recognize when an investor is in the “slow no” mode and it can lead to a bunch of unintended consequences, including:

• losing your credibility with your team - if you say “it went great, they really got it” to your team and then the investor just lingers on forever without committing, you end up losing credibility with your team. Many founders know this pain;

• bad decisions - think about what decisions you would make for you company if you thought a key investor was at a “Yes”. You might then make a bunch of other assumptions that would make you think the rest of your round will be easy to raise. What if you did that and you made decisions that massively increased your burn as a result, like hiring more people, buying more computers or signing a 5 year lease somewhere? Then, over a period of many excruciating months you realize the hard way that your investor was really in “slow no” mode all along. You’re screwed;

• losing other investors - many first time entrepreneurs accidentally create dependency trees when trying to organize their funding round - especially in seed. That is, accidentally creating a situation where investor B, C and D will put money in if investor A is in. This situation is fine if you know what a “Yes” feels like. But if you don’t, the whole round could fall apart.



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What Yes Feels Like. If an investor is at a “Yes” you will definitely know it. After going to an initial pitch meeting, you might be at a “yes” if you find yourself saying something like:

• Oh my God, that felt a little weird, like we were the hot chick in the bar and those guys were some dudes hitting on us - and what’s weirder is that I kinda liked it;

• Wow, that was totally weird how that one partner just disappeared during the meeting then came back with a term sheet totally filled out;

• Did anyone else shit a twinkie when out of nowhere they just stopped the meeting and said “let’s do this”?;

• Uhm, the original meeting was scheduled for 1 hour and we’ve been here for 3 days now. Is that legal?;

• What the Hell just happened? That was awesome!

What No Feels Like. Everything else. In almost all other cases, if you aren’t saying something like the statements above, then the answer is most likely a “slow no” - which mind you isn’t exactly a no. Getting to “Yes” without the reaction above does in fact happen, but it’s rare and may be a sign of a bad deal - or worse you could be pinning your hopes on something that is a “No” and could never have been a “Yes” without knowing it.

Beware of the Bait and Switch. As a result of overburdened partners that are in high demand the following can happen. You’ll target a specific partner at a VC, meet with them, feel like they are the perfect fit and then when you get the term sheet a different partner is assigned to your board. I would not recommend accepting it if you don’t know that partner. It is totally within your right to demand that the partner you like be the one on your board. If that doesn’t work, I highly recommend you thoroughly make sure you feel just as strongly about the replacement partner they offered.

Only meet with Partners. If you are going for a pitch, don’t set up a meeting with anyone other than the exact partner or general partner you want on your board. In many cases the first person you pitch is responsible for becoming your cheerleader at the Monday meetings. You never want to be in a position where a person with little or no power is pitching you or where someone you don’t want on your board is claiming you as their deal.

The Founder Bump. Over the years I noticed a definitive trend. Whenever I meet a startup who has been funded by several other successful founders they tend to be good investments. On the other hand, whenever I meet a startup that is funded by absolutely no one that has ever founded a company, my douche bag alert goes off. I think in some weird sort of way many founders dream of helping to create a world filled with Founders who are bad asses like themselves. So when a founder invests in another founder it’s meaningful on a deep level because it’s more like an invitation to a small and ultra-exclusive club rather than purely about making money. It can be the domino that falls that makes all else easier.



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Battlefield Tactics

Maximize optionality while preserving a constant march to an end



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�� Battlefield TacticsEven the best laid plans change the moment you step on to the battlefield. While clear goals are necessary to win wars, you must win each battle first - tactics are what you need.

How to Take a Hill. How do you know which investors are right for you? Especially when you are a first time founder and other than the really big names, you’re not even sure who is who yet. How can you create a viable strategy if conditions are changing all the time? The key is to know the tactical strategies necessary to determine who’s who at any given moment. It’s well known that if you get one of the “influential” investors to commit to invest, the rest of your round tends to close quickly. Without an “influential” investor, it’s a long hard road.

In the Pacific Front of World War II, the Japanese would commonly built networks of tunnels and fox holes to defend each hill on the battlefield. At the center, or rather top of each hill, was the most valuable fox-hole, commonly defended by a nest of machine guns. Surrounding this center, was a linked network of tunnels and other fox-holes all working in unison to defend the hill.

To win a battlefield, forces needed to:

1. I.D. the key hills to be taken to win the battlefield; and then;

2. I.D. the command center of each targeted hill;

3. take down an outer fox-hole; then

4. follow the tunnels as directly to the command center as you can;

5. take down the command center with overwhelming force; and then

6. take down all of the other fox-holes for that hill from above;

7. keep doing this for the other key hills.

Let’s apply this to mapping the investor terrain.

Hills - loose groups of investors that tend to invest together, or are influenced by each other;

Command centers = alpha investors, influential investors at the top of each loose group of investors;

Outer fox-holes = investors that are either smaller investors or follower investors but can help you navigate your way to the alpha investors;



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Mapping out the Battlefield. There is no place to simply look up investors who invest as a group, nor is their any official club or network that anyone belongs to, but like any human system, people are affected by each other and humans tend to group into like systems. Therefore, knowing what angels and what VCs “travel” together is paramount to a good fund raising strategy and key to mapping your funding terrain. A “Yes” from a one investor in a group, could lead to a “Yes” from other members of that group - and equally important, a “No” from just one “lesser” member could send your fund raising efforts into a whirlwind dive straight to the ground.

Creating an Influence Graph. While there are no places that will simply tell you the answer, we now possess very powerful information tools that make it very doable for anyone that knows how. Here’s what I do every time a I startup a company.

1. if you are raising seed - identify the last 50 startups who raised seed and announced on TC and have gone on to raise Series A;

2. if you are raising Series A - do the same for 50 companies that recently announced their Series A and went on to Series B or Exit;

3. go to CrunchBase and figure out who invested in them;

4. look for commonalities amongst all of the these startups;

5. you will then find your hills;

The first time I ever did this it was like the difference between flying blind and finally having the ability to see the investing graph of the Silicon Valley.

Once you have your hills, then map out who amongst the grouped investors are influencers and who are followers - or rather who is the command center of the hill and who is an outer fox hole. Command centers, or what I call the alpha investors, especially angels, are actually rather easy to identify - just go to whatever is the leading question/answer site (e.g. Quora for today) and find questions that help you identify these people.

Reverse Engineering a Market/Interest Graph. Another great exercise is to create a cross-reference map of hot areas of investment versus what you want to create. What I’ve found over the years is that no matter how cool you think your idea is, if there are no investors looking to invest in your area, or the investor perception of the market you are in is that it’s played out, or it is too early, then you likely have a hard road ahead.

In other words, find the choir and preach to it, do not attempt to convert non-believers. It is very hard to get an investor who’s already at a “No” from a market standpoint to “Yes” because of your product. Luckily, most founders have ten ideas, not just one, that they are passionate about. The trick is to do the right one.



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Here’s what you need to know to create a market/interest map:

• Do not use tech news blog posts to determine market heat. Tech news organizations tend to lag 3-6 months behind the actual flow of the hot markets, therefore if you see a slew of startups getting funded in a space, you have likely missed the wave;

• To put your finger on the pulse of a wave before it crests, do the following during the formative stage of your startup, prior to you locking on an idea: talk to every founder, angel and associate, lawyer and venture capitalist you can have coffee or lunch with. Don’t pitch, or ask for money, ask them what’s hot and you’ll find that it’s quite easy to triangulate and identify the wave before they happen.

• Build a simple spreadsheet with all of the “hot” investment markets on the left and all your “hot” ideas rolling around in your head on the right. The intersection of the two represents the likely, and possible, startups you can build that will be made easier because you know there will be a large pool of investors that are actively looking for you and already love your idea;

Flanking. As a first time founder, it will be rare that it is the right decision to immediately go after the alpha investor in an investor influence group - as I describe in detail in the triangulating sections. Much like the forces in WWII, the best tactic is to find an outer fox hole and then head towards the command center as fast as possible. In the case of raising seed, it is smarter to go to a smaller angel, or several smaller angels, get them to not a “Yes”, but more of a “I love you guys” and then ask them to chain introduce you up the hill as fast as possible to the alpha investor in the group. The strategy being simple: if you don’t know the alpha investor that you’ve targeted, the best way to get to them is by having several of the other people in their network ping them to tell them that they already like you. Once you have the alpha investor at “Yes” you’ll be shocked at how easy it is to ask for introductions to all of the other investors in that network and even more shocked at just how quickly everyone in the network gets to “Yes”.

Reconnoitering. If you are raising series A, it’s very easy to identify the top VCs, at least from a branding point, in the Valley. But in reality there are a ton of great VCs that fall bellow what are obvious choices. So what if you meet a VC you don’t really know at an event or a bar. The first two minutes of conversation with a VC that you’ve just met must be used wisely. Most founders use it to pitch their idea - founders, especially first time founders, should not. Use those two minutes to reconnoiter the VC to test whether or not you should pitch. What you are looking for is a hill that wants to be won, one with ample booty and one which you can win easily. Failing that, switch to a discussion where you are asking for advice instead of pitching, “advice mode”, before you screw yourself.



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Here’s an example of two minutes used well by founder in the mobile space:

[founder]: hi, nice to meet you, so you are a general partner at Big Ventures?

[vc]: yup, I just joined as a partner for the mobile group in the fund after founding my last company.

[founder] cool. I’ve heard some good stuff about your firm. How big is your current fund?

[vc] we’re a $500 million dollar fund.

[founder] so what’s your sweet spot?

[vc] well we like to focus on Series A and we sometimes do a little seed

[founder] hmm.. $500 million dollar fund, so I think that means you like to put in something like $3-5 million in Series A?

[vc] yeah, sometimes we go a little higher, but that’s about right.

[founder] cool. So where are guys in your fund’s investment cycle?

[vc] we’re 3rd year of the fund’s cycle, but we’re only 25% invested.

[founder] Hmm, have you done your first deal yet? How many deals are you going to do a year?

[vc] Haven’t done the first deal yet, but I’m look at maybe 10 seed, 1-2 Series A

[founder] Awesome, are their any partners that you like to invest with?

[vc] My fund has done a lot of deals together with Bucks Ventures and my buddy from my last company just joined X Ventures.

If you know how to dissect this conversation you can learn some insanely juicy details:

In less than 2 minutes, you have found out that I am talking to a new partner who was formerly a founder (I liked that), who’s investing in your space, gunning to be a general partner in the next fund and his firm is a full year behind in deploying the capital necessary to meet the requirements of his fund. In addition, I got some information about what investors he “travels” with, Bucks Ventures and X Ventures. Plus, by letting him know that I know how to calc a sweet spot, I’ve let him know that I’ve done a bit of my homework to at least try and understand what’s important to a VC.

That’s what I call a good use of 2 minutes. He’s definitely a target for you and you’d also know if you get him to “Yes” you’ve got a leg up to get Bucks Ventures and X Ventures to “Yes” as well. But remember, if he says “No” it could have the reverse affect.



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Triangulating. Let’s say you’ve got your alpha investors all mapped out. How do you maximize your chances of getting these angels or venture capital partners to “Yes” if you don’t know them? Meeting them is not hard - you could just email them - but that would be like a full frontal assault on a command center machine gun nest without knowing much at all about the entire network entrenched in the hill - not too smart.

Once you’ve identified all the fox holes in defended hill, triangulation is the answer - getting other trusted investors, preferably several, to say good things about you to the targeted alpha investor.

Here’s what you do.

• find at least two qualified outer fox holes - a person who likes you, likes your idea and would honestly recommend you to someone else;

• ask them to give you introductions to 3 other founders, engineers, or investors they think would love the idea as well - and not for investment - but just to jam. If you did this starting with 2 people, you’d have 100 people in no time;

• Before meeting any person who’s introduced to you, use LinkedIn or any means you can, to figure out where they’ve been so that you can map those people into the “hill” mapping you just did above;

• once you’ve found a solid outer fox hole, make your way to the command center as carefully and directly as you can;

• each time you talk to a new introduction and you get them to “Yes” ask them to give you 3 more contacts - you’ll be amazed at how closely the people they intro you to map directly into your own mapping of their network;

• if you get to someone and the meeting isn’t going well - retreat quickly into “advice” mode and do anything you can to avoid a “No”;

• move up the chain as quickly as you can to the Alpha;

The Ambush. The ambush is one of the oldest tactics in the world and it’s often used when a small force is attempting to take down a large force. The small force controls the battlefield by choosing a location that traps their target, that puts them in a pinch point. Sometimes ambushes are planned and sometimes they are opportunities that present themselves in real time and require an audible. This tactic can also be employed with investors by controlling the pitch environment and conditions. Many examples of a well played “ambush” tactic include situations where you create a natural pitch moment, where for whatever reason, you create a situation in which the odds are favoring you.

Here’s how to balance the odds in your favor.

• you throw a happy hour and invite one, and only one, target investor. At the happy hour you also invite several of your existing investors that you know are super fans



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*Nivi :)

of your product and are influencers to your target investor. Surround yourself with those people and let them pitch your startup to the target;

• you get invited to a VCs mixer party at a bar. Order a bottle of champagne, which will draw a crowd*, which will make you the cool crowd, which will draw in the partners of the VC that you want to target. Wait until the partner you want joins the crowd and then pitch for everything you are worth;

• you are at some techno event in the Valley and you see one of your existing investors talking to one of your target investors. Go up to your existing investor, tell them you have a super cool update and let it turn into a natural pitch where they endorse you;

Sniping. Knowing how, when and where to implement long distance tactics are an important factor in battle. In our case, sniping is is a very targeted attack, where you can use good information (the bullets), like a new release that’s awesome, good news about users, or revenue, or even a key hire. Once you make contact with an investor, you want to manage the timing, cadence and delivery of specific pieces of good news. For example, let’s say you had a great meeting this week with a venture partner and you know the venture partner you talked with will be discussing you at the Monday partner meeting. If it goes well, you’ll be called into the partner meeting to present. You want to give that partner as much ammunition as you can to pitch you in the partner meeting to their other partners. Here are some great sniping tactics you can employ before the Monday meeting.

• call them Sunday to review the pitch to the partners and answer any of the tough questions you think they’ll get in the Monday meeting;

• send them screen shots;

• make sure they can demo your product, if you need to give them a computer, tablet or a phone then do it;

• send them a copy of the vision book (see Preparing Assets for Battle);

• send them an amended version of the investor deck with their requested changes;

• send them some examples of news articles that validate the hotness of your space;

Bombing is another long distance tactic designed to prepare the battlefield for an easier victory. In our case, bombing is a generalized attack where you are deploying good news to a larger group of investors through the press - it is the war equivalent of dropping a hanky. If you want to get the attention of a group of competing investors, there’s nothing like the impact of a good bombing run. Here some good examples of bombing:

• write an essay that positions you as a leader in your market space;

• get a speaking gig keynoting a conference in your space;

• write an op ed or guest post for a popular blog;



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• leak a screenshot to bloggers you know will blog about it;

• write something that will go viral on any of the crowd sourced blog news lists;

• fill out your linkedIn and other profiles in such a way that positions you well;

• get a news story written about you and only you (do not mix yourself in with competition)

Preparing Your Assets for Battle. For each round of funding, seed, then Series A, I create a list of assets, or rather accomplishments, that I feel make me Seed Ready and Series A ready. This enables you to pull your team around a simple list of things you need to do and enables you to enforce the focus you will need to succeed. Here is the list I currently use for Seed Ready and Series A Ready.

Seed Ready• Team - The founders are committed, full-time, qualified and capable of doing

everything necessary to build an initial proof of concept and preferably the first production product;

• The Market and Idea - The idea has obvious value that can be articulated in less than 20 seconds and is part of a larger market which is in a “pre-crest” state and which has a ton of room for pivoting to find the right product strategy;

• Demo - The demo shows a vision of the idea while giving an investor an idea of what the initial release will look like, makes people definitively freak out when they see it and everyone who sees it wants one, even if they aren’t sure what “one” is;

• Materials - I no longer use an Investor Deck for seed presentations, but I do email it to them for their reference. In the pitch itself, I combine the demo with a large format coffee table style “vision book” made using aperture; It shows the full realized look and feel, functionality and “dream” of the idea;

• Other Things - The business model, go to market and other business related things I leave for discussion during the pitch. It’s rare these days to need to invent on those fronts, most of the time is all about discussing the options;

Series A Ready• Team - The team, you plus some people, are all A+ people, mostly engineers and

are all 100% committed who are primarily paid and incentivized by equity;

• The Market and Idea - same as above;

• Product - The product is beautiful, shines and has proof that people want it. Depending on the industry and macro economic conditions, you may need to be making some revenue, or bad economic times, a lot of revenue;

• Materials - I use an Investor Deck, Financial Forecasts and the Vision Book;

• Other Things - The business model options are tested and proven to some degree and most of the major pivoting will hopefully be finished by this point;



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The Use of Conscripts. One of the most powerful strategies in war is to get people to help fight the war with you. In the case of raising money, it is essential to give investors you pitch the tools to become cheerleaders for you. Think of it this way, let’s take a venture partner at a firm. In many cases, whether it’s seed or series A, a firm requires either a two partner or three partner rule - meaning they’ll need that many partners to say “Yes” before they can do a deal. But often times you only present to one partner in the beginning, or even worse, you may have screwed up and you ended up presenting to a senior associate. In either case, the way you’ll get the callback is pretty straight forward. The person you pitched to will be giving your pitch, if they like you, to the other partners - either during the Monday partner meeting, but also maybe just in the hallway.

You need to give that person the tools to pitch you effectively. Since investors see many deals a day, simple messages help the most. Here are some simple rules to follow to optimize your chances that the person you presented to becomes an effective cheerleader for you.

• create 3 main points about your company that are easy to remember, that make you worth a billion dollars if you are right, and are easy to articulate;

• give them the “vision book” and the investor deck, but they’ll use the book for sure - it’s much more sexy and it makes you stand out;

• review the reasons, I usually pick 3, at the end of the meeting, why your startup is a great fit with their fund - remember to match with market interest, fund cycle and the career aspirations of the person you are talking to;

The Use of Insiders. One of the most overlooked people in the whole funding process is the administrative assistants of the angels and venture capitalists. The reality is that your interactions with them and your understanding of how their job works can be a powerful tool in your fund raising. Not understanding how they integrate can kill you.

• Be Respectful. Administrative assistants are an important connection point with the venture partners they work with and their opinion of you can affect you. If you offend them, that can have a big impact on you in many ways. Here’s a list of ways to be respectful to assistants;

• say thank you when they get you scheduled;

• introduce yourself to them when you come to their office;

• let them know what dongles or other equipment you need ahead of time;

Treat an assistant well and you can get a some really important perks.

• get better, quicker meeting times;

• get a sense of the partners mood prior to entering the meeting;

• get a sense of how the partner likes to work with their portfolio companies;



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• Getting Blown Off. If you have a great meeting with an investor and then it appears that the investor is blowing you off, 9 times out of 10, that is not their intention;

• investors are generally horrible at scheduling;

• their daily schedules are ridiculous;

• very often there are miscommunications that happen with assistants;

• Scheduling Weirdness. If you have an email exchange where an investor asks his assistant to set up a pitch meeting with you and then that assistant says the only available time is three months out, then you probably got either “accidentally” or “purposefully” de-prioritized;

• in this case, email the partner to ask him if three months was their intended timeframe;

• 9 times out of 10, the next email you get is the assistant scheduling something for the following week;

• then you’ll get an email apologizing for the miscommunication.

What to do: Here is the exact thing I email venture partners when either of these two situations is occurring - This type of email will usually get responded to within minutes and as I said 9/10 times it ends up a simple miscommunication.

[What happened? !We had such a great meeting and then we haven't heard from you? !Should I assume you guys are passing?]

A Twinkie Shitting Realization: I wonder how many deals in the Valley are lost because an administrative assistant is unaware of the priority of a meeting and they decide on their own accord that it was someone they could blow off? - I bet it’s much more than you’d think.

Getting Battle Ready. Nearly every single person you talk to has an effect on your fundraising efforts - except one. The investors you’ve identified as NOT the ones you want. But they can be valuable to - as practice.

Simple Rule: Never practice your pitch on anyone mapped into your battle strategy or anyone that is associated with any of the investors you want to win. If you want to get your pitch down, pitch to investors you’ve identified as non-strategic and non-related to your targeted investors.

This one may get me in a bit of trouble, but it’s what I do. Without telling the investors, I practice on at least 5 investors that aren’t part of my plan before I start executing my plan.

It helps for a number of reasons:



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• if they aren’t connected to your target investors, then a “No” is much less risky;

• if they aren’t connected and they get to “I love this idea” then they could be valuable as an introduction to someone who is part of your plan;

• investors are good at tearing ideas apart, even if they are outside their direct expertise, you need as many people as possible to tear your idea to shreds before you should step in front of anyone that’s part of your plan;

• you’ll be shocked sometimes at the things people trigger on. Sometimes you’ll say things that make the conversation go off track (learn to avoid these),

• sometimes you’ll find that the things you think are exciting are ho hum to investors (work on these things);

• sometimes you’ll find that things you didn’t even think were a big deal, are huge deals to investors (remember these);

• sometimes you’ll find things out you would never have guessed. This is great when it happens to someone that doesn’t matter, but if you get caught off guard in front of someone who matters, you could seriously affect your chances;

• getting your pitch down to where you can nail your marks every time, takes time. You need to pitch to real investors, not your dog, or your buddy, to get to a point where you are ready for prime time.

Timing, Cadence and Tempo. Knowing when to meet an investor for the first time, how to manage interactions and expectations all the way through term sheet and getting money is very important - mess up timing and cadence and you could get a pass without knowing why. Some important rules to remember:

• Do not meet an investor for a pitch session unless your assets are in place to do all the things you need to do to get them to a yes;

• Make sure you ask the investor what time frame they typically take to make a decision. You’d be shocked at just how different they all are. While a “Yes” can be an immediate reaction, some make a term sheet offer on the spot, some take more than a month. Plan your timing and cadence of interactions with them accordingly;

• Almost all partners prefer short, direct email when you ping them to catch up. Be direct, be short and be to the point, they are busy;

• Understand who gets involved when an investment decision is made and when each of those “voters” get involved;

• If you are talking to a VC, make sure you understand how their Monday partner meetings work and what gets decided in those meetings versus what can be decided outside the Monday meetings;



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Executing a Full Frontal Assault. When you’ve got a meeting set up, that’s been triangulated, that’s been flanked and you know they have the booty you want and that you can win the hill, you must attack with overwhelming force. For seed and for Series A, knowing how to prepare the battlefield and to attack with overwhelming force is a little different. Here’s a checklist I use when raising Seed Funding:

• Have I reconnoitered their investment strategy and position on my market before we meet? Or is this meeting the reconnoitering meeting and will I have to start in advice mode and switch to pitch mode if I hear the right things?

• Have I prepared the investors for the meeting by triangulating with emails from other investors that could influence them?

• Have I sniped them with some good juicy bits of info (screen shots, demo links, investor decks) prior to the meeting to get them pumped up?

• Have I sent them any press articles, that are either about my company, or that validate my market space prior to the meeting?

• What will they see if they Google me, look me up on LinkedIn, CrunchBase, Facebook or Twitter or whatever the popular profile app is at the time?

• Have I scheduled the meeting appropriately? Investors are always touchy when they are hungry, are we going to be eating food, will it be quiet, is it an appropriate location? Later in the week is better than early, I’ve found, because you are closer to the Monday meeting and they are more likely to remember details better;

• Do I have the appropriate pitch materials? Reviewing an investor deck is often boring for an angel meeting. Can I show my product? Can I be innovative in some way? What about a vision book?

• What other variables can I control in the meeting? How long do I have? What’s my strategy to get them hooked in the first 3 minutes? Will it be cold or hot?

• What are the gotcha questions? Do I have good answers for them? Am I ready?

Fighting in Changing Weather Conditions. Funding conditions are changing all the time and you should use some different tactics depending on whether or not your specific case is in a hot or cold cycle. For example, assuming a solid team with a solid idea in a good market space, we are currently in a super hot cycle for seed stage funding and a ok Series A cycle and a pretty tough Series B cycle depending on the market space. But what if it changes? There are a number of things to consider:

• To assess general conditions, I always read the Fenwick & West Quarterly Venture Capital Survey which is easy and free to get;

• Then to supplement that survey, I’m always talking to as many founders as I can to complete my assessment;



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• When certain investment stage markets cool off an important thing to remember, is that when they do, they cool off really quickly.

• When a cooling trend happens, this is what happens that’s relevant to you:

• non-professional angels tend to go away and wait for a better day;

• founder angels tend to get really tight and invest in people they know more than people they don’t know;

• professional angels tend to try and follow just the hot deals;

• index fund angels slow down;

• in serious cooling trends, or market collapses, new fangled incubators go out of business;

• venture funds focus more on their existing investments and less on new investments;

• Here’s how a cooling trend impacts tactical maneuvering:

• in hot climates, I’ve raised seed in as little as two days, in cold climates it has taken me a year;

• in hot climates, I’ve raised Series A in as little as a month, in cold climates it could take another year;

• triangulation and flanking will get exponentially more difficult;

• you may decide to close investors who are out fox holes in a cooling climate prior to asking them to introduce you up the chain;

• you will need to make more progress on your product before you are pitch ready to any investor;

• you need to be endorsed by more powerful people;

• the more sense that you are in a hot trend that is about to cool, the more you may want to raise a larger round now, to take advantage of all of the talent that may need jobs when their startups hit the dead pool [think Google raising $25M in 1999];

• you may want to think twice about joining an incubator if you sense a major market shift because if this happens, their “brand bump” they offer might end up being a “brand taint” if they go out of business [this happened in mass in 2000];

Solidifying Your Supply Lines. Whenever you are fund raising, you want to make sure that you don’t run out of money, or you don’t put yourself in a budgetary situation where you screw yourself. Here are some general guidelines I set up for myself when I start a company;



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• The Six Months Rule - try to have at least six month cash in the bank when negotiating for any round of financing so that you give yourself the freedom to say “No” to the investors if they offer a deal you don’t want - this includes seed and by that I mean never pull together a team of founders that couldn’t go six months without money;

• Sell Either the Dream or the Reality, but not in between - When raising money, you should either raise long enough before you launch to find investors willing to bet on the vision, or sell long enough after to sell on your performance. Anything in between just give investors just too many reasons to wait. Any form of waiting could bleed you dry;

• Learn About Debt Financing - debt financing from either professional debt lenders or from banks can be an essential tool. It’s super cheap from an equity standpoint and give you a ton of freedom if you use it wisely;

• Watch Out for Tranched Deals - many investors will offer term sheets that specify “business goals” before money is released. Experience founders know that the chances of actually getting the second chance is questionable at best. The reason is that the way most tanches are written, they give VCs basically the total option on their own to give you or not give you the money. So in good times, you may get the money, and in bad times, you won’t. Many first time founders get caught depending on the second tranches - don’t.

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt Tactics. or F.U.D tactics. The enemy to your startup, other than mediocrity, is your competitors who are seeking the same capital that you want. Here is how to legitimately F.U.D. them in a way that strangles their ability to raise capital.

Fear. It is actually possible to raise a round of financing in such a way that you either 1) scare would be competitors to quit before they even begin 2) scare investors away from investing in your competitors and even 3) scare existing funded employees or founders into quitting and joining you. You do this by raising a large Series A and claiming the space. We did it at Powerset, and we experienced all three of the benefits listed above. Of course be careful, “Shooting the Moon” fundraising strategies are dangerous and there are many downsides to it - this is a whole essay by itself. You should have a bevy of other reasons for raising that amount, scaring the poop out of your competitors is not sufficient reasoning.

Uncertainty. One thing that is important to remember is in many cases, once an investor invests in a company, they rarely invest in companies that would be considered competitors to that company. A common strategy is to take the last $100K or $200K of your seed round and raise it in a “visible” manner, such as on a angel market place that has high visibility and by targeting specific geographies or investors that are likely target investors for your competitors. For example, if you are a West Coast startup and you want to reduce the chances of some East Coast startup coming up to compete with you, then strangle them before they are born. Hit up the most prominent angels on the East Coast and get them all to invest a



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small portion in your startup. It won’t work all the time for sure, but it does sometimes - and that’s worth it.

Doubt. Much like fear, you can instill doubt in the mind of competitors, their prospective investors and their employees. You can do this by focusing on the quality of your investors rather than the quantity of their investment. Imagine the doubt you would create in your competitors minds, their potential investors and potential employees if it was widely know that you exist and that you have already gotten the most pre-eminent founders and the leading VCs standing behind you.

When to Retreat. Imagine a scenario in which you are pitching an investor you realize isn’t a target and you just know is going to say “No”. Reverse course before they say “No” or suffer the consequences. Imagine if you did finish the pitch and let them say “No” and a week after meeting you, this investor, who you think you don’t care about is talking to his buddy, who you do care about, and they start talking about you. The guy you care about asks the most dangerous question in the Valley - “so what did you think?” The investor, who previously was seemingly so unimportant to you, says one simple, little, but absolutely earth shattering thing: “I passed.”

Here are some situations in which you should retreat - which means stay in advice mode.

• they start discussing with you how they just invested in a company that you consider to be your direct competitor;

• they tell you the spaces they like to invest in and you’re not one them;

• you quickly realize that the person you are talking to is an idiot;

• you realize that the partner you are talking to is already on 14 boards and has no chance of being the partner that you’d be able to go with (sometimes);

• you realize the venture fund is in it’s 5th year, is 90% invested and the partner is not going to in the next fund;

• you find out that the investor focuses on social “do good” investing and your plan is to destroy the world; or vice versa;

• you are at a party and realize you are completely drunk;

• you are not ready to pitch;

When you find yourself in these situations, follow a simple rule: Start every discussion with a newly met investor in advice mode and only switch to pitch mode if your reconnoitering has gone well. That way, if you suddenly realize that it is going bad, then you are already in the correct default position - asking for generic advice. No harm, no foul.

Using The Booty of the Hill. Let’s say you’ve completed your seed round and you’ve done a good job at winning the right hills up to this point. To win the next battle, Series A, you’ll need to take advantage of your hills you’ve already won. That is, you should treat



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these investors as team members that can give you powerful advantages in the battle to come, including:

• triangulating introductions in relationship to the mapping of your Series A;

• recruiting

• press relations

• sanity checks

• lessons learned

• G2 (that means information) on the hills ahead

But how do you get these people to do anything for you? Many founders inadvertently seed the benefits of getting their investor to work for them simply because they don’t know how to. Here is an example (slightly redacted to remove identities) that I recently sent to my seed investors in famo.us. You’ll see it’s a combination of information update and asking for specific help. I write these updates every 6 weeks on the dot for my investors and I treat them exactly like team members, thanking those who have performed well and trying to inspire those who haven’t, using obvious greed, fear and guilt tactics. It’s very hard to get investors working for you, and in no way am I saying this is perfect, but I thought it would be interesting for first time founders to see an exact investor update that’s real and current rather than just talking about it.

Here’s a recent investor update I sent out to my investors at Famo.us - which is at seed stage only right now.

Hello everyone, this is an investor update that's going out to all of our seed investors

FUNDRAISINGThank you all so much for being part of the investor family of!famo.us. !We are getting toward the end of raising our seed round, we have raised a total of $ and I just wanted to let everyone know who is an investor so far for!famo.us.

Partners, General Partner, Founder of Partners!- General Partner Venture Partners!- General Partner !- Founder of !- Founder of !- Founder of !- Founder of !- Angel Investor in !- Founder of !- Founder of !- Founder of !- Founder of

We only have $ left in our round and we intend to use it wisely. !



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http://famo.us/

http://famo.us/

http://famo.us/

http://famo.us/

How you can help: If you know of any angel, founder or person we should be talking to that should be in our round, please let me know and I'll talk to them immediately. !

How you can help: Also, if any of you guys are sensitive to your investing in us being in the public eye or being listed in CrunchBase, let us know so we keep your name private. !i.e. we are contemplating putting up a corporate website with investors listed to help attract candidates in the future.

Thanks, to and and for your help in introducing and and .

PRODUCTWe are alpha testing our app now. !We've been vigorously testing native apps versus HTML5/CSS3 and after forking and several other javascript libraries we are gaining confidence in using HTML5/CSS3 as opposed to native Objective C. !Thanks again from those of you who are helping to jam with us on our product and these type of technical decisions. !Your help has been great and has definitely made a difference. !

BETAThis , from 4-6pm, we are planning a product showcase for our existing investors, some engineers we are trying to hire and some key industry folks to showcase our current alpha. !We will be demonstrating our alpha on , and . !

How you can help:!We'd love to have each and every one of you come to this event and then you are more than welcome to come to which is happening right afterwords and is a short walk away.

CUSTOMERSJust as was able to reduce new customer friction by we are following a similar strategy with our competitors. !We now have that we are going to be targeting to . !We have build a tool in our product that . !As well we are in the process of identifying an 'influencer' list to target!influential!people in each of our identified!archetypal!user to do their with us. !

How you can help:!If you want to have a! , or you can help us get!influential!people to do , please let us know - and thanks to for already helping us so much.

TEAMWe aren't quite yet ready to expand, but when we do, we are primarily going to be looking for people. !In about a month or two, we may consider hiring some interns. !We still have our team of + and that is working great for us now.

How you can help:!If you know of any super stars that really know well, please let me know so I can begin talking to them now

COMPETITIONWe are now hearing about several new companies competing in our space and we are working on a strategy to . !



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Thanks to and who have been involved in the jam sessions on creating our strategy. !

How you can help:!If any of you have ideas on how to we'd love to hear about it.

We also just launched our beta signup page: we currently stand at signups, but that's with still being stealth, and those that know we exist still think we are !instead of! . !I'll keep everyone updated as this number grows. !We really haven't been concentrating on this lately because we've been heads down on product.

/steve.

What you should notice:

• The % mix of VCs versus angels and the % mix of founders to professional investors, we are heavily weighted to investors who have been founders before;

• After each key section, I ask directly for help; and

• I thank those that have helped, by name to inspire others;

• You can’t see it here, but I make sure to always keep the title of my update as “Famo.us Update” and I also make sure to send it as a part of the chain of other updates so that investors can see all updates as a group if they want;



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The Unspoken Truth

To win in war you must accept that you will lose some battles. Knowing how to get up and fight after losing is just part of War.

Raising money is no different.



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潜真相 The Unspoken TruthThe greatest joy on earth is doing the things they say can’t be done ---> over and over

Lean Startup is NOT Always Right. Avoid the “startup strategy book du jour”. It’s much better to seek logical decisions to complex problems, not tag lines in a book. There are times when bootstrapping makes sense and times where it’s the worst possible solution to the challenge you are facing. There are times when something like Lean Startup makes sense and time where blindly follow an individual strategy meant for an individual situation will kill your startup.

Fundamental Positions are RARELY the Best Positions. Whenever you are making a key decision in your company, find the two opposing “bookend” positions that represent fundamental or ideological positions and then search for where you want to swing your own pendulum between the bookends. Rarely will you find it is optimal for a business to be fundamental one way or the other. If you do choose a fundamental position on any given topic, that’s ok, but make sure you have really good reasons as they tend to be higher risk/reward scenarios. i.e. pick your battles.

Pivoting is NOT Always Right. Some founders have the idea that it’s ok to pivot on anything. Well it’s not. Pivot on the wrong thing and you’re just a founder without conviction. Pivoting within your market space is fine, but pivoting into a new market or pivoting in such a way that you’d have to build an entirely different team is equivalent to starting a new company.

Old is NOT Equal to Valuable. It is very easy to expect that a person with many years of experience is smarter than you, knows something you don’t. But in many cases, they are just out of touch.... and that can be dangerous. Even if I’m talking to a legend of the Silicon Valley, I make sure that I take into consideration how long they’ve been out of the game before I accept their advice. For example, the rules, terrain and tactics used in fund raising are always changing, so if someone is trying to give me advice on how to raise money and they haven’t raised in 10 years, I take what they are saying with a big grain of salt. The only time I write about something is when I am actively in the process of doing it.

You are NOT Better than Everyone Else. Realize you are part of a community of supersmart people, who were all the smartest people they knew - until they moved here. It’s ok to be cocky, but watch out, if you get too cocky with someone who’s capable of eating you, they just might actually eat you.

Your Board will NOT Always be Right. You, whether you like it or not, will have the most context about your company, your unique market conditions and your product. You must be the ultimate decision maker and sometimes that means NOT doing what your Board thinks. It’s ok to disagree with your board - just be honest, and I recommend being right.



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�� ConclusionFounders are a sort of heros. But let me be exact, I don’t mean super heros that have powers regular humans don’t have. I mean heros with the kind of powers that only humans have - our vision, our intelligence, our choice and the very American right to create the things that symbolize the very best of human accomplishment.

If you’ve gotten all the way to the end of one of my essays then congratulations. I know that it takes me a while to say anything, but I hope that I’ve made you go “huh” a few times, maybe laugh a few times, but most of all I hope that I have given you a few new tools in your belt.

Raising money is hard, but sometimes it takes just one moment, one meeting or just one thing to go in your favor to create a domino effect that lands you at the top of the Silicon Valley’s elite. If just one of you uses just one bit of information in this essay to make that happen, then my purpose has been fulfilled.

Just so you know, I’m raising money right now too. While Powerset was great and I’m proud that it became part of Bing, I’m nowhere near done. I continue my quest for my ultimate company in the form of famo.us, where I, along with three co-founders, have decided to take on Apple and build our own app store with HTML5. Not because we hate them, but rather because we love them and think they are the best company in the world. What better way to honor them, than to beat them in the battlefields of the Silicon Valley.

The famo.us team: left to right (Dan Lynch, Steve Sewell, Steve Newcomb, Matt Livingston)



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