Daniel Yu

Based on my 15 years of experience, this is the biggest difference between first-time and second-time founders when they pitch their seed round 👇

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Well, Wednesday night was beyond epic! 🎉 What you missed: the tech legend behind TechBible (Ghita El Haitmy – now I know it's pronounced like Rita) unleashed her alter ego as a comedian! She roasted herself to death, and it was truly funny! 😂 But what happened yesterday was much bigger than Ghita’s sense of humor! 🚀 On Wednesday, Rare Founders and TechBible gave birth to “Tech Roast,” where 10 pre-selected #B2B #SaaS businesses went on stage to demonstrate their tech in realtime to the audience of 130 people 😱😱😱. It was fresh, it was fun, and it was super memorable. 🎤 For me personally, there were many #founders I knew for a while, but I never understood their product until last night. We're going to do more of these events because it’s the best way to get user feedback, reactions, and win over new users (maybe even investors). 💡 Here are the founders brave enough to get on stage and do the demo: Bobby Tang from Hyperscale: Automating lead generation with personalized outreach that feels one-to-one. Misha Lyalin from Lazy AI: Prompt to app builder, simplifying software creation for everyone. Bill Franklin from RateHighly : Word of mouth engine for SaaS companies. Peter Sarvari from Rhazes AI: Transforming healthcare with AI-powered diagnostics and patient management. Igor Kononko from Yotta Pay : Redefining merchant services with integrated marketing, sales, and payment solutions. Julia O'Toole from MyCena Security Solutions: Revolutionizing cybersecurity with encrypted password distribution, safeguarding businesses and preventing data breaches. 🎥 Gabriel Isserlis from SuperScout.ai: Unleashing the power of AI in CRM, streamlining location management for film, events, real estate, and more. Samuel Elliott from Daycare SOS: Reshaping the childcare landscape with a platform bridging gaps between parents and nurseries for optimized experiences. Kirill Slavin from Rebrew: Innovating customer reviews with NFT-based solutions, empowering happy customers to become proactive evangelists. Haz Hubble from Pally : AI-driven personal CRM to redefine relationship management and revolutionize communication processes. None of this would be possible without the support of Bright Data - The world’s #1 web data platform. 🌟 Also, a huge thank you to our venue partner, Runway East Bloomsbury – it’s an amazing co-working space for startups in central London. Please contact Lily Young with any questions related to membership or the events space. 🏢 And most importantly, the people behind the scenes who made it all happen: Jonny Rose, Luca Spiller, Seven Jacobs, Greg Mccallum, Tobi. 🙌 Here is some raw footage from the event. We will be sharing more soon!

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Y Combinator was a game-changer for Aspire. In our new series, we’re sharing key takeaways from our experience as YC W18 alums to help other founders on their journey. Get personalized feedback on your YC application and make your startup vision a reality - https://lnkd.in/gvQBAsPF #AspireForStartups #ByEntrepreneursForEntrepreneurs #YCombinator

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📍Here's the MENA startup, VC, and tech news you missed out on this week... 👇 💸 SHIFT inc. (🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia), a tech-driven mobility platform, has secured $83 million in funding from Merak Capital. 🚀 Founded in 2017 by Khalid Al Sulaiman, SHIFT provides mobility solutions like car rentals, last-mile logistics, and vehicle leasing across Saudi Arabia. This investment will support SHIFT’s continued growth as it operates a fleet of 12,000+ vehicles across 57 cities. 💸 Coral (🇦🇪 UAE), a climate tech startup providing carbon emission management solutions, has raised $3 million in a Seed round led by a group of investors. 🚀 Founded in 2022 by Juergen Hoebarth and Daniele Sileri, Coral helps businesses manage their carbon emissions through a streamlined platform. 💸 Padash (🇮🇶 Iraq), a q-commerce platform for instant food and grocery delivery, has secured $125,000 in pre-seed funding from an undisclosed angel investor. 🚀 Founded in 2023 by Ahmed Jamal, Omer Sabah, Mohammed Y. Shahoyi, and Ahmad Baez, Padash provides instant delivery services in Erbil city, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. This investment will support Padash's expansion within Erbil and further development of its mobile app. 💸 Ajeej Capital and Nuwa Capital have launched Amplify Growth Partnership, a $100 million growth debt fund aimed at addressing the debt capital gap for Series A to Series C tech businesses in the region. 🚀 Led by Sharaf Sharaf, the fund will offer loans starting at $3 million, targeting companies with $5 million+ in revenue and strong market traction. Up to 20% of the fund will go to non-MENA companies entering the region. The fund has already closed its first deal with a Saudi fintech, with more investments expected soon. 💸🇵🇸 Ibtikar Fund has closed its second VC fund, Ibtikar Fund II CV, at $25 million, exceeding its $15 million target and doubling the size of its first fund. EBRD Venture Capital committed $3 million, marking its first equity investment in a West Bank VC fund. Other investors include the Bank of Palestine, Dutch Good Growth Fund (DGGF), and the IFC - International Finance Corporation. 🚀 Habib Hazzan and Ambar Amleh are the managing partners at Ibtikar. The fund will invest in up to 25 early-stage tech companies, aiming to address capital shortages, support digitalisation, create jobs, and empower young and female entrepreneurs. 🚗 WeRide and Uber have announced a partnership to bring WeRide’s autonomous vehicles to the Uber platform in Abu Dhabi later this year, making autonomous rides available to select users. Get the full 5-minute briefing 👉 https://lnkd.in/dZw549ft 🐢 And while you're here, do yourself a favor and sign up so that the next edition goes straight to your inbox: https://lnkd.in/dszhXGGP #menatech #startupnews #venturecapital #fintech #AI

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Founders, don’t make this common mistake early on (#4 in series): Rely too heavily on referrals without any process. Every founder knows referrals are the holy grail of hiring. Who doesn’t want a warm intro to a strong candidate that comes vouched for? So founders ask their team for referrals anytime a new role opens up. Maybe they’ll get a few leads. But without structure, referrals stall: • Current employees get distracted by their day-to-day. • They forget to tap their networks. • High-quality references dry up quick. Your new goal: Systematize referrals. • Set aside dedicated time every quarter to re-engage your team on referrals. Remind them of open roles and relevant skill sets you seek. • Provide clear guidelines on who and how to refer. For example, share ideal candidate criteria and specifics on where they should introduce you. • Incentivize referrals with gift cards or team rewards. And track submissions to notify when a referee gets hired. Putting a structured referral program in place reduces ad-hoc asks and motivates your team to proactively tap their trusted contacts. You’ll see candidate quality and hiring velocity increase overnight. P.S. This is post #4 in my series uncovering common founder hiring mistakes that burn cash. Follow me to catch the rest of the series.

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Alright, let's talk WhatsApp startups. After years in this space, Tarek Khalil (TK) and I have seen some patterns. Here are the landmines we'd avoid: 🔹Bootleg APIs: Tempting, but it's like gambling with your startup. One update from WhatsApp, and boom – you're done. 🔹The Meta shadow: If your idea sounds like something Meta would build for small businesses, think twice. They've got deep pockets and a head start. 🔹Thin integrations on existing platforms: Been there, done that. Made good money, but it's not VC material. One product decision from the main platform, and poof, you're obsolete. 🔹Meta fees: Do the math. Make sure you're not just breaking even after Meta takes their cut. I've got more thoughts on this — my DMs are open if you want to chat about the WhatsApp gold rush. There's opportunity here, but also plenty of pitfalls. ----- Source: Tarek's blog (link in the comments/on his profile)

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Here is a market research for your next product idea. Verticals at which VCs want to throw their wallets. https://lnkd.in/d_EhqYcU It’s not a secret yet for some reason YC doesn’t get enough submissions in these domains. There’a at least 1 good idea I’ve got from reading this - Programming Language (or framework or fork) for New Space domain. There are some lessons to take from SpaceX approach to development and how they handle system recovery. Having this baked into language with set of testing tools to stress test the system is something that is needed to make programming for New Space more approachable. You could license tools on top of that. Do you have any other ideas? #vc #money #ycombinator #programming #spacex #newspace #startup

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Here are 10 reflections on fundraising I’m back fundraising after a few years. I’m by no means an expert in startup fundraising, and despite having raised significant sums in the past, everything is a little different this time (Including me: I’m older, more hopeful, more confident, maybe a touch more cynical). The process raises some familiar optimisms and uncertainties. I’m very interested to hear if some of this resonates or provokes violent disagreement! 1. “The market is hard right now”. I get it. I feel that this has been the case since the beginning of recorded time. Even when the raise is done and dusted, it will have been hard. Maybe it’s especially hard right now. But I’ve heard this over so many years that I’m not letting this put me off. 2. Know your stage, gauge the investor. I’m learning to spot the difference between someone who is interrogating the business for the right reasons, and an investor that just isn’t right for our stage, or using the interrogation as an exercise in self-justification. It’s important not to get hung up on the wrong investors and move on. 3. Beware over-polished materials. I sneakingly suspect that investors are slightly put-off by really polished decks. I’ve seen people raise millions with bad slides that had good ideas. And I’ve had my best success with decks that still needed some work. 4. Virtually nobody will tell you directly that they don’t have money to invest. If they say “I’m not interested”, that’s great, no time wasted. But beware the purported investor that takes the call, asks for a pitch and then tells you that the idea sucks, that you’re useless, that it’s the wrong market, that someone else is doing it better. They were never going to invest. Don’t take the no to heart. 5. The Market is always changing. What’s mega-hyped one cycle goes completely bust the next. I’m sticking to my guns and looking at delivering a big value to a big market and not getting sidetracked by voguey buzzwords. 6. Every fundraising is about “dealmaking”. This may seem trivial, but I think it’s easy to imagine that a pitch is like an exam being invigilated, and not the mutual creation of value that it is. 7. Formulas matter. Most money in the market follows formulaic businesses that do understandable things according to a well-run model. We’re novel only where we’re really specialist. 8. Capitalism works. Money follows money, and the best way to convince other investors is to get the first investors. The first is the hardest. 9. Fundraising is not the goal. Building great companies that serve great products and deliver value to customers and investors, and make a profit in the end. That’s the goal. 10. I’m trading one freedom for another. The freedom to completely self-determine as a sole-proprietor of a company; for the freedom to build what we really need to build, at the scale that it needs to be to solve the problem. 11. Thou shalt kiss a lot of frogs. Thoughts? 

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I just posted a video with typical mistakes founders usually make when they start raising their first investment round. Check the link in the first comment and share your opinion in the comments. If you feel that you learned a lot from this episode, please share it with your friends and collegues 🙏🏽 Follow me on youtube❤️

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This should be a helpful reference for marketplace founders that might be on the fence about applying to Y Combinator. Aziz Alghunaim shares how he's not only benefited from it once, but now twice as a second-time marketplace founder building Nash. My quick takeaway from it is to apply.

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Please STOP chasing funding without a plan. I see too many founders with big dreams but no fundamentals. If you want to raise capital, do this at each stage: 1. Pre-Seed: Focus on developing your MVP and proving technical feasibility 2. Seed: Validate product-market fit and establish early traction 3. Series A: Implement a scalable go-to-market strategy and grow your customer base 4. Series B: Expand your addressable market and optimize operations For example: → Conduct user testing to refine your MVP → Survey customers to identify key pain points → Hire experienced sales leaders to scale revenue → Invest in infrastructure to support rapid growth You will build a fundable startup by methodically decreasing risk at each stage rather than just chasing the next round. Do that consistently and watch your valuation soar. Credit - the epic Superfluid Newsletter from Abhishek Maran -- ♻️ Found this helpful? Repost it so your network can learn from it, too. And follow me, Chris Tottman, for more content like this. #BrainDumps 🧠 💩 // Brain Dump #40

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Please STOP chasing funding without a plan. I see too many founders with big dreams but no fundamentals. If you want to raise capital, do this at each stage: 1. Pre-Seed: Focus on developing your MVP and proving technical feasibility 2. Seed: Validate product-market fit and establish early traction 3. Series A: Implement a scalable go-to-market strategy and grow your customer base 4. Series B: Expand your addressable market and optimize operations For example: → Conduct user testing to refine your MVP → Survey customers to identify key pain points → Hire experienced sales leaders to scale revenue → Invest in infrastructure to support rapid growth You will build a fundable startup by methodically decreasing risk at each stage rather than just chasing the next round. Do that consistently and watch your valuation soar. -- ♻️ Found this helpful? Repost it so your network can learn from it, too. And follow me, Chris Tottman, for more content like this. #BrainDumps 🧠 💩 // Brain Dump #40

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Please STOP chasing funding without a plan. I see too many founders with big dreams but no fundamentals. If you want to raise capital, do this at each stage: 1. Pre-Seed: Focus on developing your MVP and proving technical feasibility 2. Seed: Validate product-market fit and establish early traction 3. Series A: Implement a scalable go-to-market strategy and grow your customer base 4. Series B: Expand your addressable market and optimize operations For example: → Conduct user testing to refine your MVP → Survey customers to identify key pain points → Hire experienced sales leaders to scale revenue → Invest in infrastructure to support rapid growth You will build a fundable startup by methodically decreasing risk at each stage rather than just chasing the next round. Do that consistently and watch your valuation soar. -- ♻️ Found this helpful? Repost it so your network can learn from it, too. And follow me, Chris Tottman, for more content like this. #BrainDumps 🧠 💩 // Brain Dump #37

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𝗔𝗻 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗟𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗧𝗼 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 Dear Startup Leader,   𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸. Your team is scaling fast, and so are the challenges.   As your #startup grows, you’re no longer just dealing with product-market fit or investor relations. You’re managing people – real, ambitious, driven people who are looking to you for guidance.   𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵: leadership isn’t an instinct, it’s a skill that needs to be honed.   Yet, in the mad rush to scale, many startups skip this critical step, hoping their managers and leaders will "figure it out." 𝗛𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀. 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀. We understand the pressure. You’re busy raising funds, perfecting your product, and fighting fires. Building an in-house #training program might feel like a luxury.   That’s exactly why we created ManagementX By Inc42 – because leadership training isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity! #ManagementX isn’t just a program – it’s a movement designed to empower India’s next wave of digital leaders.    𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁-𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀, ManagementX equips your team with the modern business, leadership, and digital skills they need to step up, lead, and scale.   This isn’t theoretical learning – this is about mastering the art of scaling start-ups from 0 to 100 and beyond.   Here’s a glimpse of 9 critical sessions that could transform your team:   1. Building The Manager’s Operating System 2. The Lost Art Of Managing Up 3. Leading At Scale – Systems Thinking & Operational Excellence 4. How To Build & Expand Your Circle of Influence 5. How To Run A Business Like A Public Listed Company 6. Product-Led Growth 7. Building Your Executive Presence 8. Compensation Structuring to Retain Talent 9. Life Design, Thinking Long Term & Developing A Career Plan   Your team’s leadership will define the future of your company. 𝗦𝗼 𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳 – can you really afford to leave #leadership to chance?   If you’re serious about scaling your startup and staying ahead of the competition, this is the investment your team deserves – https://4-2.co/3NeqfRi Check our website or reach out to me if you want to know how ManagementX can help your team step up and lead so your startup can scale smarter, faster, and stronger. Vaibhav Vardhan Pooja Sareen Utkarsh Agarwal Shantanu Kwatra Sahil Goel

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VC due dilligence starts and ends with the team. The main reason VCs pass right away is they don’t believe this is THE team to do this. The middle of due dilligence is all about the market opportunity and competition. Then in the end it’s back to the team - deep dive to confirm this is THE team to do this. So it starts and ends with the team.

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Founders! Before you do anything else, get yourself a copy of this book: "Fundable" by Sephi Shapira 👉 Here’s the link: https://lnkd.in/dfuuFFhj It’s a must-have for any entrepreneur, and I promise it’ll be the best ROI you’ll ever make.

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Recently, in talking to a Y Combinator backed Founder friend he shared the most of the companies in his batch have struggled to find product-market fit and it's been a couple of years since they got started. To make matters worse, most of these founders have already raised significant amounts of funding and are now under the gun to grow rapidly. This sets up a "perfect storm" for these founders because finding PMF takes time, because selling takes time. Time and resources spent perfecting the pitch deck are a colossal waste of time pre-PMF. On the other hand, when you have PMF, the pitch deck almost writes itself! This is why the First Round Capital PMF program fills such a burning need in the market. https://pmf.firstround.com A great initiative by Todd Jackson and the First Round Capital Team to start this program. I think many others will follow. For more details see video link of Lenny Rachitsky interview with Todd Jackson in the comments below #productmarketfit #pmf #founder #startup #yc #ycombinator

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Does being a great VC = being a great manager ? Basically no.  Because the two are very different things.  (It’s not me, Kyle Harrison is saying so!) What's important for a VC can be summed up like that : "The two most important things are (1) performance, and (2) teamwork. But if you don't have number 1 then nothing else matters." Being a good VC is making the right investments to have a solid track record. The currency in VC is getting credit for getting deals done. This leaves little room for investors to train newcomers (ie. Associates/Analysts) because you don’t get recognition from that. So being a good manager isn’t valued as much as being a good investor. But problem is, building a solid track record is very different from building a long lasting investment firm, which can only be done by training associates and so being a good manager. David Haber compare the way VC are working with the way Chicago Bulls won championships in 1991-92 meaning winning on the back of 1 or 2 players (1 or 2 good investors) So the structural incentive rewards only deals getting done leaving on the side building a team that knows how to work together. Everything outside track record could be considered pointless. And that’s why VC can’t be considered as an apprenticeship business. But the the positive thing is, a lot of smart VC (ex: Sequoia Capital (US) or Serena (FR)) already know that training new generations is equally important as having a great track record if you want to survive on the long run. So remember as a VC, find great deals but don’t forget to find a great Associate that can succeed you ;) PS: I’m not going to say it but I could: Automate as much as possible to have time for your Associate. Many thanks to Kyle for this interesting piece! Link in comments 👇

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