May 24, 2019SAFE Calculator for the Y-Combinator Post Money SAFE -Tl;dr: Free SAFE calculator in Excel to calculate the post-money and pre-money SAFE from Y-Combinator. It’s the only one on the internet. Y-Combinator released the new post-money SAFE in October 2018. It’s a large change to the original pre-money SAFE that was released in 2013. There is no calculator in…Startup18 min readStartup18 min read
Mar 14, 2019How to remove unused PowerPoint master slides with a macroTl;dr: You have a template or have made a lot of master slides you don’t use. You want to share the file and don’t want all the master slides to be shared. Here is a macro to remove them in seconds This is a random tip, but something you probably…PowerPoint3 min readPowerPoint3 min read
Mar 13, 2019Too busy and busy definedWhen I was a junior M&A banker, I worked crazy hours. 20 hours a day was pretty regular for me. When I build startups I work pretty long hours and encourage staff to do the same. …Entrepreneurship4 min readEntrepreneurship4 min read
Mar 13, 201925 startups that raised without a productTl;dr: 25startups that raised without a product (Some without a pitch deck!). Yes it is possible. It’s just not likely. I’m a top writer on Quora. That means I see a lot of questions. …Startup10 min readStartup10 min read
Mar 13, 2019Sleep more if you suffer from pretending to workTl;dr: Sleep more to be productive. Don’t be a hero. When you hear yourself saying ‘focus’ and smacking both sides of your head, go to bed! Pick things up after and be more productive. “I clearly haven’t been sleeping much,” she said. Have you found yourself saying this, too? …Sleep9 min readSleep9 min read
Mar 12, 2019How to rebase a chartTl;dr: This is how you make a chart so that everything starts at 100 and grows from there so you can see the relative growth Have you ever wondered what stock has performed better or worse over a period of a year? What do things look like a year later…Excel3 min readExcel3 min read
Mar 12, 201940 pitch red flags which will undermine your startup fundraiseTl;dr: 40 pitch red flags to avoid when fundraising Fundraising? Don’t want to do stupid things? Here’s a blog for you. Now if you have been following me for some time, you know I normally write long blogs. This isn’t one of them. It’s 40 things that investors don’t like. …Startup5 min readStartup5 min read
Mar 11, 2019Disagree and commit to ship things fasterTl;dr: A blog on disagree and commit. If you want to make better decisions, in a faster time frame, reduce meeting hell and analysis paralysis, then implement disagree and commit. In short, everyone shares their opinion, argues their case and a decision gets made. …Startup13 min readStartup13 min read
Mar 6, 2019Why do Venture Capitalists want preference shares?Tl;dr: We are going to learn what preference shares are and that they are different from what you, the founders and your staff get. I was emailed by a founder who asked the naïve question “Can we just give common shares to investors? …Venture Capital11 min readVenture Capital11 min read
Mar 6, 2019Critical feedback when you are crapping your pantsNow, that sounds like a pretty crazy title, right? But if you are a founder you will understand what I mean by it. When you are balancing precariously on a knife’s edge between ebullient confidence of making a unicorn dent in the universe, and dark depression as to whether you…Startup9 min readStartup9 min read
