Month: November 2023

Elizabeth Zalman and Jerry Neumann have been interviewed on Invest Like the Best (transcript) about their new book Founder vs Investor. A good listen.

Spotfiy has launched audiobooks for Premium members in the US. It is an interesting product as it will likely support future price increases and lower churn.

Klarna was profitable in Q3, according to their press release. I cannot find their actual report on their investor relations site, but to me it seems like it was driven by strong revenue growth of 30 % year-over-year (up from 15-20 % earlier in 2023) combined with lower credit losses.

Klarna also has registered a holding company in the UK according to reports. But if they IPO in the UK instead of the US or Sweden, I’d wonder what the board of directors have been drinking or smoking.

One thing I picked up in yesterday’s video with Vinod Khosla is the value of simple stories, even if there is a lot complexity and difficulty in doing the things that make up of the story.

An example of a simple ‘startup story’, that I mentioned in a discussion with a friend, is: “First we will build a great product that users use more than Instagram, then we will grow to 100 million users per month, and then we will monetize at $20 ARPU per quarter.”

Simple story, incredibly hard to do.

Vinod Khosla, one of the most successful venture capitalists of all time, talks about How to Give a Presentation. A very good 1 hour view for anyone raising venture capital. Here are notes on the presentation.

I think the video is a good explanation on how to do fundraising well, as fundraising is not as simple as “if my company grows 100 % year-over-year and have a 10 % EBITDA margin investors will react exactly in this specific way”. A startup is more than a Rule of 40 calculation.

One point Vinod raises that I’ve started to believe strongly in since becoming a venture capitalist is:

* You’re selling the partnership, through your sponsor VC, so give the individual partner the talking points to overcome all objections; pick the right partner

Carl Tengberg, founder of Curb, writes about what makes a VC great.

Sam Bankman-Fried has been found guilty on seven counts of fraud and money laundering.

It’s quite an amazing story. But for investors one takeaway is that lack of governance/board of directors and a company operating in weakly regulated jurisdictions always are significant red flags. Regardless how well your other investments have done.

In startups, and other parts of life, one very powerful force is positive momentum.

This means that often the most important thing is not exactly where you are or how big your vision is, but that you’re moving in the right direction at an increasing pace.

A startup (or team) with momentum is often stronger than given credit for. And breaking negative momentum and turning it positive often takes more time and energy than expected.

If you follow the All-In Podcast and their CEO search, this video ‘application’ for the role is pretty funny.