Pivots are part of many successful startup stories, but there’s no clear playbook on how to make them work. There should be no shame in pivoting, despite what many founders think, but they need to be well thought out before burning the boats.
When I started in VC, there was one incentive — capitalize startups, help founders build their businesses, and bring in additional capital (when necessary). Hopefully, if the stars aligned, the funds delivered outsized financial returns for the risk, ideally 3X or more, to their LPs. This model was a relatively well-tested formula for venture-backed startups — provide enough capital to the company (but not too much) and maximize its chances for a healthy return, hopefully in less than ten years.
AI is going to change everything. At least, that’s what everyone in Startup-land believes.
Being a successful venture capitalist requires various skills, but we believe that the ability to empathize with founders separates the good from the great. The first years of a startup are a rollercoaster of stress for founders where success is unpredictable and sometimes seems out of reach. Most investors have no idea what operating under that level of ambiguity is like, but Amanda Herson does.
Does raising a large amount of capital make a startup more likely to succeed? Is capital a weapon? Do startup founders need to “go big or go home?”
An unrepresentative, statistically insignificant, but still interesting peek at the current M&A market