Steve Bennet

@JohnCarreyrou just ran across a draper family MySpace post from 2004 defending family friend Ken Lay who was taking bad rap

@Matt_Schulman1 Think you mean Frisco. That's what all the locals call the city now...

Heading to San Fran (as the locals call it). What local-hole-in-the-walls (other than California Pizza Kitchen and Philz Coffee) should I be sure to check out?

Got subscription bombed a few days ago. In the middle of all the subscription confirms was a ticket purchased on Alaska Air using miles. Glad I didn't mass delete the hundreds of emails or would've missed.

@kevg1412 I’m an LP in dozens of funds over the last few decades and have rarely seen anyone interested in cross fund investments. In a second fund you typically want a significant number of new LPs who wouldn’t want to see $ go to existing portfolio

Any time I meet a VC, especially an emerging manager, I think about this passage by Tony Hsieh reflecting on Venture Frogs (his fund with Sequoia's Alfred Lin)

@pmitu I've always advised my students that there are two buckets: 1. Entrepreneurs who have made money for that investor or other investors in their network 2. Everyone else Bucket 1 can raise without traction. Bucket 2 can't.

Latest news from VCs: It is impossible to raise money without traction. (even at the pre-seed stage)

@ivyavocado @MartinGTobias You should reach out to Jessica Kamada at Swizzle Ventures. Invests early in women's health and wealth.

@MartinGTobias 👋 B2C, but deeply intimate with my niche (IVF mama) & building something myself that currently does not exist. The fertility app market is looking at $90B by 2032. I’ve got a deck & demo ready. Any interest in femtech?

All I want for Christmas is to fund two more B2B software companies removing friction at scale. Bonus points for weird niches no one else is building for. Someone who knows the customer pain intimately and someone who can build the product. Bonus for an MVP and a couple of customers. We write $250-$500K first checks in. Tell me more bit.ly/pitchIV

@MartinGTobias Yup. Had one where we worked with lead investor (big name firm) for 9 months on pivot. Built product, lined up investor syndicate, ready to launch when lead changes mind. Forced in to an ABC. Could’ve made decision earlier and saved a couple million bucks

Founder reminder: new investors are very unlikely to fund a major pivot if existing investors are not leading. Saw a company today that raised $3.5m on prior plan and failed. Major pivot to new market trying to raise $2m from new investors. Existing investors not investing but still on cap table. Round didn’t get done. In this case it would have been better to kill old company and start fresh.

I’ve been getting a ton of emails from Boardy Boardman about connecting me with founders raising capital. Has anyone ever responded to this AI agent? Just curious.

Had a great time joining @jeremyalmond & @megancguy on the @reDeFined_talks podcast. We covered a lot—early crypto adoption, blockchain in treasury strategy, and what I’m seeing from students and startups at the edge of finance and tech. 🎧 Worth a listen. youtube.com/watch?v=T5zKvI…

@Mike_kim714 Go Bears!

Giving away my Titleist staff bag that I used from the Open Champ to the BMW I believe. Must be a follower Comment, like, retweet for a chance to win!

@MartinGTobias So few do first part of 3. Partially because I’ve been around so long and seen so many of the past failures, I always ask and rarely get answers.

If you are Pre-Seed, do these things before you pitch VC's and you will be 10x more successful at fundraising: 1. build an MVP and get it in hands of customers. have a clear product wedge. 2. talk to 50-100 customers, have all notes in an AI chatbot, summarize customer pain points, extract a couple "if you build i will buy it" quotes, have 3-5 potential customers ready or reference calls. Validate product wedge 3. find a list of who tried to solve this problem in the past, even tangentially. Call them, talk to them, summarize why prior things failed. Get all current competitors on list, know how / why you are better. 4, summarize all above in a great "why now? Why us?" slide. Why Now? and Why US? are the primary questions for Pre-Seed VCs, get that one nailed.

Love this solution for aging in place. When I was at IControl Networks 20 years ago this is one of the use cases we evaluated. There was a wifi connected teapot that was popular in Japan. If parent made daily tea, kids knew everything was ok.

@Yuki__Soma @GolferHD @NUCLRGOLF Minus 11 makes sense for a 50 man scramble over 9 holes assuming two reachable par 5s and no hole outs from fairway

@GolferHD @NUCLRGOLF I know but what you said about your 50 man scramble would have no logic here if thats the case? I agree qith you saying-29 is literally impossible, but doesnt make much sense the other thing

Are scrambles getting out of control? 🏌️‍♂️🤔

@jefielding I wrote about this 10 years ago. The more things change the more they stay the same...sigh professorvc.com/2015/06/please…

If your startup fails, all investor money is lost but a soft landing / acqui-hire is secured by the team, should you celebrate it all over social media as if it’s a win? I find this practice in our industry so weird, so common and everyone just goes along with it 🤷🏼‍♀️

@SHistorians @Top100Rick I know guys in my club who do that with course wide open so they don't have to post score

@Top100Rick I once walked off a course after being -3 through 2 holes because those two holes took me just under an hour to play. And it was a private course

The Shrink The Game movement has gained many members today! What would you do in this situation? Imagine being on a public course and reaching this hole…and there are FIVE groups backed up on it! Me? I’m leaving. Unless I’m with good friends who really want to finish, I’d rather go home and clean the garage.

So, trying to get tax refund issue resolved with FTB. They want me to fax them a bunch of supporting docs? It’s almost 2025 and FTB still requires faxes? When I asked if I could send by telegram instead, she suggested I go to Home Depot to fax. I can do on my computer, but WTF!!

@michelletandler Is it a smear campaign or that is impossible to avoid a stream of Elon tweets every time you log on.? That’s my issue. Would love real dialog.

I am concerned that the Leftist smear campaign against X is working. Almost all my friends are no longer on X. This is a shame, if the goal of X is to promote dialog.

Thanks Jeff Lawson for buying the Onion so we could get this great zoom in on electoral coverage. No other news source has gone to this level of detail.

@Jason I tried to figure how to place a bet on polymarket a couple of weeks ago when odds shifted in Trump’s favor. Too hard to get the VPN’s and exchanges lined up to place bet in US. Clearly was an arbitrage opportunity as likely would bounce back as we’ve seen today.

That’s a wild swing 🤔 anyone have a theory of the prediction markets returning to the polling data?

@SwannMarcus89 Great arbitrage opportunity. Bet on Harris as odds drop and bet on Trump when odds shift right before election. Seems like it will have to if market is at all efficient, which may not be given Elon factor and those who can actually figure out a way to place a bet.

Elon tweeted about polymarket 20 times, right-wingers flooded polymarket with money on Trump, and now conservatives are posting vague conspiracy theories about their own behavior Incredible things happening to the American right

@MartinGTobias I've always liked this. Many more exit options and much more likely to work out well for founders.

I am seeing more "one and done" financing rounds in B2B software. Not just seed, actually pre-seed, just after the MVP with a little early revenue. The last two companies I invested in raised < $2M and have plans that get to profitability on less than half what they raised. 🔥