Diana Tsai

I recently talked with Paz Yanover, VP of Product at Amplication, about creating and managing effective docs. Here is his developer docs success formula (check 1st comment): In this interview, Paz shares his formula to creating developer docs that drive product adoption. You'll learn: - The important role docs plays in support and attracting devs - Tips for balancing technical accuracy with user-friendliness in your docs - Strategies for effective collaboration between technical writers and product teams Check the first comment for the full interview. --- Enjoy this? ♻️ Repost it to your network and follow Derick Ruiz for more.

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Wing Venture Capital's Founder Docs project is a unique collection of startup wisdom, by founders, for founders. The authors of the docs are talented founders themselves, sharing their experience on the topics they are most passionate about. I'd like to highlight the contributions of Edo Liberty, founder / CEO of Pinecone. Edo writes about the special opportunities for the scientist / founder (and he is one of the best of this breed!), as well as some of the risks and challenges they face. I got a lot out of reading Edo's stuff and I suspect you will too! https://lnkd.in/g_wyRMiE

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Want a front-row seat to the frontier of tech? We’ve got the role (or two) for you! We’re expanding our frontier-tech team at Blackbird by hiring a Frontier Tech Investments Associate and Foundry Fellows! Got questions? We've got answers... 1️⃣ What are the roles? 🧪 Associate = a full-time VC investment gig in our Blackbird Investments team, working directly with me. We’re looking for someone with a science and/or engineering background and more curiosity than they can handle. You’ll grow your own investment brand and practice, support our portfolio founders, and will help build Foundry, our early-stage frontier-tech accelerator. ✨ Foundry Fellow = a casual/contract gig in our Blackbird Investments team, ~15h per week for 3 months. The Fellowship is ideal for PhD students and ECRs who want to learn more about startups and VC. You’ll go deep on emerging areas relevant to your expertise (or curiosity!), get a front-row seat to groundbreaking companies in those areas, build out your non-academic network, and develop a solid writing practice. 2️⃣ Why are you hiring? We love frontier tech, and we’re ready to grow our team. 3️⃣ Wow, it’s so great that you’re starting to look at deep tech! Look, we get it: we don’t make a lot of noise about our frontier tech investing. Buuuut we’ve been deep-tech investors since we backed Tim Kentley-Klay to found Zoox back in 2014—we’ve been on incredible journeys with PsiQuantum (building the world's first utility-scale quantum computer right here in Australia!), Inventia Life Science (transforming drug discovery with high-fidelity cell models), Remedy Robotics (surgical robots for remote endovascular procedures), Opto Biosystems (minimally-invasive neural implants to treat cancer), and more. We believe that frontier technologies, and great frontier-tech investing, will be part of the solutions to the greatest problems humanity faces today. 4️⃣ When do applications close? May 31st at 11:59pm AEST. 5️⃣ I have more questions! I’m sure you do! Clare Birch and I are hosting an AMA to answer any and all questions about these roles. Want to know what a week in the life of our team looks like? What’s keeping us up at night? What our ideal candidate looks like? Come along and find out - registration link in the comments 👇 Apply for these roles: Associate - https://lnkd.in/gCfj4EUJ Foundry Fellowships - https://lnkd.in/gj6ATZVZ If you know anyone that we should meet, send me their details! Cameron Elise Ben Andrew Robin Joseph Adelaide James Olivia Lucinda Raghav Jesse Christie Mohamed Tom Amee Pablo Haya Loong Hon Joshua Benjamin Megan Harry Denzil Matthew Diana Daniel Tom Deanna Justin Amar Lilly Stone Thomas

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Being a founder is not a status symbol When I started Maera in Panama, I never called myself a founder. I didn't call myself anything, I just did the daily work because I needed to pay rent and buy food. After moving into the US, people started telling me that I was a founder. Met a lot of guys with ideas that were looking to raise millions, and they were all founders. I decided to look for a meaning of founder in the startup scene and came up with: "A founder is a person who comes up with an idea (hopefully a profitable idea) and then transforms it into a new business or startup." 90% of the people I met, qualify at the idea part; the profitable angle, quite a different story. From my limited experience in the US startup scene, I've noticed that profitability is not a priority of a lot of founders, but being a founder is; the way they want to grow their company is by raising the next round, and just pumping the valuation of their business. That's ok for some businesses, but I'd like to challenge the status quo. What if we all decided to see profitability as something important and aim towards it sooner than later, and just make a business that runs by itself. I understand that there are highly capital intensive businesses that don't quite fit the rule, but let's be honest, most of the companies being started out there are not those type of businesses. Back in Panama it's simple. If your company doesn't make money, you will shut down. In the US, it used to be if your company doesn't make money, someone will give you more money. This has been changing and it took a lot of companies by surprise, because they got used to depending on getting more money to save them when needed. Either you call yourself a founder or not, just remember that it's not a status symbol. It's a responsibility. If you decide to launch a business, hire people, raise money, etc., you are responsible for all of that. Every employee is a human being with family and responsibilities too. The money you got from an investor, was money that someone that to produce and now is trusting it to you. Honor the trust your team, investors, customers and all around you are giving, and make something out of it. As Tony Robbins say, where focus goes, energy flows. So how about we all start to focus on making good companies that are profitable and that are able to provide jobs and value to the marketplace.  

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I'm seeing the tech ecosystem anew in this new post-startup life. I have less to prove so I can digest realities that I didn't want to see before. One of them is the taboo truth that some founders have more generational wealth to fall back on than others. Don't get me wrong: there is NOTHING wrong with having money. Generational wealth is not a bad thing. What I'm saying is that founders' risk calculations differ. It's riskier for a founder who does't have a backup plan to go with sub-$50K salary for 3 years than for founders who have a rough calculation of what money they might inherit. It's important to point out the vast difference in finances because the narrative says that anyone who isn't a white man has the same starting line. That's simply not true. I know white men who don't stand to inherit anything. And I know atypical founders who have mortgages paid by a family member. The starting line is different. And sometimes that starting line has an impact on the finish line (including very many other factors).

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This part of my conversation with Joao Barbosa, co-founder at the world’s leading wellness platform Gympass (now Wellhub) valued at $2.4 is a testament to the fact that nothing big actually started big 👇 It took Gympass 5 pivots and 2 near death experiences to find the business model that works and is scalable across the globe What I found really interesting is the framework that the team had around pivots - the tripod approach towards creating value. This approach could benefit many founders especially in marketplace kinda businesses Head over to our channels on Spotify, Apple and YouTube to watch / listen to the full conversation link in comment 🔗 The J Curve #thejcurvepodcast #podcastrecommendation #gympass #pivot #entrepreneurship #founder #venturecapital

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Every day is a reminder that startups are unpredictable as hell. As alums of YCombinator's Summer 12 batch, we've long taken pride in being "the batch that broke YC" - as PG calls us. So it tickles me to no end to see this in the 2024 YC Top Companies list: "The S12 batch is the best represented, with 5 companies on the list: Benchling, Coinbase, Instacart, SmartAsset and Zapier" 🤣💪 #ycombinator #ycs12 #startups https://lnkd.in/gNDewZfn

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Ode to the Start-Up Founder In the realm where founders tread, a venture born, a path to lead, Trust thy team, with fervent creed, in their wisdom let your company feed. Hire those whose knowledge towers, igniting growth, unleashing powers, Loyalty to those first on scene, rewards the roots that keep you green. Stay the course with strategic mind, in foresight’s grasp, your path defined, Be the brand, its soul, its face, embody values, grace, and pace. Investors’ gold can bind or blind, stand firm in vision, self-aligned, Vulnerability, a strength not less, in open hearts, employees invest. Know thyself, both flaws and peaks, in self-awareness, wisdom speaks, Lead by example, set the stage, for every employee, every age. Faults may come, let blame not cast, upon others for shadows past, In leadership’s mirror, take thy stance, for change begins with one’s own glance. So forge ahead with these in mind, a founder’s guide to be refined, Innovation’s journey, wild and vast, where leaders’ truths hold steadfast fast. - Loren Shumate #startups #saas #gtmstrategy

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Despite the headwinds many software companies (even public ones) are facing today, there are still those that are delivering great results. Check out how the top decile companies in our Beyond Benchmarks survey are performing. And don't forget to review the full report for many more insights on the state of private software businesses.

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Meta Q1 FY 24 Meta has two business segments: FoA: Family of Apps (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp). RL: Reality Labs (virtual reality hardware and supporting software). FoA Daily Active People grew +7% Y/Y to 3.24 billion. Zuck called out healthy growth in the US, on WhatsApp specifically. As expected, management stopped reporting Facebook standalone numbers. 📊 Ad impressions grew +20% Y/Y (vs. +21% Y/Y in Q4). Average price per ad grew +6% Y/Y (vs. +2% Y/Y in Q4). Growth was strongest in Europe and Rest of World. The average revenue per person grew +18% Y/Y to $11.20. Higher engagement met continued strong advertising demand. For context, 💰 Operating cash flow was $19.2 billion (53% margin, +4pp Y/Y). Free cash flow was $12.5 billion (34% margin, +10pp Y/Y). Balance sheet: Cash, cash equivalent, and marketable securities: $71.5 billion. Long-term debt: $18.4 billion. 👀 Q2 FY24 revenue was $37.7 billion in the mid-range ($38.3 billion expected). FY24 expenses $96-$99 billion (previously $94-$99 billion). FY24 Capex $35-40 billion (previously $30-$37 billion). So what to make of all this? User net additions were consistent with Q4 metrics. Meta still found a way to add another 50 million users to its Family of Apps. However, it was a slight slowdown after four consecutive quarters of accelerating growth. Revenue grew +27% Y/Y in constant currency. It was another acceleration from +23% Y/Y in Q4. The usual suspects were behind ad revenue growth: The online commerce vertical was the largest contributor to year-over-year growth, followed by gaming and entertainment & media. Growth was strongest in Rest of World (40%) and Europe (33%). 💻 Reality Labs revenue grew 30%, driven by Quest 3. The lower loss for this segment was primarily due to a favorable comp with restructuring costs last The operating margin improved following the “year of efficiency.” Meta incurred $3.5 billion in restructuring charges in FY23 (primarily facilities consolidation and employee severance costs). However, it was slightly down sequentially. 💰 Returning cash to shareholders: Stock buybacks were $15 billion in Q1, a huge increase compared to $9 billion in the prior year. Management still finds the stock attractive enough. They also paid $1.3 billion in dividends. Free cash flow hit a Q1 record, another manifestation of the year of efficiency. While Meta loses nearly $16 billion annually on Reality Labs, the company remains a cash-printing machine ($48 billion in free cash flow in the past 12 months). FY24 Capex and operating expenses were raised, primarily due to higher infrastructure investment to support the AI roadmap. #meta #ai #ads #growth

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A cautionary tale for any entrepreneur including warrants in their fundraising efforts. Techcrunch ran a story yesterday on the collapse of Newchip and how warrants flowed through the bankruptcy proceedings. I am guessing in this situation, there were NO clauses protecting the startups from the insolvency of Newchip. If true, my heart aches for these startups now fighting to protect their equity pool/CAP tables from unknown outside investors coming into their company at likely ridiculous valuations via bankruptcy actions. It's a cautionary reminder to get solid advice from legal counsel—or, failing the ability to afford outside counsel, seek advice from experienced entrepreneurs who know their way around term sheets and investment terms. Best of luck to those companies mentioned in this article. And for anyone reading this who is a startup founder or entrepreneur, worth a read! #startup #entrepreneur #fundraising https://lnkd.in/gsvzQ_wT

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I’m excited to publicly share something that has been in the works for a few months at the 9point8 Collective. We’ve launched our Virtual Studio! This is a program for early-stage companies that provides the coaching, development and venture-building tools they need to find traction and scale. The program is modeled off of the venture-building processes found inside #VentureStudios, which have delivered 2X IRR and exit 45% faster than traditional #VC-backed #startups over the last 10 years. Some of the secret sauce to this is that studios have found a way to validate strategies early on, de-risk execution, preserve and extend limited runway, and create efficient business models very fast. We at 9point8 are seasoned studio builders and are on a mission to bring this value to founding teams as they navigate their startup journeys. What we’ve done with the Virtual Studio is distill these key processes and techniques, add in our own expertise and best practices, and package them into a program which meets start-ups where they are. We are now opening up our Summer 2024 Cohort, slated to begin in July. Space is limited, so I’m sharing the opportunity with my network before we fill the cohort. Here are the details: -It’s a 3-month program which takes the founder through the key phases of venture-building and de-risking (refining target market, product-market fit, economics and financials, planning, and fundraising). -Founders can expect to achieve greater focus, improved operations and increased marketability to customers and investors. -The end results include collaboratively-drafted operational plans, commercial / investment pitch decks, and elevated management practices within the founding team. These draft off frameworks from 9point8's proprietary venture-building process: Targets Over Everything. -It’s built for founders facing (or approaching) a critical inflection point, where fresh perspectives and strategic management levers are critical. These might include fundraising preparation, new product launch, market expansion, and post-MVP scaling efforts. Why did we build this program? Because building a new company is really hard. 90(!) percent of startups fail, and even moderate risk reduction can create a huge lift to survival rate and eventual returns. The studio model is proven to drive greater venture success; our virtual program is extending that success to more and more teams. The program is highly collaborative and hands-on, so we only take on a few companies at a time. This is a great opportunity for founders who are looking to level-up their abilities when it comes to unlocking traction, growth, and an express lane to superior returns. If interested, please reach out immediately as we expect the program to be fully enrolled very soon! Blair Merlino Evan Allen Neal Ghosh

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Is The Runway Ventures a VC fund? I keep getting asked this question all the time. Short answer: Nope. We're not a VC fund (at least not yet). Long answer: The Runway Ventures is a weekly newsletter to help founders not die by learning from startup mistakes. The mission is clear. And the idea is simple. On Success: • There are many ways to succeed as a startup, but only a few ways to die. • A founder can read a success story, apply the success tips, and still fail. • Why? Because what worked for others might not work for you. On Failure: • On the other hand, what didn't work for others might also not work for you. • If founders can learn from other startup mistakes, chances are they won't repeat the same mistakes, and they won't die. • As long as they don't die, they have chance to succeed. While others focus on helping founders succeed, The Runway Ventures helps founders NOT die. So if you're looking for VC to fundraise, don't find us. But if you want to learn how not to die as a founder, join us here: https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq I'm also building a SEA-focused founders community, will organise exclusive meetups for my subscribers soon. Stay tuned! 🤝🏻

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Common founder hiring mistake #5: (most founders don’t think this applies to them) Failing to run structured interviews. Most founders think they’re great at interviewing. Chat with candidates, ask about their background, maybe throw in some tough technical questions. But without clear structure, interviews easily veer off course. You fail to systematically assess candidates on consistent criteria And your team asks disjointed questions based on what intrigues them, not what predicts performance. Suddenly you’re debating candidates without alignment on what good looks like. And critical factors get overlooked. Your new goal: Well-crafted interview plans. • Start by defining explicit evaluation criteria upfront for each interview stage. What specific skills or traits make a candidate successful in this role? • Then design focused questions that ladder up to those criteria. Dig into relevant experiences to determine if candidates meet your standards. • Share question bank, desired responses, rating guidelines and interview best practices with all interviewers. Make sure everyone assesses candidates the same way. • Take time to calibrate on what strong, medium and weak responses look like for key questions. Prevent bias by keeping evaluations evidence-based. With rigorous process, your team reaches alignment faster on quality of hire. And you avoid hot-take debates after missing key signals in interviews. P.S. Dover’s expert recruiters help our customers create interview plans based on best practices AND train the team on how to be amazing interviewers.

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Join us! Many thanks to Aptible (and as always to Primary Venture Partners and Engineer Access) for sponsoring our monthly Startup CTOs event series. Tomorrow night we have over 50 series A+ venture backed CTOs and VPEs connecting with and learning from their peers. ​​This month we have a fireside chat with Ariel Pérez, VP Engineering, Measurement and Learning at Split. We'll be discussing how he runs a single large team of 25 with a total of three managers where the team dynamically self organizes around the work to be done and the managers are not necessarily working with their reports on any given project. ​In addition we have a special lightening video interview with Heidi Helfand, author of Dynamic Reteaming who shares a little bit about her experiences and the patterns that can be used to make engineering orgs more resilient to change. We only have a couple of slots left, but if you'd like to attend tomorrow night, apply ASAP - link in the first comment! Or ping me (or comment below) if you'd like to be notified of future events!

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Which is better? Last week, Sandra Aguirre made a Crunchwrap Supreme at home. It looked amazing. So, I tried to recreate it myself. Judging from the picture on the right, you might say I failed miserably. But... I still found my Crunchwrap to be delicious. So, not total failure. In the years we’ve been building Repeat, I can think of at least a dozen times where we’ve envisioned a product feature and ended up with something that looks different from the initial vision. Never, though, has that been a failure. 0-1 product building often starts with a grand vision. Failure only happens when we stay married to the “grandness” of that vision, instead of the spirit of that vision. It can be hard to put the focus in the right place, but it has allowed us to ship much better product, much faster at Repeat. We’re willing to make an “uglier” Crunchwrap (compared to what we dream up) and improve it with our customers. Turns out, that ends up being just as good.

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A lot of investors have been asking me what the major industries are in the Venture Miami Built in Miami Startup Program. Here's the industry breakdown across 214 new South Florida startups. TLDR: The South Florida startups are pretty diverse across industries. Here's the largest categories in order: - 16.2% AI & Machine Learning - 14.2% EdTech - 12.2% Healthcare - 8.5% Marketing & Sales Tech - 8.1% FinTech - 7.4% Sustainability - 6.1% Travel & Hospitality - 6.1% E-Commerce The smallest category: Cybersecurity at 1.2% There's an additional 50 startups that didn't complete the survey in time but we'll get that info updated by Demo Day June 20th. #BuiltinMiami

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Over the years, we at GFR Fund have solidified our investment thesis, which is that we invest in "emerging digitally native communities." These communities can be built around games, social media, and any consumer applications. Now, founders have many easy-to-use tools to build user communities, such as Discord, X/twitter, Instagram, etc, and we believe the founders should start building communities even before they launch a product. The communities can help founders: - reach PMF faster - acquire users cheaper - retain and engage users longer - build better UX/UI, and - hire early employees Below, you can see how RTFKT and Omeda Studios built the community and then worked with them to create a product the users really wanted. We would love to talk to the founders who think the community is essential in building a product!

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