Compiled a Linux kernel module & got the driver binaries for a Bluetooth USB Adapter, all through reading forum posts of awesome folks who support open source & share their knowledge.
Wish some big co PMs also start prioritizing Linux & make lives easier for those users.
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Aditya Babbar
@xAditya
Investment Team, . Helping founders build profitable businesses.
"Success is steady progress toward one's personal goals." - Jim Rohn
Aditya Babbar’s Tweets
Agree. It's the emerging funds with small AUM nos who need the fees to run their operations, & irony is they end up discounting rather than the bigger VCs.
Also, we should start calling it 20/20 (rather than 2/20) so that it's clear to everyone what's actually being charged.
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Replying to @davemcclure
Personally think mgmt fees makes sense - especially for emerging GPs. Problem start when GPs don't spend the mgmt fees on what they're supposed to be - managing. Funds with huge AUM pull in monstrous fees & majority of that goes to GPs. that's where you have misalignment.
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As a fund if you're looking to automate parts of your dealflow or build a community platform, you should talk to of .
You'd be amazed how quickly stuff can be built using no-code tools that is miles ahead of the traditional software used in fund ops.
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We opened up our no-code skills and operations know-how for funds through our fund ops division, @calmfund Studio.
We recently completed an exciting project for @MoxxieVentures, connecting their inbox dealflow directly to @Affinity. Read on to learn more.
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Elon Musk explained his criteria on whom to retain while downsizing a company on .
Obviously hard to do in any big co as you'd end up relying on the assessments of folks who might not be critical themselves or exceptional at their work. :-)
youtube.com/clip/Ugkxy0SGs
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Every successful person has a story with many chapters. Keep writing yours.
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About time that Institutional LPs also change their minds & get onboard this huge opportunity of investing in a vast majority of businesses that don't need traditional VC funding.
Check out more details about 's model here: calmfund.com/for-investors
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What’s something that you changed your mind on in 2022?
For me, I no longer believe VC is the superior way to finance and build most companies. It’s an option but for a very specific type of entrepreneur, business and market opportunity.
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If you don't have empathy for the founders gutting it out there (as an investor), you are in the wrong line of work.
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There are some really great VCs out there and I had the opportunity this week to see a few in action. What is great? Empathy for founder, clear focus on how to win (vs not losing) and openness to debate.
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The prerequisite is going to be 'clear thinking' like it is with programming right now, but without the current barrier of having to learn an obtuse syntax or a new way of expressing things. The latest 'AI' developments would be a game changer.
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This is year 2025.
The key sought after skill is designing prompts to get the most out of language models.
Googling and programming as we know it has changed beyond recognition.
Just heard the keynote of of at CANNABLE event.
Good to see bootstrapped startups getting centerstage. Great story of them outcompeting their funded competitors with operational efficiency & not giving up inspite of initial period of flat growth.
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A company is nothing more than a collection of people moving in the same direction.
1. When you find great people, even if you don't have a role for them, you will soon.
2. Repeat your mission with as much excitement the 100th time. It's always 1st time someone is hearing it.
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“Why didn't you just raise a bunch of venture capital and go for The Big Time? Why were you taking profits when you could have invested in growth? Don't you want to own a unicorn? Don't you want to be a billionaire?!”
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Sounds like a good deal for the founders if they are able to build a $2M ARR business while retaining 96% equity, & have no one forcing them to dilute more or exit for the sake of investors.
Investors got back 3X in 3 years & still retain uncapped upside with their equity stake.
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Reilly is the first founder to fully pay off his Shared Earnings Agreement (SEAL), so we now have one data point we can analyze to see if the structure we've been using at @calmfund is a good deal for founders, investors, or both. Let's dig in... twitter.com/_rchase_/statu…
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That's where 's hybrid model (equity + profit share) is a *much* better option.
You don't have to rely only on exits to give solid returns on your investments & don't have to chase the same companies, or founders with 'conventional' backgrounds only.
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Heard from VC LPs - had a top VC consultant/advisor/FoF share their fresh power law data:
As of Q2, for Fund Vintages 2008-2019, they had exposure to 8,350 companies. 2,700 were realized. Of those exited companies, 5% of the companies (150) drove 70% of the value.
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Every year hundreds of thousands of startups are being built.
But only 0.05% raise venture capital.
Then only 1% become a "unicorn".
The lesson? The real "Silicon Valley" reality is most founders are quietly building profitable bootstrapped startups and I think that's awesome.
One can debate the exact numbers here, but a vast majority of software cos shouldn't be raising funds from 'traditional' VCs.
There is a much wider range of successful outcomes other than being a unicorn that are ruled out for the founders & employees when they take that route.
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one important thing to note, VC as an asset class does work! but only for 1% of companies (and 1% of funds).
if you don't fall into that category, you have to play a different game.
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venture capital is becoming a terrible product.
returns are shrinking, founders are forced to pursue crazy risks, and it just smells rotten.
today, i published the result of months of research on the root of the problem and the fix.
enjoy.
every.to/napkin-math/ve
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I like this new trend of tech companies raising one round of capital.
• No A, B, C, D, Z rounds.
• No growth at all costs.
• No one in a million shot of a unicorn.
Just build a sustainable and profitable business with a lot of optionality:
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This won't happen overnight but if someone is outsourcing work to a BPO or running one, they should start looking at AI powered solutions much more closely now.
Not a bad option trying to build a calm company that helps in reducing mundane work being done in a specific domain.
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Billions of hours of human potential every year are wasted on menial tasks. Data entry, form filling, basic knowledge work kind of stuff.
Large language models are uniquely good at these tasks. These range in scope and impact from fiverr gig work to hours of doctor's days.
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This was my first fundraise in “this environment.” Biggest takeaway: only TWO types of check writers stand out:
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At , our engg team has built an excellent dealflow app & a community platform using no-code tools.
If you are a fund that wants to streamline the ops using software, check out the examples on this link for inspiration: calmfund.com/no-code-consul
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If LPs want to help spur innovation in our industry they should consider two ideas: invest in managers who are building software to help them do their jobs better and invest in managers who actually pitch a plan to disrupt the large incumbents.
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What no one tells you about fundraising:
Not every ‘no’ is about your startup, many times it’s due to fund timing, investments in the pipeline, team capacity, portfolio construction, allocation + many more things.
This should be the goal for most bootstrapped founders. Build a team that can run the show without you, irrespective of the scale of the organization.
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A good CEO should be able to be run over by an ice cream truck and have the company continue to operate for months or years without any problem.
In our opinion, a CEO should be a human router, feeding opportunities and talented people into a machine of their own design.
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Agree. Many early stage investors default to some sort of pattern-matching which is very limiting.
It has to be a combination of *some* research, investor's previous exp, foresight & hunch (yes) that is needed to find the best cos in their dealflow (assuming it's good enough).
If you are bootstrapping & trying to build a profitable venture, is a good option for raising capital.
A wide range of successful outcomes lie between a startup becoming a unicorn or going bust & we are happy to fund even those cos that most VCs would consider 'niche'.
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Of the 70-ish investments we've made in ~3 years, @calmfund was the lead or sole investor in 88% of them. That's what happens when you don't have to care what follow-on investors are going to think and can just invest in great companies/founders.
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As a LP, you know which funds made these not-so-smart investments in overvalued companies.
This is the right time to back the other disciplined investors at the trough.
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Heard from a VC LP this week:
“Very hard to underwrite anyones track record right now - regardless of how they have marked their portfolio. There are too many bad companies sitting on a lot of cash. We will wait for fallout and dispersion to become more clear.”
Excellent outfielding by SL. Well played! Look forward to 's article tomorrow, how they pulled it off in spite of all the odds & situation there.
A bootstrapped friend recently sold his company for $50M... making roughly the same as a VC-backed founder who IPO’ed at $1B.
Not all startups should take VC money.
Not all startups need to IPO to become great companies.
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dear lazyweb,
what are the best resources, classes, programs, etc for teaching people how to angel invest at preseed or seed?
Sometimes friends ask me, and I don't have anywhere to point them to!
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After-effects of VCs trying to pile in the money where it was probably not required.
All in the 'hope' of finding one winner to generate returns for their fund.
LPs need to start deploying their capital more with well-disciplined investors rather than those chasing unicorns.
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I've now met several companies with 20 years' runway, because they raised giant rounds when valuations were crazy a year ago, but haven't hired much. Never saw that before.
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I see more founders quitting entrepreneurship because they're exhausted than those quitting because of pressure from the competition.
Pacing yourself and maintaining your mental health is a significant part of succeeding in business.
Nothing wrong in having either of these goals.
But as we say at , you can potentially have a much wider range of successful outcomes if you choose to build a bootstrapped & profitable business. Even more true for a 1st time founder who is not rich or 'well-connected'.
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Ten years ago most of the people I talked to dreamed about quitting their job to build the next unicorn and make a lot of money.
Now most of the people I talk to dream about building a small, profitable online business to live life on their own terms.
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The worst time to raise capital may also be the best time to find the most aligned investor partners.
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One can argue about the exact numbers here, but if a tech business isn't open to hiring globally/remotely, they are putting themselves at a huge disadvantage.
Not only the candidate pool would be limited, most probably they would end up building a monocultural work environment.
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The US has only 5% of the world's population. So if talent is equally distributed, 95% of the most talented people are born outside the US. That's why any kind of work in which ability is at a premium tends to have lots of immigrants. And tech is that kind of work.