indievc

Announcing Arcway ⊹ ࣪ ˖ A real-time 3D engine where anyone can design a home. It is a simulated 3D world where buyers explore, change, and decide as light, physics, building rules, and real products move as one.

If you enjoyed my convo with the inimitable @joulee from First of Kind, Season 1 You’re invited to join our live conversation at @southpkcommons SF on Thursday Oct 23 where we’ll dive deeper into her working philosophy of how design and data interact. Request access below. ⬇️

Haven’t done many podcasts recently but when @itsurboyevan asks, I answer. We get into the state of startups and VC, why I don’t want any one firm to control the future and lessons from building @indievc through its various chapter. Congrats to Evan on launching his new pod!

Embracing all the VC stereotypes, @semil (legendary seed investor and one of Figma's earliest backers) and I took the pod on the road to Montauk, near where each of us grew up. Semil shared the full story for how he got into the Figma Series A, "design as an enduring differentiator", and the rationale behind VC's current obsession with seed rounds (and why every major investor, including multi stage platforms, are vying to be the first check of record). We also covered Meta's assembly of the AI Dream Team, how @TBPN, @indievc, and @joincolossus are shaping the future of tech media + brand (and how they influenced this episode), and the growing battle between CDNs (Cloudflare, etc) and AI companies. Special thank you / shout out to @scottbelsky who made an amazing off-camera cameo in the end that ended up on the cutting room floor (our bad, not his). Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 00:30 Reflecting on Long Island 01:47 M&A Frenzy and Talent Wars 02:10 Meta's Strategic Moves 06:30 Apple's AI Strategy 11:12 Figma's IPO Success 21:33 The State of Seed Investing 25:30 The Model's Mathematical Basis 26:00 Case Study: Firebase Acquisition 27:19 Seed Fund Strategies and Challenges 30:30 Founders' Incentives and Signal Risk 36:40 AI Agents vs. CDNs: A Legal Playground 42:57 The Evolution of Podcasts and Media 51:31 The Future of AI Branding 56:03 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Idea Maze or Insanity? w/ @AnjanKatta from @daylightco is live on the @indievc YouTube channel now…

Idea Maze or Insanity w/ @AnjanKatta of @daylightco youtu.be/yfvyRvpqUu8?si…

Our conversation with @AnjanKatta, founder of @daylightco, drops to the mailing list Monday…

Loved @thisisgrantlee metaphor of “player coaches” for how modern startups like @gammaapp are moving faster and getting to profitability sooner by removing middle management and hiring ICs who can take ideas from concept to delivered with minimal resources and bottlenecks.

This conversation with @thisisgrantlee feels like the perfect encapsulation of the modern startup playbook: - company started pre-ChatGPT but adapted and adopted models quickly - kept the team small by selecting for “player coaches” who can execute from idea to implementation - embraced constraints to focus on doing a few things exceptionally well - customer obsessed across 50M users - profitable growth that creates its own funding source, timeline and optionality Many more founders would be well suited to follow a similar path and embrace a similar set of principles

Our conversation with @thisisgrantlee, co-founder of @gammaapp is live on all indie channels

INDIE AUDIO- indie.vc/audio

Youtube- youtu.be/4KcEhVuLi64?si…

One of the newest @indievc backed companies is looking to add to the team. The amount of early positive response this product is getting from customers and design partners has been beyond impressive. Bonus- most of the team is right here in Utah…

Many people talk about a One and Done™️ approach to funding but @gammaapp is walking that walk. Using constraints allowed @thisisgrantlee and team to focus on solving real problems that real customers would pay for- the ultimate sign of product market fit…

This week we’re back with a new @indievc video. “ We sat down with @thisisgrantlee founder of @gammaapp a company they’ve scaled to $50M in ARR (likely much more now!) with less than 50 employees. If you want to understand the new playbook for building, this one’s for you…

I agreed to work on First of Kind with @indievc because of @bryce and his genuine enthusiasm for experimentation and storytelling My hope is that we inspire designers to SHIP NEW THINGS The ability to shape culture through software and design has never been more pronounced

With special thanks to @meetgranola @framer @perplexity_ai @linear @cursor_ai

“Be the first to try a new combinatorial approach without the need of permission from someone who has come before you. Because sometimes the immediate gains aren’t apparent but the ability to shape culture through software and design has never been more pronounced” -@soleio

"The Costco for Financial Services" We at @Meow believe we can build it. It's an enormous vision that nobody has tried.