This week's startup news and trends will be the subject of a new weekly column. This will be in your inbox if you subscribe here.
It's important that Sequoia takes things seriously. Sometimes the entrepreneurship scene is at large, and the storied venture firm is known to react to macro- economic events with grand memos aimed at portfolio companies. The document titled Adapting to Endure was created by Sequoia and was first reported by The Information.
The firm is not always right in its predictions, which is why it stuck to internal musings instead of a Medium post, but it does provide a snapshot of how one of the most weathered, and successful, firms is.
The deck states that the intention in gathering today is not to be a beacon of gloom.
Other venture firms have been using the same advice: extend runway, focus on sustainable growth and recognize that an economic recovery may be a ways away. There were some tidbits that stood out, such as a subtweet for Tiger Global and an explanation of how founders should define fluff.
I wrote a column aboutquoia, a firm that wants you to take the downturn seriously. You can support me by forwarding this newsletter to a friend or following me on social media.
On Equity this week, Heart to Heart CEO Josh Ogundu joined us to talk about his perspective on the market for early-stage founders. The importance of honesty, as well as what to do before considering a layoff, were given to us by Ogundu. When we have guests on the show, you know it will be a good one.
This newsletter's introduction shows that a lot of the advice has come from investors. This episode is an overdue reality check because the founders are living the change and making the hard decisions.
The image is from TechCrunch.
Our own Haje Jan Kamps has started a weekly series in which he reviews a startup's pitch deck. He reviewed Lumigo's Series A pitch deck, which helped the startup land a $29 million round.
It is important, in his words, because the top challenge we always run into is that there is no shortage. I realized this might be my chance when I started talking to founders about raising money. We talk about what worked about the deck and where the company could have made more improvements. This information is not available anywhere else, and it has been a fun project so far.
I think it is helpful to balance the doom and gloom with some growth-focused news, even though it feels like layoff announcements are the new funding round stories. I'm not just talking about new funds. The consumer products industry will be able to track carbon emissions thanks to $10 million secured by Planet FWD. No problem.
There are less than 100 months left to reach the global goal of cutting at least some emissions. Household consumption of things like food, which impacts land, energy and water, account for 40% of global emissions.
There is a person seen on a website.
Substack has dropped plans for a Series C.
4 investors discuss the US cannabis market.
The former head of Twitter India leaves the startup.
The founder claims that the startup is a copy-and-pasting business.
Everything you wanted to know about Musk, but didn't want to ask.
It was seen on the tech site.
There are questions about Y Combinator's role in startup correction.
Jess Lee from Sequoia explains how they think about their deals.
It might be a poor choice to have faster delivery times.
Does International Entrepreneur Parole have any advantages over an O-1 visa?
Can recurring revenue financing drive growth?
Next time.
N.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
