Who is a founder raising money for the first time? Email me dave@davidsilvasmith.com or tell your friends.

I know failing doesn’t feel good. Sometimes, like in the story I’m about to share failure hurts my feelings. Even though I don’t enjoy failing at the moment it happens, now I look forward to a level of failure in my life. When I’m failing I’m trying new things. I’m…

I’ve got a 10-week Wednesday publishing streak going strong! I’ve written about one investment I made, critiqued a pitch deck, and startup sales. So far the article you seem to have liked most is “How My Fears Doomed My First Startup”, which is about my struggles with sales and customer engagement 9 years ago. I have a couple of dozen startup articles drafted up, but I’m curious — what would you like me to write about next?

Founders often ask me: “Dave, I’m pitching next week, what do you think the judges will ask me?” I remember feeling nervous about pitching when I was an entrepreneur doing some of my early startups. Just the thought of me submitting a pitch, and then anxiously wondering if my idea…

In 2010, I doomed my first startup from the beginning. I never gave it a chance. Through reflection on my failure, I grew and became empowered to sell a product before I hadn’t even started building. If you only read one thing and skip the rest of this article, here…

I loved the idea of creating a software company people would read about in the papers. I loved the idea of building software that helped millions of people around the world. However, I didn’t want to change, sacrifice, or grow to make that happen. I wanted to do what I…

I wanted to build a software company people loved. I wanted to help millions of people by building something they loved. This time wouldn’t be like my previous failures. Software that no one else ever saw, let alone used. This time was different. I have a working Minimum Viable Product…

They show a deep understanding of their customers, a history of outstanding results, and data-driven-strategy. Full disclosure: I invested in MySwimPro’s WeFunder. Here are the 3 reasons why. I’m going to cover each of the 26 slides in MySwimPro’s pitch deck. …

I’ve been wondering how I can connect with founders to help them. Especially founders in the same city and state as me. What do you think is the best way? Email, Facebook group, Telegram? Or does everyone get enough messages and not need more?