Advice for Founders

Fundraising and Pitch Decks:

• • Understand how VCs make money to Elevate Your Pitch Deck (March 2025)

  • Preparing for Technical Due Diligence

    • • Talk: Cutting Through the AI Hype: Tips to Prepare for AI Due Diligence.

      • Dear Advisor: How do I Prepare for AI Technical Due Diligence? (July -- November, December 2023, March + June 2024)

      • 5 (Spooky) Secrets to Mastering AI Diligence (October 31, 2024)

      • 6 Takeaways from #LATechWeek Panel: Diligence Bootcamp (November 2024)

  • Pitch Decks

    • • Talk: Reverse Pitch: Interactive Pitch Advice to Tell Your Product, Tech, and AI. Story. 

      • Advice from Due Diligence of 50+ Pitch Decks:  Advice for Aligning Product, Technology, and AI in your Pitch Deck Story (July + October + December 2022, March-May, September-November 2023)

      • Talk: Top 3 Tips to Improve Your (pre)Seed Pitch Deck Today 

      • Top 3 Tips to Improve your (pre)Seed Pitch Deck Today (June, July, October 2023 + January 2024)

      • Dear Advisor: What metrics should I include in my pitch deck? (January + August + November 2023, March + August 2024)

      • Dear Advisor: What are the most common pre-seed and seed-stage pitch deck mistakes? (December 2020, updated March, September + October 2022, March + August 2023) 

  • Fundraising

    • • Countdown to Exit: Impact of a Fund’s Vintage on Start-up Fundraising (May 2024)

      • Dear Advisor: How long will Fundraising take? (or) 8 Steps You Need to Know to Fundraise Successfully (December 2022, January, March-May, November 2023, May 2024)

  • Resources for Extending your Runway (July 2020, updated monthly through April 2021 + September 2021, November + December 2022, February, April + May + July 2023)

  • Dear Advisor: How do I Meet investors? (September 2023 + March 2024)

MVP Development:

• • Dear Advisor: I have a start-up idea, what should I do next? (or) How to validate your idea -- and align incentives -- before spending money to build an MVP (September 2020, March, May -- August 2021, September and October 2022, March, May, June + August + November 2023)

  • Dear Advisor: Why is it so Hard to Integrate with EHRs? (Or) Why I Don’t Recommend Integrating with an EHR, especially in your MVP (September 2022 + April + October 2023)

  • Dear Advisor: What should (not) be your AI roadmap?  (or) Why You Don't Need AI in your SaaS MVP (April 2022, updated May + August 2022, May + November 2023)

  • Dear Advisor: My MVP demos are not converting (November 2020 + May 2023)

Data-driven Product Market Fit:

• • Talk: AI Product Integration: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly + How to Navigate It (October 2024) 

  • Talk: Power of Data for Product Market Fit (or) Your Product Market Fit Roadmap to Escalate Your Growth (including slides and recording) 

  • Dear Advisor: How do I do Product-Led-Growth (PLG) as my Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy for Product market fit (PMF)? (September 2021, updated May 2022, May + June + October 2023)

  • Product Market Fit Roadmap in 6 Parts (November 2020)

Getting started as a data-driven company:

• • Advice on data strategy:

    • • (Step 1) Dear Advisor: How do I get Started on a Data Strategy from the Beginning? (October 2022)

      • (Step 2) Dear Advisor: I’d like to make data-driven decisions. Where do I start? (May, July 2021)

      • (Step 3) Dear Advisor: How do I do Product-Led-Growth (PLG) as my Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy for Product market fit (PMF)? (September 2021, updated May 2022, May + June + October 2023)

  • Advice for maximizing the value of data:

    • • 5 Aspects of your Business you Need to Track Today to make any Data-Driven Decisions (October 2019 + September 2021 + August 2023)

      • How to Deliver Business Impact with Data (January 2020, updated May, June, and October 2020, April, November, and December 2021, January + November 2022)

      • Dear Advisor: How do I get clean data? (or) Why clean data doesn't exist (June 2021, updated June 2022 + February 2023)

  • Hiring data professionals:

    • • Dear Advisor: Who should be my first data hire? (April 2021, updated May December 2023)

      • Dear Advisor: How to work with a data scientist? (May 2022)

Getting started as a founder:

• • 50+ Common mistakes first-time founders make -- and what to do instead to extend your runway, improve your product, and retain the team 

    • • Part 1: VC-Facing Mistakes (March 2023)

      • Part 2: Customer-Facing Mistakes (April + September 2023)

      • Part 3: Company-Internals Mistakes (October 2023)

  • Dear Advisor: How do I Find a Cofounder? (or) Why you Don't Need One (August 2022 + May 2023)

  • DOs and DONTs of Legal Contracts (May 2023)

Post MVP:

• • Dear Advisor: Can I just survey my customers to help me decide what to build next? (Or) Why I Don't Recommend NPS Scores (July 2021, October 2022 + May 2023)

  • Dear Advisor: What metrics should I be thinking about? (September 2020, January 2023)

Dear Advisor: Should I pivot? (August 2020)

AI:

• • Dear Advisor: What should my AI/LLM Go-to-Market Strategy be for my (Pre)Seed Start-up? (or) AI vs. Product-Led Growth (April 2024)

  • Advice from Due Diligence of 50+ Pitch Decks:  Advice for Aligning Product, Technology, and AI in your Pitch Deck Story (July + October + December 2022, March 2023)

  • Dear Advisor: How can Founders Build Customer Trust around AI? (February 2024)

  • Dear Advisor: How do I avoid the biggest data/AI/ML mistakes others make? (June 2020, updated August 2020, September 2020, April 2021, April 2022)

  • Dear Advisor: What should (not) be your AI roadmap?  (or) Why You Don't Need AI in your SaaS MVP (April 2022, updated May 2022)

  • AI/ML Advice for HealthTech and MedTech Start-ups (December 2023 + January 2024)

  • Hot Take on NFX's "5 Levels of AI Spectrum" (January 2024)