Introductions and social capital

Whenever you are kind enough to introduce me to someone I would like to meet, you risk your social capital.

I am always grateful when you do and understand when you don't. Thank you.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

First Principles Hiring

I wrote an article for Business Brief magazine on First Principles Hiring and its analogies with investing.

There's a callout for Jan Deruyck of Guud and how he employs these principles.

Thank you Amanda (Mandy) Eulenkamp for allowing me to contribute.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Founder pitch summary

Founders, here's your pitch summary:

This is the important problem we solve for our customers. Here's how.

That's it.

Investing in a competitor is a big deal

Investing in a competitor is a big deal. Your founders, and potential founders, need to know they can trust you with anything. They can't if they are worried about your close relationship with a competitor.

Conflicts can happen - businesses pivot - but you should avoid them wherever you can.

Follow on in Pragmatic Semiconductor

I made a follow on investment as a very minor part of Pragmatic Semiconductor's £182m Series D.

This is an unusual one for me, unbundled vc very rarely invests this late stage. Why now?

Despite the stage, Pragmatic still has room for a 50-100x valuation multiple in the next 5-10 years. Its price point and groundbreaking short lead times unlock entirely new business models for users of its semiconductors - opportunities that were impossible before.

As an investor primarily focused on early-stage, I recognise the features that have the potential to create huge markets that didn't previously exist.

Thank you to Andrew Williamson and the team at Cambridge Innovation Capital for this opportunity that was only available to me as an LP in their fund.

The wonder of deadlines

There's nothing like a deadline to get your creative juices flowing.

Magrathea Metals receives $28m in non-dilutive funding

ICYMI Magrathea has been awarded $28 million in non-dilutive funding to help enable the establishment of independent, carbon-neutral magnesium production in Western supply chains.

This is huge validation of both the importance of its mission and its incredible execution. Congratulations to Alex Grant, Jacob Brown and the whole team.

unbundled vc invested in Magrathea's pre-seed and seed rounds and I am delighted it did. You can hear how that first came about in my podcast with Jack Richardson of ProRata.

Details of the award. The podcast.

hashtag#founders hashtag#startups hashtag#venturecapital hashtag#buildinginpublic hashtag#investinginpublic

New investments paused to figure it out

Following a fundraising conversation on Friday, I am pausing looking at new investments.

The overwhelming weight of evidence is that if you want to raise a new fund you have to try and do it full time and you can't do that while full-time investing.

I am not 100% on this path yet but I need time to figure it out.

In the meantime, so as not to waste people's time, the right thing to do is to pause looking at new deals while I make a firm decision.

Apologies to anyone who has submitted a video pitch or scheduled a call I've had to postpone.

There may still be follow-ons. I will be able to speak about one of these very shortly.

I will post again when I have full clarification.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Late update - 11 Jan 23

#YesterdayI

Shared that founders need ambition plus insight plus pragmatism.
Had coffee with a friend.
Caught up with Monika Holod of OMA Mind.
Had coffee with Paul Nobes of Infinity Construction and Daniel Blondel of BTP Limited.
Had my Important not Urgent Day.
Didn't get as much done as I would have liked.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Ambition + insight + pragmatism = outcome

I want my founders to have the ambition to grow fast and target a huge outcome. I also want them to make the right decision if that path no longer seems viable or is too risky.

Ambition plus insight plus pragmatism. The perfect combination.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Evening update - 10 Jan 23

#TodayI

Shared why I passed on a recent pitch.
Gave feedback to a founder about how the current fundraising environment affects growth plans.
Was pitched by Sarah Wernér of Husmus.
Shared how to check if your email is likely to get stopped by spam filters.
Had an impromptu lunch with Matthias Plunser of Selected Workspaces.
Dealt with suspected fraud on my bank account which turned out to be a scheduled direct debit.
Postponed a founder call for them to finalise a presentation.
Was pitched by Tom Sherwood of Koios.

#NowI

Need to finalise my overdue article for Business Brief.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Stay out of that spam folder

If you are worried your emails are going to spam, try mail-tester dot com.

Shared because a friend had precisely this problem and scored 3.5/10. Now they know how to solve the problem.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Too difficult to DD

Here's a recent reason I passed on an investment opportunity:

"The main reason is that this is hard for me to DD. I have all the information you shared but I'd need to independently verify the state of technology in this space, how big a pain point you solve, and how easy it will be to bring to market. I can't justify the time spent on that without a higher confidence level up front."

Sometimes I'm interested in what you're doing but I have to be brutal to manage my own time.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Evening update - 9 Jan 23

#TodayI

Shared that it is reasonable for ambitious founders to manage their burn more conservatively because of the funding environment.
Had a site meeting for our house build with Infinity Construction and DLM Architects Ltd.
Spoke with Julien Barbieux of 2nd Brain VC.
Missed lunch break meditation at Guille-Allès Library.
Had coffee with my parents.
Spoke briefly with Bobby Phillips of Virtus Financial Planning.
Was pitched by a founder, realised halfway through the call that there may be a conflict, told the founder, stopped the call, and they are thinking about it.

#LaterI

Will be spending the evening with my family and fish and chips.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Survive to win

Every founder is paying more attention to cash burn and time to profitability. It doesn't mean they are any less ambitious.

There's less money out there for funding. This is a rational response because if you don't hit the ambitious growth targets, the money is less likely to be there.

If you don't survive, you can't win.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Pitch and newsletter links at unbundled dot vc.

Evening update - 8 Jan 23

#TodayI

Had Pilates with Joey Freeman.
Shared what you need for a tarpit breaker.
Was pitched by John McCoy of ProprHome.
Spoke with the SeedLegals team on the fundraising landscape.
Shared why MVPs are important.
Had a call with Richard Hadler of Odin.
Was pitched by Peter Monteza of MyARC.
Had my hair cut by James Bransford.
Was pitched by 🚀 Manish Patel of Jiva.ai.
Was pitched by a founder who wishes to remain anonymous.

#LaterI

Will watch my son in a table tennis tournament.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Why MVP

You believe you've found a pain point people will pay you to solve. You want to find out if they really will in the shortest time and at the lowest cost possible.

This is why you build a Minimum Viable Product.

Do the smallest thing that proves or disproves your hypothesis. Nothing else matters.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Tarpit breakers

Multiple companies with similar ideas but no outstanding successes can mean the area is a tarpit.

Why? It can be everyone likes the idea but there are significant reasons why it won't work that you're not aware of.

If there weren't, someone would have done it by now.

For a tarpit breaker, look for a founder who knows exactly why every other business that tried to do this failed and whose reasons why they will succeed make sense given that context.

These are great businesses that many people will miss because they assume it can't be done.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Unbunggled vc

Your weekly reminder that unbundled vc invests in early-stage digital tech and you can find all my pitch links at unbundled dot vc.

Don't be shy.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Edit: with minimal bunggling.

Evening update - 5 Jan 23

#TodayI

Shared that you should always talk about pre-money valuations not percentages.
Had Pilates with Joey Freeman.
Had coffee with Tom Hollis of Tupelo.
Was pitched by Greg Freeman of Data Literacy Academy.
Attended a Guernsey Cambridge Society committee meeting.
Was pitched by Cara Bucciferro of Legal Graffiti Inc.
Was pitched by founders who wish to remain anonymous.
Was pitched by Ian Oliveira and Murilo Costa of Twiggy.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic