Raising pre-seed is really hard in any climate.

That's why founders should prepare / study and AVOID COSTLY MISTAKES when interacting with VCs.

In this blog we’ll look at mistakes that are MASSIVE RED FLAGS with VCs that founders can and should avoid.

2023 is off to a rough start in terms of fundraising and VC.

Many rounds will not get done or will get done with very different kind of terms.

HOW DO VCs HANDLE PORTFOLIO COMPANIES WHEN TIMES ARE TOUGH?

What kind of support can founders expect from VCs that backed them?

Angel investing has become very popular - from successful founders to executives - many are Angel investing.

But WHY?

And HOW to be SUCCESSFUL at it?

Here is YOUR COMPLETE GUIDE TO ANGEL INVESTING!

Founders are always confused about what it means to be founders, shareholders, directors, and executives as well as the differences between common stock and preferred stock.

Let’s unpack how it all works!

Many founders don't bother preparing for investor meetings or researching investors.

This is a BIG MISTAKE that puts them at a

BIG DISADVANTAGE.

Here is a Complete Guide for Founders on WHY and HOW to PREPARE FOR INVESTOR MEETINGS.

Investor meetings are notoriously hard especially THE 1ST MEETING.

Here is how Founders can prepare for and run an AWESOME 1ST INVESTOR MEETING.

Picking a co-founder(s) is the SECOND MOST IMPORTANT DECISION after deciding to start a startup.

WHO do you start is almost as equally important as WHY do you start.

BE THOUGHTFUL about who you partner with!

Here is all you need to know about co-founders.

Being in venture for over a decade I have met some truly incredible founders.

I’ve also met and worked with founders who had BAD TRAITS, traits that led to FAILURE.

Here are the worst ones I observed.

Early sales, particularly Enterprise sales, are EXCEPTIONALLY HARD for STARTUPS.

The biggest issue is that founders spend too much time with customers who AREN’T READY TO BUY.

Here is a simple framework for how to think about YOUR APPROACH TO YOUR CUSTOMERS.

It starts & ends with an analogy…

In my 10 years in venture I have met many great founders who understood their CUSTOMERS.

Yet, almost no founder on day 1 has thought about arguably the most important thing -- MOAT or long term defensibility of their business.

What are MOATs and WHY are they so IMPORTANT?

One of the biggest things I've seen in 10 years in venture that founders do not do right at Pre-Seed, Seed, and even Series A stage is

TARGET THE RIGHT INVESTORS.

In this blog we are going to unpack how to pick prospective investors - WHO to pitch and WHY.

@stewart: The @1kproject has delivered 5,000+ USD $1k direct cash grants to Ukrainian families. Immediate help, no strings, in a time of wrenching crisis. 100,000+ families waiting. For the next 48 hours, @jennifer & I will match all personal donations.

While I find a lot of resources online listing seed, and Series A investors, I was surprised to not be able to find a list of firms that could lead a larger, Series B or a later stage round.

31 Years ago, my family and I left then Soviet Ukraine as Jewish refugees and landed in United States. It now feels like eternity ago.

We had $2,500 in our pockets. We were scared. We didn’t know what to expect. We came from behind the barely lifted Iron Curtain. We thought that capitalism was evil. We were brainwashed, and uninformed.

I was the Managing Director at Techstars NYC between 2014 and 2018 and invested in 104 startups through two funds. The first fund has 13.74x TVPI (a multiple of the distributed capital plus future value) and 1.69x DPI (a multiple of the distributed capital), and the second has 5.37x TVPI and 1.16x DPI. Both funds, although early, have already returned all capital to investors with very significant upside.

However, here's the thing. Of the 104 companies that I backed, 34 failed. In other words, 33% of the companies I invested in are no longer operating. I have been exceptionally lucky with this portfolio, but I've experienced significant failure alongside my success.

A few weeks ago Justin Gordon reached out to me and asked to do an interview on Just Go Grind Podcast.

I’ve agreed, and the interview just came out. I thought Justin has done an awesome job as an interviewer.

We covered a wide range of topics - from my startups, to Techstars, The $1k Project, the origin and strategy of 2048 Ventures, portfolio construction, how we source, how do we evaluate deals, and much more.

When I first got a job in venture as a Managing Director at Techstars, I loved meeting founding with two equal co-founders - one technical and one business-focused.

It seemed obvious back then that a successful team needs to know how to build and how to sell and that this kind of composition of the founding team was both necessary and sufficient.

Since then, I invested in over 130 startups and my thinking on what is the best founding team, and how to allocate equity has evolved.