Florian Fischetti

I wrote two term sheets this week into startups backed by amazing founding teams, and in both cases I recommended a pivot to the team’s initial GTM strategy.   Sometimes being well networked, or building in a white hot problem space can be a gift and a curse when it catches the attention of enterprise customers.   On paper, it is the exact type of validation a funding team is seeking as they work through an initial version of their product, but more often than not it has the potential to derail a startup’s potential for success.   The startups in question were both experiencing this exact dynamic.  In one case, the team had caught the eye of one of the largest robotics companies in the world and begun conversations around a potential partnership.   The second company is backed by a 20 year industry veteran with a deep rolodex of enterprise customers within his ICP.  Some of the largest retailers in the world were engaging in conversations around piloting his product.  As I explained to both of these founders, this was amazing validation, but should also not be the focal point of their initial GTM.   The reality is, in order to successfully deploy within either of these customers, they were looking at a long and arduous path, filled with security reviews and product feature sets that realistically an early stage pre-seed company with 2 founders could not deliver upon.   My advice to them, continue those conversations, with the realization that they could take 1 year+ before realistic deployments, but focus the lion’s share of their GTM energies toward customers with lower deployment hurdles, in this case Series A/B backed robotics companies and $50M-$250M retailers.    To be clear, the  genuine interest from these enterprises is a massively positive indicator on the problem/solution set they are building for, and it is part of the reason we are bullish on the market opportunity of each startup.  I’ve just seen so many startups fail to deploy an initial product and ultimately never raise a seed round because they get stuck in a seemingly never ending enterprise sales cycle.

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“So we try to work with founders and CMOs to get them to come through that process with us, and I think what we find then is once they know the process, the process is great, the process is cool, but we will then suggest some pretty differentiated and unique stories that they could be telling, and that’s when the rubber hits the road. Are they comfortable being this ambitious? Are they comfortable stretching to having a strong opinion on this or that, or do they kinda want to just play it safe and get all the goodwill from branding without doing some of the hard work of taking a stand? That’s where it gets dicey.” Quote of the Day with Shannon Deep and Kevan Lee in conversation with Leah Tharin about brand marketing. Some of the best brand marketing experiences I’ve had was doing rapid press response, in which a journalist would reach out writing a breaking story and I would provide a paragraph quote for them to cite. Whenever I took a definite stand on an issue - not veering into controversy for controversy's sake - it would always be published in the article and we would see the benefit. I find a lot of material on LinkedIn to be bland and samey and safe, and frankly that bores me. Even though I too have the pull to ‘play it safe’ at times, if I have a strong opinion, that may even run counter to the prevailing opinion, I try to be true to myself. There was a question asked the other day: Can you build a successful personal brand, if you have no personality? I don’t think so. I’m an introvert, so it’s not about having a gregarious extravert personality, but it’s definitely about having an opinion, calling it as you see it, even if you’re wrong. I’m certainly more engaged with brands that have opinions. But I find most to be bland and filled with safe corporate speak. What’s your opinion?

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Every week, I speak with product and risk managers from fintech startups - and the majority are challenging their technical teams to build vs buy. Here’s my advice: Even though it might seem like a good short-term strategic move, it’s not the best path long-term. Their teams do have the capability to build them, but they tend to overlook increased resource requirements maintaining those integrations. Because building the integration is just the first step. It’s not uncommon for these teams to see what challenges emerge in as little as 6-9 months down the track. These include: - Maintenance becomes a full-time job. - Resource requirements increase with the need for developers, DevOps and data engineers. - As growth continues, the complexity of each integration compounds. - They’re unable to standardise data for different teams. So what I find is that they’re spending hundreds, if not thousands, of engineering hours to build integrations that aren’t necessarily adding value. Too much time figuring out how to access and maintain the data instead of putting time towards improving processes and products with the data. This is where accessing a unified API, like ours, is the real strategic move. It removes that entire process, allowing fast-growing companies to focus on more growth by having quicker access to the right data. But beyond this, we’re not just providing data access. We're delivering insights and removing significant internal costs for fast-growing companies. Particularly with our focus on untapped, non-unified data sources where there are no existing APIs. When it comes to buy vs build, remember that the future of financial services lies in how effectively you can use data to improve processes, not in how many integrations you can maintain. 

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Three lessons from building and launching a P2P payments app without doing the proper customer validation first (despite knowing better): 1) Building something you need is a great starting point - but not enough to validate an idea. As someone drawn to building solutions, I’m an early tech adopter. This led me to overestimate consumers’ willingness to onboard, especially with a P2P payments app that requires KYC/KYB compliance and relies on a network effect to be useful. 2) Manual solutions are often best to start with It’s good business to be in business - transitioning from ideating to operating as early as possible is the BEST way to learn effectively. While the move fast and break things mindset has attracted well-deserved skepticism, getting stuck in a multi-year build trap distracted me from critical real-world validation. 3) Consumer appetite shifts quickly In my case, the proliferation of free and instant P2P payment options like Zelle added additional pricing pressure that I couldn’t compete with. This disincentivized the consumer event/payment collection market, turning my bottom-up go-to-market strategy upside down. Pitch (https://www.pitch.fun) is currently on the back burner as I’ve begun building custom solutions in various industries to sharpen my skills, solve specific problems, gain a hands-on understanding of operations, pain points, and workflows, and build a network of experts to lean on as I keep my eyes peeled for high-impact opportunities.

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Insightful breakdown from my great Partner Omri Amirav-Drory on the simple factors that really separate the top 1% of investors from the rest, and how more operators should become investors! https://lnkd.in/gEiZdT2h

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Here's my 2024 LinkedIn Rewind, by Coauthor.studio: GATHER THE F***ING DATA. That's the real lesson from 2024, and it's why we launched Founders First Fund, kept Demolicious roaring, and continued pushing Portland's startup ecosystem forward. This year wasn't about me. It was about proving that overlooked founders in the PNW have the chops to build incredible companies - they just need the right support, data, and a community that refuses to let them fail. At NSIN, we connected defense and commercial startups. Through Founders First Fund, we made our first investment in Airbuild Inc. And with Demolicious, we gave 90+ founders a stage to share their vision. Three posts that captured our journey: 1. Early-Stage Startup Reality Check "Don't write any code! Don't build a website! Don't create a social channel! GATHER THE F***ING DATA!" https://lnkd.in/gQfMPaRi 2. Demolicious Champion of Champions "We had over 90 founders pitch throughout the year with the top founders pitching last night at the Mission Theater in front of a packed house." https://lnkd.in/gySaA--3 3. OEN Awards Reflection "We are really lucky to have an insane number of people who care deeply for the founder community here in the state." https://lnkd.in/g3ejZrPt Key moments: • Launched Founders First Fund - $5M focused on PNW startups • Ran 12 Demolicious events with 90+ founder pitches • Continued NSIN work connecting startups to defense opportunities • Celebrated UpStart Collective's 2-year anniversary 2025 is simple: Keep fueling the engines of founders who most people overlook. Because talent isn't distributed evenly, but opportunity shouldn't be a privilege. To every founder grinding away in their garage, basement, or coffee shop - we see you. Keep building. #LinkedInRewind #Coauthor #2024wrapped -- Get your 2024 LinkedIn Rewind! Go to coauthor.studio

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Product Market Fit, a new framework. I've been working on this for a little while now and figured it's time to "eat my own dogfood" and test it out in the market. In this framework I provide a visual outline of the journey from "day zero" to PMF. Along the way founders must iterate on their product as well as their market to close the Product Market Gap in order to get to PMF. More details in the article. Let me know what you think 🙏 https://lnkd.in/gyF8V--x

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🚨 The former CFO of Dropbox, Sujay Jaswa oversees the investment and operating activities as a founding partner at WndrCo, alongside media vet Jeffrey Katzenberg. He joins us for VC Wednesdays.🚨 🖋️  You recently closed a $460 million VC fund. Where are you looking to deploy that? Everything we do is around the idea of the future of work and helping people optimize how they get work done. That’s why we're investors in companies like Airtable, Figma, Databricks, Deel, 1Password and others. That won’t change, but now, you'll see us really focus on the applications of AI that will meaningfully disrupt how work gets done, like in finance, HR and customer support. 🖋️  Why should founders work with WndrCo? One thing that we do that's different is starting one to two companies a year in areas that we think have the potential to yield big returns. So, when we talk to entrepreneurs, our operating experience stays current, and that angle on venture is fairly unique. The second is that each partner at WndrCo has built something, so we have the empathy that comes from that experience. Third, we do only five to seven deals a year, versus bigger firms that do hundreds. Because we have a smaller portfolio, entrepreneurs can get a hold of literally every partner within a couple of hours, 365 days a year. 🖋️ Which startup pitch sticks out the most in your memory over others and why? My favorite is one that’s not a household name yet, even though the business is absolutely on fire. It’s Aura, an all-in-one product to protect you and your family online. The idea is that unlike the physical world, you have no idea what your kids are doing on their phones and devices. Aura gives parents the tools to navigate raising a kid in our mobile-first and digital-first world. When the founder, Hari Ravichandran, walked me through how he would take it to market, it was love at first sight. He's an extraordinary entrepreneur and the best go-to-market person I've ever met when it comes to consumer products. 🖋️ What’s one investment you regret passing on and why? At the end of the day, this whole business is built on being part of monster companies as early as possible. One of the best enterprise companies of the last decade is Databricks. The founder and CEO, Ali Ghodsi, is a very good friend of mine, and for whatever reason, it never occurred to me in the early years to twist his arm to try and let him take our money. We invested in Databricks later than I’d have liked to. 🖋️  What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned working with Jeffrey Katzenberg? The biggest thing I've learned is that you can't be him, and it’s impossible to keep up with him. He's relentless, and I have never met someone who works harder than him. If he says he's going to do something, no matter how hard, if it's within his capabilities, he'll do it. He's a doer, and he just gets stuff done. I admire that so tremendously. #VCWednesdays #vc #venturecapital #startups #TechonLinkedIn

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💡 Not every pitch turns into a deal— while no two paths are identical, certain patterns tend to repeat. At SmartGateVC, we’ve been lucky enough to partner with incredible founders at the earliest stages of their journeys for the last 5 years. 🚀 The First Meeting: What Stands Out? During first conversation we’re focused on two key questions: What is the background of the founder and what unique insight does this founder have about the space? 🔄 Going Deeper: Unpacking the Vision If the founder’s expertise resonates, we schedule a follow-up to dig into the company’s vision, business model, and strategy. We ask questions and understand the fundamentals. The founder gets to know us: our fund and our approach. 🕵️‍♂️ Validating Through Our Network We start poking holes—constructively. We tap advisors, industry veterans, and operators for feedback. We introduce founders to potential customers, advisors, or partners. We watch how they utilize these connections, and over several meetings, we aim to support them with their challenges. 🌐 Decision Time: Invest or Pass Eventually, we reach the decision point. If we feel confident in our alignment based on their progress—we start discussing terms. Our goal? Make sure the relationship is a two-way fit. Founders assess us too. 💸 Ink & Wire: Once we agree on terms (often a SAFE), funds move—and the real work starts. From that moment on, we’re in it together, helping each other tackle challenges and scale big. Every investment journey has its nuances. 💡 Not every conversation results in a deal—but every process is a chance to learn and improve. Missed opportunities are insights- each interaction sharpens our instincts - and every lesson adds to the collective edge of the team.

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VISION => TALENT => TEAM Founders: The strength and clarity of your vision precedes your ability to attract great talent, which in turn precedes the construction of teams who will build great products. If you think you have a team problem, you likely do... but the root cause is that you have not effectively crafted your vision, ambition and business model in a way that will attract the best talent.

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Big announcement below! 👇 Let's talk about the current state of GP-LP affairs: 🤯Emerging VC managers have absolutely exploded over the past 5 years. 📈 At the same time, more and more data has surfaced that shows that emerging VC firms tend to outperform larger, established firms. 🤔 All of this has made it intriguing but tough for LPs to know where to direct their attention. 🛍 GPs frequently meet LPs at conferences who are window shopping but not committed to the asset class or emerging managers. 🧾 And both crews get overwhelmed by transactional convos. So Sydney Paige Thomas and I created Abundance. Abundance is a private, nomination-based retreat for active LPs and top emerging GPs to form new experiences together and build lasting relationships. Why Abundance? Abundance is knowing that there is more than enough for more than one to succeed. And a single win within a community is a win for the community itself. The journey of an emerging VC manager from 1st close to final close or Fund 1 to Fund 2 is (1) communal and (2) requires an abundant mindset. LPs look for structure and confidence to feel comfortable investing in early VC firms. Yet many of the feeds we scroll and conferences we attend reinforce inherent power dynamics and transactional thinking, which allows scarcity mindset to creep in for emerging GPs. Some of the best events I’ve attended have been intentionally non-transactional, e.g. Camp Hustle, Recast Summit, and other GPs’ AGMs. The fundraising success stories we see usually involve a community (usually of other GPs & LPs) coming together to support and open doors for the emerging GP. We designed Abundance to be an immersive gathering that fosters these connections. Starting tonight, ~100 GPs and LPs are descending upon Seattle for the inaugural Abundance retreat. This has been under wraps for months and I can’t wait to see it come to life! Thanks in advance to our awesome sponsors who were the earliest believers in this vision: Sydecar, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Gunderson Dettmer, & Zelda Ventures. And shoutout to my dad Ed Illig for logo design & Halle Kaplan-Allen being the first sponsor to say yes 🤩 Presented by The Council Capital & Symphonic Capital.

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Late-Seed/Series A startup founders often consider budgets a useless paper-exercise given the level of uncertainty at that stage, but at Unbound we believe they are a vital tool to take your company to its next goalpost. In this article we explore some best practices for creating and using a budget. https://lnkd.in/eJzab_Z8

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Growing teams need growing transparency. As teams expand, founders lose direct contact with individual team members. The result? ↳ Miscommunication-driven delays ↳ Misalignment across the departments ↳ Unclear objectives frustrating workflows ↳ Team members grow disconnected from the mission ↳ Leaders spend time patching issues rather than driving growth Here’s how you can bridge the gaps: 1️⃣ Increase Organizational Transparency ↳ Share decisions, goals, and metrics with all teams ↳ Provide visibility into how individual work supports strategy 2️⃣ Define Communication Roles ↳ Assign leaders to cascade updates and decisions ↳ Ensure consistent messaging to reduce confusion 3️⃣ Build Clear Feedback Loops ↳ Use regular check-ins to realign on priorities ↳ Actively seek input to prevent bottlenecks or missteps Scaling your headcount should never mean sacrificing clarity for the team. What will you do to pulse-check and ensure alignment this week?

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Big news from WeaveGrid! We are excited to announce that we have raised $28M in strategic funding led by Woven Capital, Toyota's Growth Fund. I came to WeaveGrid three years ago with the goal of building a real ecosystem of OEM partners to create a more efficient grid full of EVs. Today we're taking that one step further in announcing investment from the world's largest automaker, Toyota Motor Corporation. With this strategic round fundraise, I look forward to continuing to scale our solutions across brands, utilities, and geographies, allowing us to support grid resilience and enable widespread EV adoption. Consider the grid… WOVEN 🪡 ⚡ 🚘 Woven Capital 🤝WeaveGrid = #WovenGrid #electricvehicles #ElectricFabric #climatetech #sustainability #energy

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"Every single founder and leader NEEDS to be in the details. Founders and leaders have unique insights, an understanding of the business, and an outsized level of care toward the business." - This!! 🎯 'Founder Mode' brings a unique eagle-eye vision to the company, ensuring that details are not lost even when looking at things from a high and comprehensive level. It is the perfect blend of the 'full company' AND the 'heavy on granular details' perspectives, critical for sound decision-making.

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💡 Sunday read. Was catching up on some reading today and enjoyed this TechCrunch article with Marc Lore. His comments about startups and taking risk - specifically seeking out risk specifically - is insightful. From the article 👇 "But startups are very different than big companies. When you’re at a big company like Walmart [whose U.S. e-commerce business Lore ran after selling it one of his companies], it’s all about incremental improvement. There’s no incentive to take risk. As a startup founder, chances are you’re going to die. Chances are you are going to die every day that you’re living and doing this startup. The probability is 80%, with only a 20% chance of this actually working. So you have to take that into account when you’re making decisions. You have to seek opportunities to take risk, to reduce your risk of dying. The status quo is the worst thing you can do. Doing nothing is the most risk you can possibly take." Full article here https://lnkd.in/gQhuyeiu

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Monkeys on pedestals! 🐒🔥 One of my favorite frameworks for quickly assessing the viability of any project - whether it’s launching a new product, starting a company, or testing a go-to-market motion - is Monkeys on Pedestals. I first came across it through Annie Duke, who learned it from Astro Teller (CEO of X, Google’s innovation hub), and it’s a concept I regularly share with founders I work with. Here’s how it works: Imagine you’re trying to teach a monkey to juggle flaming torches while standing on a pedestal in the town square. Two tasks compete for your time and resources: 1️⃣ Training the monkey. 2️⃣ Building the pedestal. Now ask yourself, what’s the hard part? Spoiler: it’s not the pedestal. The bottleneck - the critical challenge - is getting the monkey to juggle. Building the pedestal might feel like progress, but it’s irrelevant if you can’t solve the monkey problem first. This framework tells us to tackle the hardest, most uncertain task first. If the monkey can’t juggle, the project stops there, saving you time, money, and effort. It’s the opposite of the “low-hanging fruit” mindset. Tackling low-hanging fruit often feels good - it’s familiar and easy - but it offers the illusion of progress, not actual results. Pedestal building is just busywork if you can’t solve for the monkey. So next time you’re evaluating an idea or project, remember: Always tackle the monkey first! 🐒 😉 #monkeyfirst #startups #gtm #annieduke

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We work hard to make giving as easy as possible, while showcasing the power of DAFs as the smartest way to give. And what can be easier than tracking your client's DAF into the flows and processes you already know and love? Endaoment + Plaid enables just that. Interested in giving a twirl or getting a custom integration for your workflow? Just shoot a message ✉️

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Another step forward for the (unbiasedly) best banking solution in the market 😤

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