Full HQ episode of my interview with @shl. We talk about: * Gumroad's journey and complications of paying thousands of investors dividends (!) * Why Sahil likes to make _everything_ public * What it's like to build with a part-time-only, remote-only workforce And more.↗

Today is my last day leading @Codecademy after 12 years. @ryanbubinski and I went from a prototype we hacked together in 3 weeks… To a business with more than 50m users that we sold for $500m+. Here are a few things we learned turning a breakout product into a great company:↗

Can’t believe it took me so long to try this… Who’s working on an autonomous agent related startup? Drop your url/description below 👇 (I’ll make sure my VC friends see this!)↗

The End of “Industrial” Seed VC… (and return to the cottage industry it always was)↗

At Tiny, I've hired CEOs for 60+ companies and interviewed hundreds of others. After over a decade of trial and error (and I mean BIG errors), here’s our hiring process:↗

As a second-time startup founder, here are some tactical things I'm going to do differently this time:↗

I sold my first startup @teachable 2+ years ago for a life changing amount of money At the time, I was *convinced* I would not start another business for a long time. Maybe ever? Yet, two weeks ago, I decided to do it all over again Here's why 👇👇↗

Valuation matters far, far less than the decision of whether to invest or not. The spread between bargain and outrageous startup valuations can't be more than 5x, in a world where the best investments can return 1000x.↗

Ok I'll bite Here are the first ~20 investor updates we sent at @teachable from inception to $1M+ in ARR Reading them again fills me with nostalgia and infinite amounts of cringe but hope they help someone out there!↗

After 10 years of building consumer social apps, I've decided to start exploring new areas. Building these products is an unforgiving grind—but I learned a lot along the way. For those embarking on this path, here's everything you need to know: TIME FOR A THREAD 👇↗

That was our third launch. Turns out you can keep launching until it works 😂↗

@synthesischool has raised a Series A! $5M at $50M post from @APompliano and a syndicate of ~50 angels, founders, and influencers. Here's the story of how the synthesis approach was born at SpaceX, how I got involved, and how we got to here... x.com/APompliano/sta…↗

1/ The first 18 months of a startup: After starting my 2nd company in 2019, I decided I would write down useful lessons I learned or re-learned along the way. Some were hard-earned & others required steady focus. A thread that I hope may help other founders starting out 👇↗

😃 I'm excited to announce @reforge has raised $21M from @andrewchen and @illscience at @a16z along with a group of product, eng, marketing, data, and design leaders... Full Story -> reforge.com/blog/weve-rais… 🧵 On where we've been and what is next 👇↗

I built communities that created 83m new customers in 2020 with this marketing framework I'm curious your thoughts A startup marketing manifesto:↗

Before Udemy could succeed, we had to solve a chicken and egg problem. These problems are a constant dilemma for founders. (ie. Funding is needed to scale but scale is needed for funding.) Here's how we bumbled to a solution that kicked off our $3B business. **Read On**↗

Here’s how to double conversion on your startup’s homepage. (From rewriting over 1,000 websites.) A thread 👇↗

It’s crazy how few people understand basic startup equity but are faced with major career decisions based on these concepts.↗

📚Founders exploring building a community: I wrote The Community Playbook Cheat Sheet to complement @flybridge's Community Playbook + to help you get your cos community started! Cheat sheet includes 💬Q&A ✅Check-list 📝Notes + additional resources link.medium.com/tcw7L7MHVbb↗

How did @NotionHQ build a $2B SaaS company that’s at... • 1m+ active users • 20m+ monthly visitors • 40k+ referring domains *just* to their homepage • 5k new subreddit members/mo … in only 4 years? (a thread) 🧵↗

What’s an easier path to wealth? PATH 1: VENTURE STARTUP - 95% chance of $0 - Tiny personal income while building startup until IPO/scale - Massive dilution (most founders end up owning 5-15%). $1BN market cap = $50-$150MM for founder. OR...↗

We just raised our Series E in the middle of Covid. Raising this round was so different from other rounds! Biggest differences/lessons we learned:↗

We think a lot about how to "unlock" talent at @beondeck. For everyone founding or working on a startup today, there are hundreds more who should be but can't. We're developing something we hope will help them. Excited to share more about "Runway" and the "Convertible ISA" 👇↗

2000 customers @ $39/month is almost $1M/year. If your software can handle 2000 customers, you can worry about scalability once the $1M/year is flowing in. Scalability doesn’t get you cutomers. First have customers, then worry about scalability. The order matters.↗

Founders: what's in your pitch deck? Here are my must-haves: ✨Vision 💵Market size ☹️Problem 😊Solution 🏰Competition/differentiation moat 📝Go-to-market/business model 📈Traction/financials 🗺Roadmap/milestones to achieve 👛Fundraise/use of funds 👩🏽‍🎤Team/advisors/investo…↗

I’m biased but @udemy is a true underdog story + thought I’d share details we’ve never shared before. ICYMI, we announced a $50M raise at $2B valuation. Udemy almost died at least 5x. We got rejected by everyone in the Valley. Startups are never a straight line. *Read on*↗

Looking to make a list of angel & pre-seed investors looking at the no-code space. Any recommendations?↗

1/ If you don’t have product-market fit, your startup is fucked. You probably don’t have it if: You aren’t growing You have high churn Your product is hard to sell Customers don’t seem to care that much Here are some simple steps to find product-market fit↗

@tinvaan I would raise maybe $500k, keep the company small for the first year, work closely with users to make something amazing, and otherwise stay off SV's radar. In other words, be the opposite of a scenester.↗

Morals of the @zoom_us entrepreneurial fable:↗