The founders of the mindfulness movement have grown evangelical, predicting that the discipline has the potential to ignite a universal or global renaissance. Mindfulness enthusiasts believe that paying closer attention to the present moment without passing judgement has the power to transform the world. Yet, anything that offers success without trying to change is not revolutionary; it just helps people cope. It could also make things worse.

Mindfulness is problematic

Mindfulness does help reduce stress, chronic anxiety and other disorders. Becoming aware of automatic reactions can make people calmer and potentially kinder. Yet, the problem is how mindfulness has been packaged. Mindfulness is essentially concentration training. It is stripped of the Buddhism teachings on ethics that accompanied it, as well as the liberating aim of detaching from a false sense of self while having compassion for all other things. What remains is a tool of self-discipline disguised as self-help.

Worthy dimensions to mindfulness practice

Instead of setting people free, mindfulness help practitioners adjust to the conditions that caused their problems and reinforce its destructive logic. People are expected to adapt. Stress has been pathologised and privatised, and the burden of managing it is outsourced to individuals, causing the proponents of mindfulness to step in to save the day. But mindfulness can only be effective if they accept that personal stress also has societal causes. Failing to address collective suffering and creating change to remove it reduces mindfulness to something that keeps people focused on themselves.

Overturning a dysfunctional system

Instead of discussing how attention is monetised and manipulated by large corporations such as Google and Facebook, we are told to find the crisis in our minds, saying it is our failure to be mindful and resilient in an unsure economy.  If we are sad about being unemployed and losing our health insurance, the mindfulness revolution meekly accepts the circumstances, ruling out a way to critically engage with causes of suffering. This submissive position is framed as freedom without the genuine freedom found within a cooperative and just society.

Mindfulness advocates unwittingly provide support for the status quo

Proponents of mindfulness believe that the practice is apolitical and that moral inquiry should be avoided. It is assumed that ethical behaviour will happen naturally from practice, through the teacher's example of soft-spoken niceness, or through the chance of self-discovery. But it is flawed. The emphasis on “non-judgmental awareness” can prevent one's moral intelligence. This reduction in stress and increase in personal happiness and wellbeing are much easier to sell than questioning injustices.

The commodification of mindfulness

All that mindfulness promise is "cruel optimism", as cultural theorist Lauren Berlant shows. We are told that if we practise mindfulness and get our individual lives in order, we can be happy and secure. We are promised that stable employment and success will naturally follow. It is implied that we can gain self-mastery and thrive. Yet it is cruel to be promised to have it all if we can sit in silence, watch our breath, and wait. Because we neglect shared vulnerabilities and interdependence, we fail to imagine collective ways we might protect ourselves.

Promises of mindfulness

The long read: It is sold as a force that can help us cope with the ravages of capitalism, but with its inward focus, mindful meditation may be the enemy of activism

mindfulness

Mindfulness

mentalhealth

Mental Health

The mindfulness conspiracy

We are used to thinking of what we call the news as a tool that can help us to vanquish ignorance: we will, thanks to its updates, properly understand what is going on and where importance lies.But if we examine the role of this phenomenon with greater scepticism, we may find that it is as responsible for blinding us to ourselves as for introducing us to the complexities of so-called reality.

The Role Of News In Our Lives

At its core, the news is opposed to introspection. It doesn't want us to know ourselves better and compulsively disconnects our emotions from their true but often hard-to-grasp targets.While pretending to inform us about the state of the world, the news has become a formidable instrument of self-forgetting.We would surely be made to feel untenably odd if we decided - as really we should - that we were from now on going to check the news only once a week, and the rest of the time devote ourselves to exploring the contents of our soul via meditative reflection.

News Disconnects Us From Ourselves

productivity

Productivity

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

problemsolving

Problem Solving

Do We Need To Read The News

Misinformation is generally spread without malice or intent. Disinformation, on the other hand, is generally organized and has a specific outcome in mind. 
For example, during school days, the misinformation heard around Beef Jerky Sticks containing earthworms became so widespread that even now there are thousands of Google searches for the topic and the company even had special hotlines to handle questions.

Misinformation Vs Disinformation

Active social media listening is the best way to detect false information before it catches on. This is a baseline activity and its benefits reach far beyond identifying potential misinformation.Look at the data carefully to examine for a common language in comments or user-generated posts. Also, look broadly at posts your community managers are responding to and search for comments that might be otherwise overlooked in day-to-day community management (particularly if your team is large or the duty for responding rotates among different humans).

Protect Your Brand: Always Be Listening

Brands themselves sometimes contribute to a sense of confusion. Be extra clear about things that could cause confusion (like deals or things that have limited availability).  Also consider how you phrase Tweets and messages, especially if your brand is prone to phrasing things as a question. There are times when asking a question sparks community engagement. But it’s not always necessary. NPR, citing Betteridge’s Law, actually trains journalists to generally avoid it.

Brand Interactions

If you encounter false information it’s important to answer it with truth and link to a source where readers can further verify if they so choose. It is also important to do this promptly. If it is clear from a customer’s message that they are using your product or service and have encountered something that sparks a question, it’s probably not misinformation.

Correcting The Records

If someone shows up in your feed for the first time with clearly false information, take a moment to look at their other posts. Check to see if they’re a prospect or customer. If not, it is possible it may be a troll out to spread bad information about you.

Find The Source

What's the difference between misinformation and disinformation? And how can your brand prepare and respond to it?

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

business

Business

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

What Brands Need to Know About Misinformation and Disinformation

Essential Questions to Ask an Early Stage VC (so you don't have to ask later when it's awkward):<ul><li>What price is it OK to sell at? Ask this later in the process.</li><li>When and if will you write us another, second check if we need one? Start-ups often need some extra money. What will it take to earn a second check?</li><li>What will you do to help us raise the next round? Pick seed investors that can deliver the next round for you.</li><li>What if we fail? Just ask to know.</li></ul>

The 4 Questions Every Founder Should Ask Every VC. 

When you go to raise venture capital, if you are in the fortunate group of start-ups with access to venture capital, you’ll either have options (more than one VC wants to fund you), or you won’t. Or…

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

startup

Startups

The 4 Questions Every Founder Should Ask Every VC. That Almost No One Asks.

Correlation Ventures was the first fund to be marketed with the data angle.They aim to be the dream co-investor for teams looking to fill out a round.They use analytics and get to a decision in less than two weeks, which is impressive — as their portfolio is, given they’ve made more than 160 investments.

Correlation Ventures

Angellist has completely changed the early stage investing world. From Intros, to profiles (I use Angellist more than Linkedin nowadays) and now syndicates it continues to innovate like no other in the venture space. One of their most recent efforts which had everyone pretty stunned was the announcement of a Syndicates-Only Fund. The implications of this are hard to fathom but if you take a look at their portfolio you’ll be impressed.

AngelList’s Syndicates + Maiden Lane

Gil Pencina is one of the best Angels around, having invested in every single major Tech company. He wants Flight.Vc to become the Fidelity of startup investing. He recruits managers for each syndicate, which do all the work.

Flight Ventures

Cnn's John Sutter talks with founder of software firm Signalfire. The firm uses software to spot investment opportunities and help its portfolio companies hire top talent. Signalfire raised a first $53M Fund and should be just about done raising its second $300–350M.

SignalFire

DKV is another pretty futuristic firm that touts its use of data as a competitive advantage. They use a software created by a 3rd-party company called VITAL to spot investment opportunities (mainly in the life sciences sector) — they even named the algorithm to the board in a PR move.

Deep Knowledge Ventures

Tusk ventures recently participated in the a and B rounds of one of our portfolio companies, and I couldn’t be happier. They’ve developed a brand in Silicon Valley for helping companies navigate hard and uncertain regulatory terrain, which in this case were the #1 risk for the company. There have been a lot of Work-For-Equity schemes around Obviously, but this one is a very scarce Skill-Set that can actually command equity from top startups.

Tusk Ventures

Redstone basically offers a 'Vc-As-A-Service' model to big corporates. Instead of saying: "give me your money and we'll see in 10 years how good we were at managing it" this is a massive value proposition to companies that want to dip their toes in the corporate VC world but have no idea where to get started.

Redstone Digital

Kima is a hybrid French/ Israeli firm which has invested in more than 400 companies. They do so by moving extremely fast and making investments as often as 2–3 times per week. They also built a first in the VC world, a status Tracker for their evaluation of a deal.

Kima Ventures

Dave has pioneered the High-Frequency ‘ index’model of startup investing. He believes that investors can’t really pick the winner so the best way to invest is to just invest in a whole lot of companies and follow-on on the best ones. This approach has made him quite a few enemies in the valley.

500 Startups

Jessica and Paul are true Visionaries, and with the ambition of Sam Yc is not really stopping for a moment. It’s crazy to think that when they first launched, there was no early stage acceleration program for startups.

Y Combinator

The guys at Sosv create a number of vertical accelerators and exclusively fund all operations and investments. They tout $250M Aum, 500 startups and a solid 30% net Irr. You should read the fascinating story of the founder.

SOSV

Ef is a Pre-Idea Entrepreneurship program. They take the brightest young minds from top universities and help them meet other people and launch a startup. Twitter has bought up one of their companies for $150M, and the others are not doing to bad either. The results have certainly been brilliant, given Twitter has bought up one of their companies for $150M.

Entrepreneur First

Indie.vc has a model where it will get paid back by dividends from the company. It will get 80% until it gets paid 2X and then 20% until it reaches a hard cap of 5X its investment. Should the company decide to go for Hyper-Growth and raise additional funds, its investment will just turn to equity at a Pre-Negotiated conversion price. Indie.vc is now on their V2 and made $100K-500K investments.

Indie.vc

Lighter capital raised $17M for their operations, and invest out of a $120M LP pool. They write checks of up to 1 <unk> 3 of a company’s annualized revenues and don’t get any equity. This is an extremely smart model, which drives probably around 30% annual returns with much lower risk than what Vcs have. Lighter capital is able to use a lot of data and Metrics to project revenues.</unk>

Lighter Capital

Bullpen was the Firsts to aggressively go after a clear opportunity in the VC market. They were the Firsts to aggressively go after the famous "series a" crunch. Bullpen has been able to invest in companies that needed just a bit more time before raising their series a, but whose Seed-Round Vcs wouldn’t bridge.

Bullpen Capital

Dcvc ’ s innovation stems surely for its approach to backing extremely deep Tech. Employing a “collective” approach of giving experts (Lps and not) meaningful carry in exchange for their help Vetting and helping its portfolio companies. They are now investing their fourth core Fund, of $177M, with previous funds having been $140 fund III, $75–100M fund II and $6M fund I. they also have two $125M opportunity funds.

Data Collective

Kent Goldman was exposed to innovation in VC early on, being a principal and then a partner at first round capital. He took a spin on the model and made every single entrepreneur he invests a carry holder. The percentage of carry reserved to Founders is probably around 20–40%.

Upside Partnership

When you visit the A16Z offices, it doesn’t feel at all like you’re in a VC firm (even if they kept the old tradition of being on Sand Hill Road..). Their goal is to model the firm after a creative agency, and employing more than 100 people it seems like they’re committed to it.Rising from a brand-new firm to the top 3 in the world in half a decade is just unheard of, and yet this is exactly what A16Z did.

Andreessen Horowitz

One of the most ambitious and revolutionary projects in recent memory, the DAO raised more than $100M in Ethereum to build a decentralized venture fund.

The  DAO

Cota is the "Union" of the efforts of Ullas Naik (streamlined ventures) and Bobby Yazdani (signatures capital) they decided to structure their vehicle as a hedge Fund (as evidenced by their SEC form D).

Cota Capital

One of the many vehicles tied to Tim Draper, Esprit (which was formerly called DFJ Esprit) is innovative in the fact that it actually IPOed on the London stock exchange.

Draper Esprit

137 is focused on investing in late stage companies by acquiring employee’s shares or lending against them. This is super smart as they get access to some extremely proven companies, at lower-than-market valuation, and can do so at any time, with small check sizes.

137 Ventures

FundersClub is an online VC, as in they’re using network effects to run a centralized yet community-driven VC firm.

FundersClub

Unshackled is a super-smart arbitrage play. They market towards all the people that are stuck with US work visas or want to get to the US. In exchange for equity, Unshackled not only provides cash but also acts as an employer and visa sponsor for founders. That’s gotta be genius.

Unshackled

The studio model has fascinated me for quite a while. But more and more hybrid examples are launching. One of the newest interesting hybrids is Expa, which couples it studio activity with its venture investing and also acceleration program.

Studios ( Science  ,  Expa  , etc.)

The scout initiative was a really well played move, that’s been used by countless other Vcs with varying degrees of success as we speak. If you’re exploring alternative and innovative models, you can find me on Twitter here or via Email.

Scout Programs

Every new VC firm that launches touts to be a “new breed of venture capital firm”, but the reality is that most of the time it’s just a straight up old-school VC model. That being said, VC has seen…

The 26 most innovative venture capital firms

Here's how Airbnb think about service past 5 stars:<ul><li>5-star service — You leave the airport, go to the Airbnb, your hosts are in the house and let you in.</li><li>6-star service — All of the above + your host picks you up at the airport.&nbsp;</li><li>7-star service — All of the above + more to make you feel welcome.</li><li>8-star service — Your hosts make you feel honoured for coming.&nbsp;</li><li>9-star service — The moment you step off the plane your hosts do way more than what you'd expect.&nbsp;</li></ul>

Airbnb is known for its 7-star design principal

Brian Chesky was a student at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and studied industrial design. At RISD, they told him because he was a designer, he could change things.&nbsp; At one time, there was an international design conference in San Francisco and all the nearby hotels were sold out. Brian had the idea to create a bed and breakfast for the design conference. They only had three inflatable air beds - from there, the name "Air bed and breakfast". After that, Brian and two friends decided to do this as a company. The idea was that you could book someone's home just like a hotel room.

The start of Airbnb

Big ideas often sound stupid in the beginning. Many ideas come from solving your own problem. At the start of Airbnb, the founders didn't think it would be a big idea. They thought it would be able to pay the bills until they could develop a big idea. They launched multiple times. The third launch was at SXSW. There was no payment system in the product, and you had to stay in an air bed.&nbsp; But guests wanted to stay, not for a conference, and they wanted real beds. Another thing Airbnb looked at differently was booking and payment. Airbnb focused on three clicks to get a paid booking.

Airbnb get on its feet

People often think Airbnb took off on its own, but they gloss over the other stages of a startup. <ul><li>Stage 1 is easy. Solve a problem of your own, find 100 people who love your product, find good co-founders, etc. The first stage is about survival.</li><li>The second stage is firefighting. There are all these problems you need to fix.</li><li>The third stage is when other companies try to copy and destroy you. Airbnb won over its competitors because of a better community and better product.</li></ul>

Startups consist of multiple stages

Here is an essay version of my class notes from Class 18 of Stanford University’s CS183C — Technology-enabled Blitzscaling — taught by Reid Hoffman, John Lilly, Chris Yeh, and Allen Blue. Errors and…

books

Books

Scaling Airbnb with Brian Chesky — Class 18 Notes of Stanford University’s CS183C

The problem with per-seat pricing is that it by definition makes your biggest customers your best customers. With money comes influence, if not outright power. And from that flows decisions about what and who to spend time on. There’s no way to be immune from such pressure once the money is flowing. The only fix is to cap the spigot.Because whether you enjoy what you do depends not just on what kind of product you’re building but who you’re selling to as well.

Per-seat pricing

Even before software as a service became a thing, it was pretty common to sell business applications on per-seat pricing. The bigger you are, the more you pay! At Basecamp, we rejected that model…

Why we never sold Basecamp by the seat

The Berkus Method is a simple and convenient rule of thumb to estimate the value of your box. It was designed by Dave Berkus, a renowned author and business angel investor. It is meant for pre-revenue startups. The starting point is: do you believe that the box can reach $20M in revenue by the fifth year of business? If the answer is yes, then you can assess your box against the 5 key criteria for building boxes.

Value your startup with the Berkus Method

The Risk Factor Summation Method or RFS Method is a slightly more evolved version of the Berkus Method. First, you determine an initial value for your box. Then you adjust said value for 12 risk factors inherent to box-building.The initial value is determined as the average value for a similar box in your area, and risk factors are modeled as multiples of $250k, ranging from $500k for a very low risk, to -$500k for a very high risk. It is meant for pre-revenue startups.

Value your startup with the Risk Factor Summation Method

The Scorecard Valuation Method is a more elaborate approach to the box valuation problem. It starts the same way as the RFS method i.e. you determine a base valuation for your box, then you adjust the value for a certain set of criteria. Nothing new, except that those criteria are themselves weighed up based on their impact on the overall success of the project.It is meant for pre-revenue startups.

Value your startup with the Scorecard Valuation Method

The Comparable Transactions Method is really just a rule of three.Depending on the type of box you are building, you want to find an indicator that will be a good proxy for the value of your box. This indicator can be specific to your industry: Monthly Recurring Revenue (Saas), HR headcount (Interim), Number of outlets (Retail), Patent filed (Medtech/Biotech), Weekly Active Users or WAU (Messengers). Most of the time, you can just take lines from the P&L: sales, gross margin, EBITDA, etc.It is meant for pre- and post-revenue startups.

Value your startup with the Comparable Transactions Method

The book value refers to the net worth of the company i.e. the tangible assets of the box i.e. the “hard parts” of the box.The Book Value Method is particularly irrelevant for startups as it is focused on the “tangible” value of the company, while most startups focus on intangible assets: RD (for a biotech startup), user base and software development (for a Web startup), etc.

Value your startups with the Book Value Method

Rarely good from a seller perspective, the liquidation value is, as implied by its name, the valuation you apply to a company when it is going out of business.Practically, the liquidation value is the sum of the scrap value of all the tangible assets of the company.

Value your startup with the Liquidation Value Method

If your box works well, it brings in a certain amount of cash every year. Consequently, you could say that the current value of the box is the sum of all the future cash flows over the next years. And that is exactly the reasoning behind the DCF method.

Value your startup with the Discounted Cash Flow method

The First Chicago Method answers to a specific situation: what if your box has a small chance of becoming huge? How to assess this potential?The First Chicago Method (named after the late First Chicago Bank — if you ask) deals with this issue by making three valuations: a worst-case scenario (tiny box), a normal case scenario (normal box), a best-case scenario (big box).The First Chicago Method is meant for post-revenue startups.

Value your startup with the First Chicago Method

As its name indicate, the Venture Capital Method stands from the viewpoint of the investor.An investor is always looking for a specific return on investment, let’s say 20x. Besides, according to industry standards, the investor thinks that your box could be sold for $100M in 8 years. Based on those two elements, the investor can easily determine the maximum price he or she is willing to pay for investing in your box, after adjusting for dilution.

Value your startup with the Venture Capital Method

The best valuation method is the one described by Pierre Entremont. He says you should start by defining your needs and then negotiate dilution. The optimal amount raised is the maximal amount which, in a given period, allows the last dollar raised to be more useful to the company than harmful to the entrepreneur.

And the best valuation method is…

Learn how to value a startup - 9 methods explained

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

Valuation For Startups — 9 Methods Explained

<ul><li>INVESTMENT HAS INCREASED MASSIVELY: the overall growth trend for fundraising is hugely positive:</li><li>IF THERE’S A BUBBLE, IT HASN’T BURST: The escalation of company valuations and ever-increasing round sizes has led many to speculate about an investment bubble.</li><li>THE EARLIER THE ROUND, THE RISKIER IT IS: Perceived risk levels impact the types of investors attracted to a deal, and the amounts raised.</li><li>MOST INVESTMENT TAKES PLACE IN THE ENTERPRISE.</li><li> “SEEDS ARE THE NEW SERIES A”: This continued increase in investment has created a kind of fundraising inflation.</li></ul>

Why modern-day investment looks the way it does

A typical pre-seed round sees a founding team (often pre-product) receive a small investment to hit one or more of the milestones they’ll need to ready themselves for “true” seed investment: from hiring a critical team member to developing a prototype product.Led by many of the same investors that lead seed rounds, pre-seed financing is often used to bridge the gap to the next round.

PRE-SEED

Capital from a seed round often fuels a startup’s move beyond its founding team, funds product development, and in some cases, even facilitates early revenue generation.Wrapped-up within seed investment are expectations that strong signs of Product/Market Fit and some degree of traction (in the form of a growing waitlist, or month-on-month revenue growth) will begin to emerge, paving the way for later fundraising.

SEED

Revenue growth is the name of the game in Series A. By this point, a startup is expected to have clear and growing evidence of Product/Market Fit, translating into significant revenue growth from new customers and increasing ARPA (Average Revenue per Account).Angels (often referred to as “super” angels) will sometimes invest in Series A rounds, but it’s usually the venture capital organisations that dictate this round.

SERIES A

In Series B, investors are looking for the next stage of growth: the ability to take everything you’ve learned, and make it work at scale.In practical terms, Series B investment might allow a startup to make expansive hires (across business development, strategic accounts, marketing and customer success), expand into different market segments or experiment with different revenue streams, and in dramatic instances, even buy-out businesses that offer a competitive advantage.

SERIES B

Series C rounds are raised to fuel large-scale expansion, like moving into a new market (commonly international expansion), or to fuel acquisitions of other businesses.After Series C, there’s theoretically no limit to the number of investment rounds a startup can raise: some companies will go on to raise investment through Series D, E and beyond.

SERIES C+

This is part two of my nine-part series, exploring every imaginable aspect of startup funding. From funding rounds to valuation methodologies, get ready for a complete crash-course in funding. So far…

From Pre-Seed to Series C: Startup Funding Rounds Explained

The easiest way to build a useful product is to automate some part of your daily workflow which ensures you’ve got proven demand for your product and a pre-existing funding source.Successful examples:<ul><li>MailChimp: built a tool that would streamline the process of email newsletters created.</li><li>Lynda: produced training films for her students. She spent the next two decades building a content library and tech assets.</li><li>PluralSight: Like Lynda.com, PluralSight offers remote software training. </li></ul>

Automate Your Workflow

Instead of trying to compete with a company like Apple, these scrappy startups filled the gap left by RadioShack and built multi-million dollar businesses worthy of emulation.<ul><li>AdaFruit Industries: Limor Fried started her DIY electronics eCommerce empire as a student at MIT by assembling DIY kits comprised of off-the-shelf parts. </li><li>SparkFun: Nathan Seidle started Sparkfun from his dorm room by selling electronics kits and oddball components to engineers who wanted to explore exotic new sensors and systems. </li></ul>

Start With a Capital Efficient Product

Solving an old problem with a new technology or UX layer can be enough to build a multi-billion dollar business.<ul><li>Shopify: Shopify’s founders were searching for a shopping cart solution when they were setting up an eCommerce site for snowboarders. Unable to find one, they decided to scratch their own itch and built a bespoke solution on the then red-hot Ruby on Rails framework. </li><li>Braintree Payments: Exchanging money online, without being fleeced by fraudsters, is one of the oldest problems on the web. </li></ul>

Old Problem + Existing Business Model + New Tech = $$$

<ul><li>Ipsy: Youtuber Michelle Phan leveraged her online celebrity — 8M+ YouTube subscribers — to turn it into a phenomenon. </li><li>ShutterStock: Jon Oringer combined his set of skills and used 30,000 photos from his personal photo library to start a stock photo service.</li><li>Quizlet: it was founded by a precocious 15-year-old who wanted to ace his French final.</li><li>Skyscanner: The company started as a bespoke spreadsheet to help its founder find the best flight prices.</li></ul>

Scratch Your Own Itch

Funding doesn’t always come millions of dollars at a time. Founders can scrape together money from grants, incubators, and angels, or even pre-sales.<ul><li>CoolMiniOrNot: it started out as a website where geeks could show off their ability to paint Dungeons & Dragons figurines. </li><li>The Wirecutter: Who says blogging doesn’t pay? Founded by a former Gizmodo editor, the Wirecutter promised more thorough and fair-minded reviews, and paired that with Amazon affiliate feed.</li></ul>

Everyone’s Money is Green

<ul><li>RXBar: When one of the entrepreneurs behind RXBar shared his ambitious business plan with his father, he told his founder son “You need to shut up and sell 1,000 bars.”</li><li>Scentsy: They sold candles at swap meets when they couldn’t afford to buy ads.</li><li>Spanx: Shark Tank judge Sara Blakely turned a $5,000 investment into an Oprah-approved approved garment that generates $400M in revenue annually. </li><li>Grammarly: Spell checkers around for decades, but Grammarly made enough improvements that they could charge over 800 universities and hundreds of thousands of writers.</li></ul>

Sell! Sell! Sell!

<ul><li>ButcherBox has thrived, earning as much as a million dollars a week by skipping expensive ad channels and developing ongoing, capital-efficient relationships with influencers.</li><li>Cards Against Humanity: They’ve sustained their brand with a series of canny marketing stunts, selling cow poop, cutting up a Picasso, etc.</li><li>GoFundMe: Viral marketing is dismissed, rightfully, when it is tacked on to a business model, but it can be a powerful driver when properly integrated into a product. Paired with hyper-efficient Conversion Rate Optimization, it can be unbeatable. </li></ul>

Be Miserly with Marketing

<ul><li>PaintNite: While their competitors relied on a slow, expensive franchise sales model, PaintNite paired art teachers with existing bars that wanted to sell wine on weekdays and created a business that did $30 million in revenue the year before it raised venture capital.</li><li>Tough Mudder: Track & field entrepreneur Will Dean turned $7,000 in savings into a company with over $100 million dollars in annual revenue. </li></ul>

Efficiency > Capital

<ul><li>Mojang: The masons behind Minecraft never raised any venture capital, employed just 50 people, and earned nearly a billion dollars in profit before selling to Microsoft. Minecraft grew by charging users a flat fee, resulting in a $2.5 billion dollar acquisition.</li><li>Craigslist: Craigslist parlayed an early launch in the first dot-com boom into a durable long-term advantage. Craigslist is the #17 most visited site in the US.</li></ul>

Build a Community

<ul><li>SurveyMonkey was founded in the dot-com bubble of the 90s; it survived the dot-com crash and steadily grew into a nine-figure run rate, only raising $100 million 11 years after getting started.</li><li>Grasshopper is a phone networking company that had 150,000 customers, over $30 million in annual revenue, but no VC on the books, and was eventually acquired by Citrix.</li><li>GitHub took the pain out of version control and became a critical part of the tech ecosystem before raising capital.</li></ul>

Fortune Favors the “Boring”

Wayfair was profitable from its first month of operation and grew profitably for a decade until they ultimately raised a series A. the company is currently worth $6 billion dollars and because they suffered little dilution, the founders are worth a billion dollars each. Zip recruiter: “we started out with humble ambitions, to Bootstrap a lifestyle business,” said Co-Founder/Ceo Ian Siegel.

You Can Always Raise Capital Later

<ul><li>Wayfair: The company is currently worth $6 billion dollars and because they suffered little dilution, the founders are worth a billion dollars each!</li><li>Zip Recruiter: “We started out with humble ambitions, to bootstrap a lifestyle business,” said Co-founder/CEO Ian Siegel in an interview with Alex Konrad from Forbes. Those ambitions were met and superseded.</li><li>Nerdwallet: The personal finance service that promises to help young people save money lived on a tight budget from the time it was founded in 2009 until it a raised $64M series A in 2015.</li></ul>

Blessed are the Unfundable

Venture capital has powered nearly every major tech company from Apple to Zappos. Just remember that you don’t need a penny to get started. You don’t need permission from funders to found and scale a startup. So the next time a VC tells you they “pass,” remember these three principles:<ul><li>It’s possible to get a tech-enabled business off the ground with no capital.</li><li>It’s feasible to scale a tech business rapidly with very little capital.</li><li>It’s often in the founder’s best interest to limit the amount of capital they take.</li></ul>

Don’t Design Your Business Around VC

There’s a widespread belief among founders that venture capital is a precursor to success. It is true that VC is a common denominator of the most successful tech startups, but it isn’t a…

The mindfulness conspiracy

Do We Need To Read The News

What Brands Need to Know About Misinformation and Disinformation

The 4 Questions Every Founder Should Ask Every VC. That Almost No One Asks.

The 26 most innovative venture capital firms

Kimberly Trevino