Eric Paley @epaley Twitter profile

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Eric Paley

8 years

VC assumption - more capital accelerates best companies to greater success. Unfortunately, the data says otherwise

Overdosing on VC: Lessons from 71 IPOs | TechCrunch

Venture capital is a hell of a drug. Used properly, it’s like adrenaline energizing many of the greatest companies of the past fifty years. Used

techcrunch.com

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

When getting ready to pitch VCs, founders often jump right into assembling a slide deck. I think this is a mistake. I’d suggest that you start by writing twenty headlines that sum up your startup, and only then build the slides. Here’s why: 1/11

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

Even for strong startups, fundraising is a marathon that requires near constant attention for 8-12 weeks. The process is punishing, and riskier than you might imagine. You need to prep for it as seriously as you would a race. /1

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Eric Paley

@epaley

2 years

A few startups founded during the depths of economic recession in 2008-2009: 💳 Square 🚖 Uber #⃣ Slack 🖥️ The Trade Desk 🌩️ Cloudflare ☎️ Twilio 📖 MongoDB 📍 Pinterest 🎓 2U Keep building.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

A portfolio CEO recently asked for advice about an unsolicited offer from a good VC: Facts: 💳 $20M/year run rate & doubling annually 🏦 Has $10M (most of the capital it’s ever raised) in the bank 💰 VC offer is $25M on a $150M pre-money valuation What should they do? /1

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Eric Paley

@epaley

2 years

It’s possible to sell a startup for $1B and make less than someone who sells theirs for $100M. Exit value is a vanity metric.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

🗣️ Don't Waste a VC Pitch Arguing 🗣️ Some of the best startup pitches sound crazy, & VCs are often skeptical. But I want to caution founders not to fall into “debate mode,” & to stay focused on the sale. Here’s how a pitch goes off the rails, & how to get it back on track: /1

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 months

Two Laws Of Startup Physics Fifteen years into my venture capital career, I’ve come to believe there are two undeniable laws of startup physics: Capital compounds both positive and negative formulas. All positive formulas compound at diminishing rates of return. 1/55

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Eric Paley

@epaley

3 years

The most common exit opportunity is not a multi-billion dollar IPO but a $50M-$100M acquisition. If you’ve raised a modest amount of money, that can be a transformative outcome. If you’ve maximized VC at each stage, many, if not all, of those opportunities will be closed.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

3 years

Startups don’t just “run out of money.” They wait too long to address problems while they had money. Failure doesn’t usually happen “to” startups. Problems are rationalized until it’s too late. Too much money multiplies this problem.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

Stock options are a key lure of working at a startup. But explaining them, and particularly their value, is a challenge for a few reasons: 🤩 Expectations management 🎲 Valuing risk is hard 💱 Financial complexity Here are some thoughts on communicating options. /1

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

My grandfather, George Feldman, "Grampy" turned 112 today - The 2nd oldest man in the United States and the 5th oldest man in the world. This afternoon we got news that he passed away. It's with great sadness and great appreciation, for the life he lived, that I share this news.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

2 years

On Making Your Startup Inevitable /1

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Eric Paley

@epaley

2 years

Startups don’t just “run out of money.” They wait too long to address problems while they have money. Failure doesn’t usually happen “to” startups. It happens when founders rationalize problems until it’s too late. Startups need to proactively tackle their biggest problems.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

3 months

@axios Let me rewrite that title in a more fair way: "When it became evident to Pres. Biden that it was time to gracefully step aside, his party briskly rallied around his running mate VP Harris."

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Eric Paley

@epaley

4 years

When pitching your startup, instead of a linear flow, think of your startup’s story like a pyramid with many layers. Each layer of the pyramid is the entire story of the company at different levels of resolution. /1

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Eric Paley

@epaley

3 years

Many VCs say founders won’t build a billion-dollar startup unless they are willing to gamble it all from the start. Nonsense. To become a billion-dollar business, a company first needs to be a $10 million business. Founders don't win by skipping to the end game.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

3 years

Don’t depend on VCs, or anyone other than your customers, for validation. Prove your product’s value with traction. Remember, VCs are financiers, not oracles.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

A couple of notes on Employee Stock Option Plans (ESOP): 🗜️ESOPs are as much for your benefit as your VC: There are many ways VCs can hurt startups — this isn’t one of them 🍤 Startups shouldn’t skimp on ESOPs: This is the capital you use to recruit talent Let me expand: /1

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

Startup founders: In a crisis, your cash position is your shield. /1

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Eric Paley

@epaley

3 years

While founders are experiencing insane highs and lows, your team members cannot be whiplashed by that same level of volatility. They're committed, but not nearly as committed as you, which is why they might run for the hills if you expose them to your every emotion.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

“Why Now?” Most VCs will ask this. But this question misses great startups. Investors are asking if your oppty is: 🤖 New tech? 👽 Emerging user behavior? ⚖️ Regulatory change? Major macro shifts matter, but special founders are often overlooked as key vector of success. /1

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Eric Paley

@epaley

4 years

. @dharmesh is one of the best entrepreneurs of his generation, but he's also an extraordinarily successful angel investor with a portfolio that includes Coinbase, Okta, Dropbox, Drift, among others. This post explains his "weird & wacky" process:

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Eric Paley

@epaley

4 years

It's worth noting Airtable raised only ~$10M over the first *five years* of its existence. Today, a lot of "seed-stage" startups burn that in 18 months. Go slow to go fast. well done @howietl ! #ProudInvestor

Airtable is now valued at $5.77B with a fresh $270 million in Series E funding | TechCrunch

Airtable, the no-code relational database that has amassed a customer base that spans 250,000 different organizations, has today announced the close of

techcrunch.com

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

This may feel like an old school approach, but your story is everything. Stop thinking of your pitch as a checklist. Start thinking like Lin Manuel Miranda. Don’t throw away your shot (Apologies to @Hunterwalk ). 11/11

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

It’s often said that the founder/VC relationship is harder to get out of than a marriage. Put that way, it’s shocking how few data points inform investment decisions. That means it’s *really* important that you get them mostly right. Some thoughts on how to do that: /1

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Eric Paley

@epaley

7 years

Much of the reason they've all shut down is too much capital. Mistaken for optionality, excess capital is actually driver of needless risk.

Eliot Brown

@eliotwb

7 years

Startups Juicero, Jawbone, Beepi, Quixey, Sprig, Luxe, Yik Yak together raised well over $1.2 B. All have shut down this year.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

3 years

Founders, if I told you that you could: 🧱 Increase productivity ♻️ Reduce turnover 🤗 Build loyalty All in 15 minutes a day, you might think I was peddling snake oil. There’s actually an easy way to do it. Show gratitude Here's a simple practice that I've seen work: /🧵

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Eric Paley

@epaley

2 years

“The End of The Era of Indifferent Capital” The next year will be challenging for startups. Promising companies will struggle. Many will fail. The only consolation is that the "era of indifferent capital" is coming to a close – may it never return. /🔗

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Eric Paley

@epaley

2 years

The market is in tough shape. Nothing you can do about that. VCs are taking a lot of meetings and not writing many checks. Nothing you can do about that. The only things you can control are 1) Your growth rate 2) Your burn rate and 3) your messaging. Focus on those.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

2 years

If you're unsure about how well the VC market will respond to your progress, pitch 5ish firms to get a feel. If the response is cool, take time to address weaknesses and revisit in a few months – don't keep pitching. Don't burn good VC leads who won't reconsider later.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

Most pitch decks will have slides addressing the following themes (often using these exact titles) 🔥 User Problem ⚙️ Product/Solution ⌚️ Why now? 📈 Market ⚽️ Team 👩‍💼 Business Model 💹 Financials 🥊 Competition 💰 Fundraising You should touch on all these topics, but... 3/11

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

Amazing to think this week is the 10th anniversary of Founder Collective closing its 1st fund. It’s flown by and we’ve been so lucky to work with such an amazing group of founders and collaborators over the years. Thank you! And huge thanks to my partners @dafrankel @micahjay1 !

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Eric Paley

@epaley

4 years

All this crazy capital influx is going to really mess up lots of great startup companies.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

📺 This is more like writing a 30-second commercial about your startup Why is 20% of your equity worth $3-5M? The answer, and that script, should be the backbone of your pitch. If Hollywood can tease a 2-hour film in 30 seconds, you can tease a 45-minute meeting. 6/11

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Eric Paley

@epaley

3 years

If capital was the key ingredient to success, no startup would stand a chance against well-funded incumbents. Yet startups successfully take on incumbents every day with a sliver of the capital. Don’t use money to close a gap in a race, use it to change the game.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

If you've found this example helpful, I encourage you to check out my most recent op-ed at @TechCrunch making the case for why confidence, not capital, should drive acceleration at startups. /End

Confidence: The currency of acceleration | TechCrunch

No matter if you have a million dollars or a billion dollars to burn, it’s confidence, not capital, that should be the currency of acceleration at a startup.

techcrunch.com

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 months

For those that requested I post in a single tweet instead of 56: The Two Laws Of Startup Physics Fifteen years into my venture capital career, I’ve come to believe there are two undeniable laws of startup physics: Capital compounds both positive and negative formulas. All

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

“I don’t see who would acquire this startup.” I’ve heard this excuse from VCs explaining a decision to pass on investing in an atypical market. It’s usually a diplomatic way to express a deeper concern about a business, and it’s often a mistake. Here’s why: /1

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Eric Paley

@epaley

3 years

I never thought the VC industry had much in common with day-trading, but as VCs sit in our home offices, are expected to make instant decisions, driven by FOMO, and behave more and more transactionally; VC and day-trading are starting to look quite similar.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

Coffee for venture capitalists!

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

🐳 Start with a splash Launch right into the biggest statement you can make about your company's impact in the future. The message from the outset should be “If we do our job right, we will completely change the way...!” 7/11

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Eric Paley

@epaley

7 years

Happy 111th Birthday to my Grandfather, George Feldman. The second oldest man in the US, 5th in the world and 94th oldest man in recorded history. You’re an inspiration to us. We love you!

List of the verified oldest people - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

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Eric Paley

@epaley

3 years

Those who suggest that startups should only hire A players are grade inflators. They’re calling B players A players. The actual A players are too rare for this to be a practical hiring plan. Look for 10X engineers but don't pin your startup's fate on them.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

One argument I hear in favor of big $$$ fundraising is that it will help in recruiting. It’s a logical enough belief but mistaken. It assumes there’s a linear relationship between the amount of funding raised and caliber of recruits. 1/16

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

The biggest barrier to scale at a startup isn’t capital, it’s time & attention to design and run experiments testing the core tenets of the business. Even doubling the burn rate, this founder had enough capital to operate for two years. Where would they spend the new money? /3

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

Over my past 10 yrs in VC, very few founders have sent updates after seed rounds that included something like "due to minimal burn, we currently have 4 years of cash." @howietl lives and breathes a GO SLOW TO GO FAST mindset #proudinvestor

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Eric Paley

@epaley

8 years

A new blog post that sums up a ton of my learnings over the past 7 years as a VC (drug dealer ;-)

TechCrunch

@TechCrunch

8 years

Venture capital is a hell of a drug by @epaley

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Eric Paley

@epaley

4 years

The worse the job numbers, the better the stock market. I don’t get it.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

4 years

Founders need to be ambitious and there’s nothing wrong with “going big,” but this mindset can lead to bad decisions and negative consequences at the early stage. /1

@jason

@Jason

4 years

founders: It takes the same amount of time to build a small, medium or large business -- you will spend 100 hours a week building a great bed & breakfast -- you will spend 100 hours a week building a chain of them -- you will spend 100 hours a week building @airbnb go big!

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Eric Paley

@epaley

2 years

Given what has happened over the past couple of years, many startups have raised the last money they'll ever be able to and don't realize it yet.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

It's hard to digest lots of content. Narratives are much easier to digest & simple narratives more so than complicated ones. What are the handful of things you really want the investor to remember? If you tell the story well, they'll dig-in to more of the complexity later. 2/11

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

A startup founder's personal board of directors should include: 🔬 A peer who can provide a sanity check 🔭 A founder who is ~2 funding stages beyond you 🛰️ A mentor who provides a longitudinal assessment via @dafrankel

📈 How to scale as a startup CEO, from seed to series A (and beyond) 📈

A startup founder can become a world-class executive of a big company, but it doesn’t happen just because you convince a VC to invest $20M.

foundercollective.medium.com

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Eric Paley

@epaley

2 years

It doesn't matter whether a startup's burn rate is $10K/month or $10M/month; if their burn rates are higher than their investor's enthusiasm, they'll die. And the baseline enthusiasm of most VCs has been dampened by this market correction. Prepare accordingly.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

1 year

We've been busy at Founder Collective. Announcing FCV.

Micah Rosenbloom

@micahjay1

1 year

I'm excited to announce the arrival of Founder Collective V. Despite the many changes around us over the past decade, we've never had more conviction around doing what we do best -- staying small, being aligned to founders and seed & only seed.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

Startups aren’t just ideas. They’re not destined to be born. They’re not fated to turn out the way they have. They happen because entrepreneurs *make* them happen. Successful startups are made, not born. /5

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Eric Paley

@epaley

2 years

Starting work on our quarterly valuations right now. Very challenging. Never has previous round valuations felt more stale and inconsistent with the current market.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

🎨 Paint a picture with words Specific > Generic, every time. Instead of a slide title that says “Team,” you could write, “We’ve worked together for 5+ years at Uber and introduced ____ together” Repeat for every slide. 8/11

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

Until you have built an engine that can reliably turn a $1 into $2, or in this case, $1M/month invested into $2M/month returned, don’t meaningfully scale your burn rate. /6

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Eric Paley

@epaley

3 years

Every founder should have a “forwardable” email template that includes: 📝 A 1–2 paragraph teaser about your startup ✅ 5–10 bullets about your company: traction numbers, press clips, notable milestones 📁 Deck/Docsend link Have it ready for fundraising, recruiting, PR, etc.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

2 years

Stop assuming worst case is a down round. External down rounds don't really exist for seed-stage startups, and in most cases, for companies with <$5M in revenue. Nearly all VCs would prefer to fund something new with more potential and fewer headaches.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

7 years

Growth at what cost?

Toxic VC and the marginal-dollar problem | TechCrunch

Venture capital should come with a warning label. In our experience, VC kills more startups than slow customer adoption, technical debt and co-founder infighting -- combined. VC should be a catalyst...

techcrunch.com

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

VCs won’t let you spend the money over five years! With $25M, you’ll be pressured to spend on questionable growth strategies whether the engine works well or not. Monthly burn will go from $200K to >$1M. Despite best intentions, you won’t buy time, you’ll just spend faster. /8

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Eric Paley

@epaley

8 years

Happy 110th bday to my Grampy. According to Wikipedia, he's the 3rd oldest man in America! Thanks for being such an inspiration!

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Eric Paley

@epaley

4 years

Any founder who has been lucky enough to be funded by @dafrankel knows how good he is at identifying opportunities and supporting founders. But CPNG & OLO IPOs within a week, that's just epic VC performance!

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Eric Paley

@epaley

3 years

🥇💰 On The Perils of Pricing to Perfection 💰🥇 These days I find myself talking with our founders often about the perils of pricing to perfection: Founders need to balance the desire to optimize in the short-term against potential long-term fundraising complications. /1

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

This isn’t easy. In a 16:9 slide format, with 28 point title font, you can only fit in ~15 words or ~75 characters per slide. You likely won’t use more than 300 words! Use a subtitle if needed, but brevity is important. The story needs to be crisp. 10/11

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Eric Paley

@epaley

2 years

In this unicorn-obsessed era, the lack of appreciation for any exit under a billion dollars is a failure of vision at best, and unfortunate cynicism at worst.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

A company’s burn rate over time does more to determine its dilution than the valuation it negotiates at a financing event. And nothing increases burn rate faster than easy capital that comes with an outsized valuation. /9

Redefining dilution | TechCrunch

Everyone generally agrees that dilution should be avoided. VCs insist on pro-rata rights to avoid the dreaded “D” word. Executives often complain, after a new financing, that they should be “made...

techcrunch.com

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Eric Paley

@epaley

3 years

Strong companies are not built by people who hope to get rich quickly, but by people who are motivated by creating something of value and executing an exciting vision for the future.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

We recommend companies explain stock options in the context of the “preferred equivalent value” of the startup at its current valuation. For instance, “Investors most recently would have paid $100K to purchase these shares and they invested hoping for multiples in return.” /6

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Eric Paley

@epaley

4 years

@ikirigin Misleading to show this chart without noting that the top 10% of wage earners in the US receive >45% of all income.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

3 years

Amazon wasn't the first company to sell goods online Google didn't invent search Airtable wasn't the first cloud-based database Pick a successful company, and you can almost always point to the sad story of a failed predecessor that had the same core idea. Execution > Ideas

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

Prepare for rejection. A lot of it. A promising startup will get 17 or 18 “no’s” for every “yes.” These brush-offs often have less to do with the startup in question than idiosyncratic context or concerns for each VC. Still, it stings. Don’t get demoralized. /2

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Eric Paley

@epaley

3 years

Money will solve surprisingly few of your problems. Money is not what’s keeping you from finding a unique way to reach your customers. You can pilot most channels with a few thousand dollars, and when your fundamentals work, money becomes very easy to raise.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

8 years

Well publicized - Uber has raised ~$15B. Yet the press is shocked @Uber is investing billions. Huh? What was the money for? Uber kittens?

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

I recently tweeted that when pitching: “Launch right into the biggest statement you can make about your company's impact in the future.” A few more thoughts on pitching the big idea: 1/13

Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

When getting ready to pitch VCs, founders often jump right into assembling a slide deck. I think this is a mistake. I’d suggest that you start by writing twenty headlines that sum up your startup, and only then build the slides. Here’s why: 1/11

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

📣 9AM-Pitch Meeting 🗃️ 10AM-Pipeline review 💰 11AM-Help Portfolio co. fundraise ☕️ 12PM-Lunch with peer VC 📝 1PM-Blogging 🔬 2PM-Diligence time! 🗣️ 3PM-Meet with partner 📨 4PM-Reply to ~87 emails Sound good? We're hiring a Principal in NYC!

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Eric Paley

@epaley

3 years

I believe @Whoop is building a generational brand in Boston. They're hiring for 70+ positions across the company. Join @willahmed / @johncapodilupo on an incredible journey. A fringe benefit is an incredible view from their new offices.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

I want to send a special thanks today to @ryangraves for pitching the Ubercab vision to me and @btrenchard 9 years ago and including @fcollective on this amazing ride! #grateful

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

1/ @foxnews has become little more than a propaganda machine for a President who thinks daily lies to the American people are acceptable & white nationalists are “fine people.” He's been fanning the flames of their hate & collaborating with @foxnews as the megaphone #boycotthate

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

True Dilution = Burn Rate - Accretion of Value My new post on @TechCrunch exploring how dilution is so misunderstood by the startup ecosystem. Let me know what you think.

Redefining dilution | TechCrunch

Everyone generally agrees that dilution should be avoided. VCs insist on pro-rata rights to avoid the dreaded “D” word. Executives often complain, after a new financing, that they should be “made...

techcrunch.com

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

I understand bars were packed last night in Boston. @MassGovernor you’ve been too slow responding here. Perhaps unpopular but you need to take action immediately. Please close all bars and seating service at restaurants now!

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

📦 Prep an intro package Write a “forwardable” email that includes: + A 1-2 paragraph teaser about your startup + 5-10 bullet points about your company: traction numbers, press clips, notable milestones + A deck/Docsend link /10

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Eric Paley

@epaley

2 years

VC write checks when they feel like your startup presents an excellent opportunity to return multiples on capital. Startups rarely look less likely to return to investors than when they are about to run out of money. Running out of money isn't a fundraising milestone.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

🖼️ Add images last Only start adding images to your deck after you’ve got the twenty or so slide headlines in order. Graphics are a crutch. They should only be there to support each headline. Ideally, there are no other words beyond the headline. 9/11

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

There are a million nuances and edge cases, and no tweetstorm can come close to preparing you for the exhaustion of fundraising. That’s why it’s important to have aligned VCs and to prepare as you would for any other endurance event. /25/End #CollectiveWisdom

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

The sensational focus on Theranos steals focus from a group of landmark women entrepreneurs and wastes an opportunity to inspire the next gen with heroic tales. My colleague @josephflaherty shares stories of five female founders who built $1B companies.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

“Why now?” misses great startups: 💬 Slack was dismissed for being a more polished ICQ 🎦 Zoom was the 137th video conferencing tool 💊 PillPack was founded in 2013, but arguably viable in 2003 🛏️ Airbnb commercialized a behavior that Craigslist pioneered a decade before /3

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

👉 Fixate on leads This is very important: Don’t set up meetings with firms that don’t lead rounds. If you find a lead, you’ll have no trouble filling out a round. Conversely, a lot of lukewarm interest and no lead makes a deal seem weak and process seem endless. /7

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Eric Paley

@epaley

6 years

Ben - so sorry for everything you've been going through. Sending prayers to you and Grace. The lack of empathy from those you trusted is painful to hear. @BoltVC is taking a terrible loss. So disheartening that your partners don't understand that.

Cancer, Privilege, and the End of My Time with Bolt

This is a blog post I never expected to write. These past 12 months have shown me how even the most unfair, difficult situations in life…

beneinstein.com

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Eric Paley

@epaley

2 years

To summarize, your pitch will seem inevitable if you can: ✅ Frame a narrative that makes a market shift feel inevitable ✅ Produce data to support the counter-intuitive part of your thesis ✅ Demonstrate that you're the person destined to make that change happen. /End

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

At the early stages of a startup, your financial model is likely to be laughably inaccurate. That said, even an inaccurate model can reveal many useful insights about a startup. Great insights via @micahjay1 :

Why do VCs Really Want to See Your Financial Model?

Hint: It’s not about the numbers.

foundercollective.medium.com

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Eric Paley

@epaley

3 months

Very important for all the people tempted to normalize Trump or say “he wasn’t really so bad” to consider this. He’s dangerous - Has no compass and is willing to do anything that serves his personal agenda. That’s why most of those closest to him don’t support him this time.

Aaron Levie 🇺🇸

@levie

3 months

What’s the best explanation for why this doesn’t matter. Open to anything.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

🙏 Acknowledge feedback: One of the most powerful moves is to acknowledge feedback & address it in real-time. There should be a lot of sentences like: “In most cases that’s right, but here’s how this is different…” “I too was surprised at first, but then...:” /7

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Eric Paley

@epaley

1 year

"Startups are bought, not sold" is one of the biggest value-destroying myths in VC. Founders can and should lay the groundwork for a sale years in advance by proactively reaching out to and meeting with potential acquirers. Don't wait to be "discovered" by corporate M&A teams.

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Eric Paley

@epaley

2 years

VCs get excited about products and markets. Founder stories certainly move the dial. Big picture: investors want to back startups that feel *inevitable.* More than any fact, they’re swayed by this feeling. /2

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

It’s said, “there’s nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come,” but ideas are wildly overrated and pretty much worthless until there’s an entrepreneur with the capability and will to endure the challenge of proving an idea’s worth. /end

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Eric Paley

@epaley

2 years

Our partnership @fcollective just agreed to move money back into SVB. SVB is a pillar of the tech ecosystem, and we want to see it continue and thrive again. Those who feel the same should consider joining us knowing the bank is stable and fully backed by @FDICgov .

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Eric Paley

@epaley

5 years

I’m sure there are plenty of VCs that would criticize this as “small ball” advice, but I can point to ~$80B in recent exit value that demonstrates that putting off big capital raises isn’t a bad idea. Take your time to build a cash-generating engine and go slow to go fast. /13

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