Billy Draper

Happy Friday! I'm thrilled to announce the launch of my seed fund, Path Ventures (path.vc). I'll be investing between $150k-$300k in early-stage companies that are delighting and empowering their customers. If you're building one of those, reach out!

@sanlsrni Yep, it's just for fun! Adds a little friction to get to proper application instructions - game mechanics probably not perfect. I appreciate you looking out!

Hey @BillyDraper it took me about 5 minutes to reverse engineer the optimal game strategy for this w/ Claude. Because the entire page is hosted as a static page, game logic and answer key is inlined in the page sources. (1) Every card has a hidden type field - HOT, GEM, TRAP, PASS, or MIXED - that leaks the right answer, with scoring geared to HOT/GEM (can ask claude to just find it) (2) 2x multiplier if you decide under 3 seconds, with no penalties for multiplications, meaning being fast and wrong - being slow and wrong and being fast and right = 2x slow and right so speed is the dominant strategy. (3) The deck is fixed every game w/ 3 HOT, 1 GEM, 2 TRAP, 2 PASS and 2 MIXED, so if you pursue 6 of HOT/GEM/MIXED pass on the other 4, all in 3s, you get roughly 12k points vs the 8.5k S-Rank cutoff Maybe I'm missing something but worth a shout before this gets gamed by someone more incentivized than I (Also think there's no server validation for /api/scores allowing arbitrary leaderboard posting)

@paulg Whoever hung out with Paul right before this post:

Even though nerds are socially awkward, its actually easier to hang out with them than with smooth people, because standards are lower. You don't worry that you might be making social errors; all of you always are; so it stops mattering.

@businessbarista making job posts fun, inspired by @businessbarista

@BillyDraper Hell yea

I'm hiring a Principal for Path Ventures (first full-time role besides me). I made a fun game to kick off the application*, and then proper instructions will follow. Please send me your best people! principal.path.vc

@scottastevenson Ah man you rock for sharing this 🙏. Thank you Scott.

Great opportunity. Billy was one of our earliest investors at Spellbook, long before the bet was obvious.

*game answers unlikely to impact hiring decision, but they will unveil the job post and submission instructions, and quests just make things more fun.

Founders, don’t try to make everything look good on your updates. Stay hyper-consistent with your metric reporting unless you have good reason to adjust something. If you keep moving the goalpost to reframe the narrative, it erodes trust with your investors.

@AdamDraper We should start new awards body for film and television that reward the use of cutting edge technology at the highest level regardless of theatrical release, this, or whatever future restrictions are placed on 'best possible final product'.

The taxi driver just declared that uber driver cant win their business.

@StuartBlitz even better: list it on your website.

I'm going to say this one last time. I do *not* need to book a call with you so that you can read me your pricing proposal. Send it in advance. We're adults.

Founders that spend too much time/energy on their 'moat' will forget about their castle and lose. Do the thing at a high level and the moat digs itself.

VCs after Thrive bought a baseball team.

We're in the 'highlighting that it's the largest series A in the space as a good thing' part of the cycle.

Founders, don't be too cool for your startup. If you're not beaming about it, excited to tell a stranger about it, wearing it on your sleeve, it's going to be a long road!

@businessbarista @tenex_labs I love this idea. Great work.

I may be crazy, but I built a 20-level excel game to find a Finance savant to join our company. The game is called "Bug Hunt," and any excel junkie interested in becoming the leader of our Finance function at @tenex_labs can play. If you complete all 20 levels, you are accelerated to a final round interview with my cofounder & me. Here's how it works: 1) Open the model. It's a live workbook in your browser with the "finished" financials of a fictitious SaaS company. 2) Mark every bug. Click any cell, write one line of reasoning. Submit when you're sure. There are 20 total. 3) Climb the tiers. Each correct catch unlocks the next. The final three are veteran CFO-level. 4) Hit level 20 & auto-move to a final round interview. Play the game: web-production-42101.up.railway.app P.S. you can still apply to be our Senior Director of Strategic Finance (application below) the normal way, it's just a little less fun & you don't get an auto-invite to final round.

*important caveat: if there's a common direction or throughline between your companies but circumstances forced you to adjust or pivot, it can be positive.

Don't be a serial entrepreneur, be the opposite!

New kicks just came. I like to be early to trends, so watch out for this co.

@AdamDraper @alexisohanian Don't forget Warriors legend Todd Fuller.

@BillyDraper @alexisohanian I think that was when Kobe was a rookie. Ai, Stephon Marbury, Steve Nash.

Some of these 1996 Masterpieces are absolute art. Here's one from my vault.

I'd never bet against Ankur. Dyed-in-the-wool winner, true 'doer' in the best sense, and he's worked with @naval since the Teachable days. Excited to see this evolve.