In early-stage startups, founder behavior isn’t just one of many factors — it can be the dominant variable (and often is) in determining whether a company endures and thrives, or, plateaus and dies. I’ve worked with countless founders and categorized functional behaviors and dysfunctional behaviors for startup-company building. This post serves to illuminate them, show you a simple rubric for evaluating them, and ways to mitigate. Again, this is not to judge whether a founder is good/bad, right/wrong, ethical/unethical — this is purely to assess behaviors that enrich company value and those that do not. This list is also not exhaustive.

In this post, I share 9 simple activities to optimize your wellbeing without having to sacrifice large amounts of time. Our observations are purely empirical and based on what I have experienced and learned in life.

Top teams treat accountability like a game and pattern this mindset into their teams— they win together, learn together, and fail forward together. In this post, we share a simple communication model so you can drive accountability when: 

• You communicate with others in your team. 

• You respond to communications. 

• You provide corrective feedback for sloppy communications.

• Other team members communicate with you and others. 

The model is first-principles based so that you can repurpose it appropriately for specific communication media— email, Slack, SMS, Asana, for example— and in your voice. 

The focus of this book is to help you raise more venture capital with a proven strategic fundraising process. Using the playbook outlined in this book, I have assisted startup founders in raising more than $500MM in early-stage venture capital over the past five years— many instances of which were considered impossible in light of a series economic shock events such as Covid-19, various wars, election drama, and aggressive quantitative tightening. My clients are backed by notable institutions such as: Menlo, Sequoia, Goodwater, Tiger Global, Softbank, a16z, Lightspeed, Accel, and Founders Fund, to name a few.

The focus of this book is to help you raise more venture capital with a proven strategic fundraising process. Using the playbook outlined in this book, I have assisted startup founders in raising more than $500MM in early-stage venture capital over the past five years— many instances of which were considered impossible in light of a series economic shock events such as Covid-19, various wars, election drama, and aggressive quantitative tightening. My clients are backed by notable institutions such as: Menlo, Sequoia, Goodwater, Tiger Global, Softbank, a16z, Lightspeed, Accel, and Founders Fund, to name a few.

Human beings are often not explicit about their positive intentions for others (and themselves). When our intentions are ambiguous, then others are left to their own devices to extrapolate what we mean using their personal biases, historical experiences, and internal stories. 

The focus of this book is to help you raise more venture capital with a proven strategic fundraising process. Using the playbook outlined in this book, I have assisted startup founders in raising more than $500MM in early-stage venture capital over the past five years— many instances of which were considered impossible in light of a series economic shock events such as Covid-19, various wars, election drama, and aggressive quantitative tightening. My clients are backed by notable institutions such as: Menlo, Sequoia, Goodwater, Tiger Global, Softbank, a16z, Lightspeed, Accel, and Founders Fund, to name a few.

The focus of this book is to help you raise more venture capital with a proven strategic fundraising process. Using the playbook outlined in this book, I have assisted startup founders in raising more than $500MM in early-stage venture capital over the past five years— many instances of which were considered impossible in light of a series economic shock events such as Covid-19, various wars, election drama, and aggressive quantitative tightening. My clients are backed by notable institutions such as: Menlo, Sequoia, Goodwater, Tiger Global, Softbank, a16z, Lightspeed, Accel, and Founders Fund, to name a few.

The focus of this book is to help you raise more venture capital with a proven strategic fundraising process. Using the playbook outlined in this book, I have assisted startup founders in raising more than $500MM in early-stage venture capital over the past five years— many instances of which were considered impossible in light of a series economic shock events such as Covid-19, various wars, election drama, and aggressive quantitative tightening. My clients are backed by notable institutions such as: Menlo, Sequoia, Goodwater, Tiger Global, Softbank, a16z, Lightspeed, Accel, and Founders Fund, to name a few.

How can you find the right investors for your company'? How can you quickly fundraise so you can get back to building your company? In this post, I share the process and psychology behind fundraising to help you:

• Find the right investors (and fast).

• Secure the funds your company needs.

• Get back to building your company.