Harsh Tiwari’s Post

#StartupLessons #EntrepreneurJourney #GrowthMindset Hey everyone, Aleksa here! So, here’s the scoop: After three years of pouring our hearts and souls into our VC-backed tech startup, we’ve made the tough decision to shut it down. 😔 But you know what? I’ve never felt more confident and content in my life. Let me explain! Back in 2021, my co-founder and I dove headfirst into building something we were passionate about. We raised a $600k pre-seed round, navigated all the highs and lows, hired and fired, and learned more than we ever imagined. It’s been a rollercoaster, to say the least! Here are some of the biggest takeaways from this journey: **Align with the right people:** Only build for those whose values and motivation resonate with yours. (For me, that’s marketing, sales, and dev teams.) **Be your first customer:** Create what you’d personally pay for—eat your own dog food! 🐶 **Focus on revenue, not just feedback:** Build to make money, not just to please! 💰 **MSS over MVP:... Why Am I Confident About Closing My VC-Backed Startup After 3 Years? Answers:  https://lnkd.in/g7dCSFhw Let's Connect! Have you faced similar challenge...

#StartupLessons #EntrepreneurJourney #GrowthMindset Hey everyone, Aleksa here! So, here’s the scoop: After three years of pouring our hearts and souls into our VC-backed tech startup, we’ve made the tough decision to shut it down. 😔 But you know what? I’ve never felt more confident and content in my life. Let me explain! Back in 2021, my co-founder and I dove headfirst into building something we were passionate about. We raised a $600k pre-seed round, navigated all the highs and lows, hired and fired, and learned more than we ever imagined. It’s been a rollercoaster, to say the least! Here are some of the biggest takeaways from this journey: **Align with the right people:** Only build for those whose values and motivation resonate with yours. (For me, that’s marketing, sales, and dev teams.) **Be your first customer:** Create what you’d personally pay for—eat your own dog food! 🐶 **Focus on revenue, not just feedback:** Build to make money, not just to please! 💰 **MSS over MVP:... Why Am I Confident About Closing My VC-Backed Startup After 3 Years? Answers:  https://lnkd.in/gtSx4fdU Let's Connect! Have you faced similar challenge...

While living #NYC I had a roommate that went through Techstars Boulder. He told me Techstars ran a test once to determine if the speed at which founders replied to emails had any correlation to the success of the startup overall. Results: Yes! Founders who were quicker on email appeared to have a higher correlation of success. This was a small study of only a few cohorts in their program I believe, but it makes sense. The quicker you reply, the quicker things get in motion. I've searched hard for this data but have never found it. Anyone ever come across a study like this? #startups #venturecapital

#StartupLessons #EntrepreneurJourney #GrowthMindset Hey everyone, Aleksa here! So, here’s the scoop: After three years of pouring our hearts and souls into our VC-backed tech startup, we’ve made the tough decision to shut it down. 😔 But you know what? I’ve never felt more confident and content in my life. Let me explain! Back in 2021, my co-founder and I dove headfirst into building something we were passionate about. We raised a $600k pre-seed round, navigated all the highs and lows, hired and fired, and learned more than we ever imagined. It’s been a rollercoaster, to say the least! Here are some of the biggest takeaways from this journey: **Align with the right people:** Only build for those whose values and motivation resonate with yours. (For me, that’s marketing, sales, and dev teams.) **Be your first customer:** Create what you’d personally pay for—eat your own dog food! 🐶 **Focus on revenue, not just feedback:** Build to make money, not just to please! 💰 **MSS over MVP:... Why Am I Confident About Closing My VC-Backed Startup After 3 Years? Answers:  https://lnkd.in/gKWCANew Let's Connect! Have you faced similar challenge...

As an angel investor, what excites you about a startup? 📈 That's the question I asked Ben Lang. Ben is one of the first 15 employees at Notion and has been instrumental is shaping their community effort. Ben is also: → an active angel investor with 40+ deals → the creator of the Hummus day? → the founder of next play community Ben is the most humble person I know and I had so much fun talking about startups, communities, growth and angel investing with him. Some key discussion in this episode: → Founding a software startup with his father → Discovering Notion on Product Hunt → Launching notion-pages.com before joining → Meeting with the Ivan Zhao and team in SF → Developing the template gallery and community → Transitioning to Angel Investing as an apprentice → His unique value on the cap table and support 𝗟𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗕𝗲𝗻'𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆: https://lnkd.in/eWh-Jdt3 📍 for more startup stories, follow me @Hugo Rauch 📩 subscribe to my newsletter at the link below my name Thanks for a great conversation, Ben!

Rishav Agarwal This is my take as Investor myself along with keeping my own companies Boot strapped 🚀 The “Invisible Line” Syndrome: Sometimes it feels like there’s an imaginary wall between funded and bootstrapped founders. Funded folks have their war stories about investor demands, while bootstrapped founders are out here juggling everything on pure hustle. Maybe that’s why some prefer to keep their distance different worlds, different realities! 🌏 🚀 Opportunity (or Clubhouse) Access: Sure, the funded folks have more red-carpet invites, but bootstrapped founders have VIP access to creativity and resilience! It’s like two different playbooks both have perks, and both can get you on the field. 🚀 Unspoken Rivalry?: Some funded founders give that “Oh, you’re bootstrapped? Must be tough!” look. But honestly, both paths have their unique battles, whether it's keeping investors happy or staying profitable without outside cash. So maybe that look is more respect than rivalry (or so I like to tell myself 😉). 🚀 Subtle Shade Game: Of course, there are the occasional humble brags in conversations. Like, "Oh, we just raised our Series B" (meanwhile, I’m over here celebrating that I just paid myself this month). 😂 But hey, we all have our wins, right? 🙂 At the end of the day, funded or bootstrapped, we’re all trying to make a dent in the universe. Let’s cheer each other on because we’re all in the same crazy journey. 👊"

#StartupLessons #EntrepreneurJourney #GrowthMindset Hey everyone, Aleksa here! So, here’s the scoop: After three years of pouring our hearts and souls into our VC-backed tech startup, we’ve made the tough decision to shut it down. 😔 But you know what? I’ve never felt more confident and content in my life. Let me explain! Back in 2021, my co-founder and I dove headfirst into building something we were passionate about. We raised a $600k pre-seed round, navigated all the highs and lows, hired and fired, and learned more than we ever imagined. It’s been a rollercoaster, to say the least! Here are some of the biggest takeaways from this journey: **Align with the right people:** Only build for those whose values and motivation resonate with yours. (For me, that’s marketing, sales, and dev teams.) **Be your first customer:** Create what you’d personally pay for—eat your own dog food! 🐶 **Focus on revenue, not just feedback:** Build to make money, not just to please! 💰 **MSS over MVP:... Why Am I Confident About Closing My VC-Backed Startup After 3 Years? Answers:  https://lnkd.in/gHZt2EUc Let's Connect! Have you faced similar challenge...

Building a #startup is awesome, but it can feel like juggling flaming chainsaws sometimes. (We get it!) Limited resources? Tight budget? Need to launch yesterday? That's why we just launched our Startup Program to help early-stage founders like you crush development goals and get your MVP out the door faster. ️ Here's what we have: ➥ Special discounts, because let's face it, every penny counts. ➥ Effortless automation to free up your devs for the real brain work. ➥ Seamless integrations so you can ditch the duct tape and focus on building. ➥ Dedicated support to make sure you're never left hanging. Think you qualify? (Spoiler alert: you probably do!) • Less than 2 years old? ✔ Check. • Funding under $200k? ✔ Check. • Team of 5 or less? ✔ Check. • New to YepCode? Welcome aboard! Ready to start scaling? Let's make magic happen! ✨ #startuplife #devlife #mvp #launchfast

[1] Last week, a 1-on-1 at Olby led me to this post. I was asked how things were evolving at our new venture, which is in stealth mode but not a secret to those close to me. Let me go back a few months, maybe years. I'll do my best to keep it short: Jungle Devs was acquired in June 2021. We've continued leading it, learning, and evolving with the new experience of transitioning from a bootstrapped company to a startup. We eventually rebranded the company as Olby, opened our US entity in Austin, TX, and so on. If you're unaware of what 2021 represents, it was the highest peak in year-by-year VC investments over the past ~25 years. Then, 2022 arrived, and we entered a different environment. In 2023, I faced the biggest challenge of my life, which led me to realize a couple of things. As a result, I decided that 2024 would be different. Now, back to the 1-on-1. During the conversation, it became clear that very few people, even those working at tech companies, know what happens behind the scenes while building a startup from scratch—especially in real time. Sure, you've heard stories about startups that went public or raised a lot of money. But you probably haven't heard much about stealth-mode early-stage companies. Btw, I'm unsure if it qualifies as stealth mode once I start writing. Stay tuned. #behindthescenesonstealth #nektjourney

Exactly one year ago, I walked into Dogpatch Labs for the first Founders Talent Accelerator session. I had no co-founder, a bad startup idea and a tonne of preconceptions about “what it took” to make a startup happen. A year on, I’m CEO of a burgeoning tech company, Shōden. Rishabh and I, _ met in September, _ joined forces in October _ founded the business in November _ raised our first €100K in December _ began building in earnest in January _ launched a tonne, hit many setbacks along the way _ won our first customers _ have a clear path to creating HUGE value for a massive market _ recently secured another €100k investment I can say with confidence, we would be nowhere near where we are without Founders Talent Accelerator. If you’ve ever dreamed about starting your own thing. Stop dreaming. Begin.