Author: Paul Singh

Happy Saturday.

It’s been a tough week personally and professionally, I need to get my shit together. Today, I’m in flight back to DC (nursing an incredibly stiff bloody mary, natch) for a week off the road.

I’m giving away an Amazon Echo for free. I notified the winner today, let’s hope they check their email. 🙂

An observation on the Vancouver (and perhaps the broader Canadian) tech scene: a surprising number of the newer Canadian VCs are out raising their next funds (read: third or fourth funds) at the moment. That’s probably a sign that Canadian LPs are finally starting to recognize that the next wave of wealth generation isn’t going to come from natural resources or some other “hard” business.

I want to learn more about the AR-15 platform. What should I be reading?

1. “money you invest in growing a blog, an Etsy store, or a podcast, or going carless, is retirement savings.” [Link] [Tweet]

Most people, including me, built our careers (and bet our futures) based on information we received from our parent’s generation. “You should get your MBA…”, “Don’t forget to save a lot each month…” or “Keep your resume updated…” are good examples.

If you’re reading this newsletter, the chances of you ever retiring are shrinking by the day.

The world’s different now. Every business is in tech. You can’t always save your way to safety. We’re all media companies now.

Not everyone needs to be a founder but all of us need to be entrepreneurial.

2. “if your business generates $7,500 in revenue per month, you should ditch Stripe for Paypal.” [Link] [Tweet]

If you’re processing credit card transactions, ignore the title of the article and scroll down to the working capital part.

Travis is super smart (disclosure: I invested in his company via 500 Startups) to be using their platform to get the money he needs to grow faster.

The point: selling equity isn’t the only way to grow your business when your ambitions are larger than your cash flows.

3. “This is why once you’ve traveled for the first time all you want to do is leave again.” [Link] [Tweet]

I find myself nodding violently in agreement. My tech tour has been harder than I could have imagined but only in ways that I never thought about in the first place.

4. “Most people have all the apps they want and/or need. They’re not looking for new ones.” [Link] [Tweet]

If you’re working on a mobile app, please stop now. Building an app isn’t enough anymore.

If you want to make something people want (to download, to buy, to use), you need to watch what they do.

5. “If you’re talking to a VC, you should find out how decision-making happens.” [Link] [Tweet]

People > Firms. Faces > Logos.

If you choose to go down the path of raising VC, you need to understand how the dynamics work inside the firm. Good news: the best firms are extremely transparent. All you have to do is ask.

6. “The magic lies in being brave enough to even dare to start small.” [Link] [Tweet]

One test I ask of every entrepreneur I meet: “who is your target customer?”

Answers that include “anyone” or “everyone” are instantaneous red flags. The conversation rarely continues.

7. “Growth creates complexity, and complexity is the silent killer of growth.” [Link] [Tweet]

If you want to succeed in business and in life: entrepreneurship.

That doesn’t mean you have to start a company. Whether you’re freelancing or your working in a cubicle, thinking entrepreneurially is the best thing you could be doing for yourself (and your company / clients).

8. “VCs can afford to get a few decisions wrong. Entrepreneurs can’t.” [Link] [Tweet]

If you’ve been reading this newsletter for more than a few weeks now, I sound like a broken record: if you want to raise money, you need to understand the industry. It’s much simpler than you probably think and it’s the best way to improve your chances of a successful fundraise.

9. “Startups resort to jargon in order to sound more interesting than they actually are.” [Link] [Tweet]

Talk to me like a human. Talk to me like a friend. Talk to me like a second grader.

In the worst case, we actually become friends. In the best case, we become friends and I invest in your company.

Stop working on your pitch decks and jargon. Start working on your likability, your charisma and your storytelling.

10. “1M miles add to that total every 10 hours with data collected from 70,000 Teslas with autopilot gear on the road.” [Link] [Tweet]

Think about that for a second: there are tens of thousands of cars currently mapping roads all around the world and all of them are privately owned.

We’re living in the future, y’all.

Firehose

You can get the full stream of the things I read, it’s all on Twitter — follow me: @paulsingh. Sometimes I write stuff too. You can always find me (and the rest of the Results Junkies community) in Slack, apply to join.

Have a great weekend!

-P

Hey,

I’m sorry for the radio silence lately. These past few weeks have gotten away from me personally and professionally.

The Brain Trust was an experiment to see whether you’d find value in joining a live video call with other experts. In that way, it was a success. The problem is that I’m stretched a bit too thin (and, admittedly, a little too disorganized) to make this happen on a weekly basis.

I’m going to refund your last payments (you should see those hit your cards in 2-3 business days usually) and I’m going to try spending more time in the Slackcommunity. I hope you will too.

Thanks for jumping into the Brain Trust with me — I’m sorry I let you down.

-P

P.S. if you have smart friends / coworkers / peers that should be part of the community please send this link to them: www.resultsjunkies.com/community

P.P.S. come hang with me in-person on the North American Tech Tour or follow my firehose on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

Happy Saturday.

I’m on the move again. I left Fargo, ND on Friday night (after a solid tech tour week), spent the night just outside Theodore Roosevelt National Forest (uh, that place is gorgeous — check it out on Snapchat before it disappears), dropped the Airstream off in Bozeman, MT today and am en route to DC tonight. I’ll be hanging at Metabridge in Kelowna, BC next week (*cough* I’m parking the Airstream next to a helicopter *cough*) and I hope to see you there.

I’m giving away an Amazon Echo for free. You’re already reading this newsletter, so there’s no catch. Head over here and enter to win. Here’s that URL for you once again: contest.resultsjunkies.com/giveaways/june-echo/

One observation after spending the week in Fargo & Grand Forks, ND: the drone industry is saturated with hardcore technologists that want to build cool drones OR forward-looking pilots that just want to fly more stuff. Where are the hustlers that want to actually build a venture-scale business? Discuss.

1. “appears to be just another Honda Civic driving for Lyft—until you notice it has Congressional license plates.” [Link] [Tweet]

It was only a matter of time before someone in a politician’s family tried to use license plates with special privileges while they made some extra money on the side. I’m surprised this didn’t get more coverage in DC’s local news.

2. “The older I get, the less sure of myself I become. Certainty, it seems, diminishes with age.” [Link] [Tweet]

I’m not a fan of long reads but this one’s good. I love that he’s found a way to integrate his personal and professional lives so completely — while also giving Geraldine all the credit she deserves along the way too.

3. “make sure you aren’t opening up a sweatshop in the middle of the country.” [Link] [Tweet]

Has anyone publicly been tracking tech companies that have opened new offices in other cities and tried to identify the types of jobs they’re creating in those new cities? (Off the top of my head, I recall Uber opening an engineering-heavy office in Pittsburgh and Vaynermedia opening some sort of new office in Chattanooga…)

4. “Raise now. Be humble. Build something great. Don’t worry.” [Link] [Tweet]

Ignore the advice (for now) and spend a few minutes trying to understand all the moving pieces in the venture world. Whether you like it or not (and whether you raise money or not), it affects you.

5. “if the only thing that keeps you going is success still out of grasp you’re gonna hit a wall at some point.” [Link] [Tweet]

Yep, I hit this wall last year — it was rough. Not gonna let that happen again.

6. “The rapid increase in college enrollment can be defended by intellectually respectable arguments.” [Link] [Tweet]

Interesting: “the military’s budget is about 1.8 times higher today than it was in 1960, while legislative appropriations to higher education are more than 10 times higher.”

It seems that the costs of education are rising because more people than ever are choosing to go to college and college institutions are increasing their administrations (as opposed to their faculty) in size and pay. Am I reading that right?

7. “You are wasting your time because you aren’t prepared and the timing is likely off.” [Link] [Tweet]

If you know anyone that’s been trying to raise their round for more than two months without a single closing, please tell them to stop. Now. (You wouldn’t believe how often I meet founders around North America that have had their rounds open for 4+ months with $0 coming in the door.)

8. “Pick your investors correctly.  Don’t pitch larger seed stage venture funds.” [Link] [Tweet]

Again: founders need to spend more time understanding how the money going into the venture industry works. Given how transparent the venture industry has become, I still can’t believe how often I meet founders on the tech tour that still view investors as some sort of bank.

9. “it’s the best way I can describe my early-stage investments.” [Link] [Tweet]

I’m stealing the “mission-driven, commercially-focused” line from this one — it’s perfect.

10. “The power law that benefits old TV media, however, will make its downfall that much more dramatic.” [Link] [Tweet]

The key lesson here: it takes a long time to build something new and an incredibly short amount of time to destroy something old. Incumbents beware.

Firehose

You can get the full stream of the things I read, it’s all on Twitter — follow me: @paulsingh. Sometimes I write stuff too. You can always find me in the Brain Trust, apply to join.

Have a great weekend!

-P

Happy Sunday.

Once again, I’m in flight today. This time, I’m heading back to Chicago to begin moving the Airstream over to Waterloo, ON for the week. I’m coming for you, Canada.

I launched my first syndicate deal this past Wednesday and it was oversubscribed by Friday morning. (I can’t publish all the details here but at a high level: I’m investing $25K and the syndicate is investing $75K — this will represent the last $100K going into their $500K round which is closed already. They’ve got strong revenue, killer team, reasonable terms and the growth engine is clearly working. All the specifics are listed inside the syndicate deal so click the link above if you want to learn more.) If you’re still interested in backing the deal, you should do so — I’ll be speaking to the founder early next week to see if he’s willing to take more from us. 🙂

If you’re an active investor (angel or VC) or founder/entrepreneur (with revenue, growth or other skills to share), I’d love to have you join me on some of the upcoming tech tour stops. You’ll meet policymakers, investors and founders and share your story / skills along the way — hit reply if you’re interested. Upcoming stops include Waterloo, Fargo, Kelowna, Vancouver and many more. I hope you’ll join me.

Last week, we had Neville Medhora on the weekly Brain Trust call. Suffice it to say, it was the best call yet. You can apply for the Brain Trust here:www.resultsjunkies.com/brain-trust

1. “Early revenue (and early revenue growth) is probably less meaningful than it was a couple of years ago.” [Link] [Tweet]

Three scenarios you should consider when deciding how to grow your business:

• Unprofitable unit economics and unprofitable business == probably time to shut it down.
• Profitable unit economics and profitable company == you’re living the dream — go, go, GO.
• Profitable unit economics and unprofitable company == look into raising outside capital.

2. “Use 20 percent as a benchmark to keep your cap table clean.” [Link] [Tweet]

An observation on founders from this last week in St. Louis (and, frankly, all the other #RJtechtour stops around the country this year): if you’re complaining about the angels/VCs in your home town, you’re just lazy.

If you want to raise money from the coasts, start building/talking/acting like your peers on the coasts. Complaining locally only shows that you’re not actually willing to do what it takes to grow personally and professionally.

3. “We don’t change all that much as we put on years and gain cynical expressions.” [Link] [Tweet]

As recently as ~10 years ago, a long tenure at your previous company usually meant that you were loyal / hard working / whatever. Today, a long tenure at your previous company shows lack of ambition (unless your previous company grew fast as all hell and you were hanging on to the rocketship).

As founders, you want to be hiring people that self-identify as wanting to start their own thing one day.

4. “The problem is that the slow road to success doesn’t typically result in venture returns.” [Link] [Tweet]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you’re considering raising outside money and you haven’t taken the time to learn about venture economics, you’re setting yourself up to fail.

When an investor chooses not to invest in your business, they’re rarely judging the idea. Rather, you haven’t done a good enough job fitting your company’s growth potential with their capital’s return requirements.

5. “Trucks are unsexy, and that’s why we’re doing it.” [Link] [Tweet]

The technology is going to be the easy part of this transition. Wait till the truck drivers lobby / unions / groups start wading into the discussion.

6. “If a product doesn’t solve a problem, no one cares.” [Link] [Tweet]

If you’re spending >25% of any conversation (or meeting) explaining the product, you’re doing it wrong. Always start with a user story — ideally, a real user that finds value in your product. Always.

7. “Having billion dollar companies sitting quietly in the portfolio’s of VC firms doesn’t do anyone any good.” [Link] [Tweet]

I don’t think anyone would disagree with this author’s assertion that we need to get these companies to go public in order to generate wealth for more people. The real problem is that many of the companies with those high valuations simply haven’t grown into them yet (and it’s unclear if some of them ever will). More importantly, the investors that wrote those high valuations aren’t excited by the possibility that they might have overpriced the previous round.

In the real world, valuations are a multiple of earnings. In the venture world, valuations are speculations on the future value. There’s a huge difference there.

8. “Account expansion demonstrates initial product market fit. Customers are buying more of the product they trialled.” [Link] [Tweet]

The three predictors of whether a company will successfully raise their Series A (in order of importance):

1. Negative churn (or account expansion)
2. Revenue
3. Revenue growth.

Go read the article — trust the data.

9. “Things don’t happen for a reason. But you can find purpose and meaning in things that do happen.” [Link] [Tweet]

It’s hard not to read this and find yourself nodding in agreement with everything. The key message: find a better way.

10. “founders should possess at least a basic understanding of the different types of angels they’ll encounter.” [Link] [Tweet]

I’ll say it again: if you want to raise money now or at some point in the future, you need to take the time to learn the business of venture capital.

Firehose

You can get the full stream of the things I read, it’s all on Twitter — follow me: @paulsingh. Sometimes I write stuff too. You can always find me in the Brain Trust, apply to join.

Have a great weekend!

-P

Happy Saturday.

Once again, I’m in flight today. This time, I’m heading back to DC for some much-needed R&R after a busy schedule in Lincoln and Omaha, NE. I’ll be spending a couple days later this week exploring the Kansas City, MO startup scene.

If you’re an active investor (angel or VC) or founder/entrepreneur (with revenue, growth or other skills to share), I’d love to have you join me on some of the upcoming tech tour stops. You’ll meet policymakers, investors and founders and share your story / skills along the way — hit reply if you’re interested. (Upcoming stops include St Louis, Waterloo, Fargo and many more. I hope you’ll join me.)

Last week, we had Mesh Lakhani on the weekly Brain Trust call. We covered everything from how he chooses which funds/startups to invest in, how he built Future Investor and specific tactics he used to get into the highly competitive world of tech investing just a few years ago. We’ll keep doing this each Friday and I’ll bring on other special guests from time to time. You can apply for the Brain Trust here:www.resultsjunkies.com/brain-trust

1. “Essentially, I want to compare your life to mine as a teenager.” [Link] [Tweet]

Most of the people in today’s workforce are going to be the last generation that lived in a time before we all carried screens in our pockets. We learned multiplication tables in school, went to the library to use the encyclopedias and checked our mailboxes once a day. Then the Internet happened.

2. “You are not alone. You are not crazy. You are not a failure.” [Link] [Tweet]

Everyone’s struggling with something, it’s OK to talk about it with the people around you.

3. I’m leading a Syndicate on AngelList (for companies I meet on the #RJTechTour this year). Get access to my deals: [Link] [Tweet]

I know, I know. I’ve been saying this forever but I really don’t know how else to give you access to the same investments I’m doing. You can back the Syndicate with as little as $1,000 and you get to review each deal individually to decide whether you want to participate — there really is nothing for you to lose. Back my Syndicate and start looking at interesting investments I’m making today: angel.co/paulsingh/syndicate

For the first deal I’ll be pushing to the Syndicate soon, the company is currently earning ~$25K MRR and growing that by ~15% MoM. Current investors have also invested in Gusto (previously Zenpayroll), Indinero, TeeSpring, FitMob, Mattermark and Luxe Valet are some of their other well-known investments.

Again, you won’t see the details of the deal itself unless you back my Syndicate. So, yeah. You’ve got nothing to lose.

4. “being a good early stage investor is much more art than a science.” [Link] [Tweet]

It takes more than having a little bit of cash to be a good early stage investor. You’d be surprised to learn just how many people I’ve met along the tech tour this year that don’t seem to recognize that simple fact.

5. “Raise a $1m seed?  You’ll need to sell for $10m to make everyone happy.” [Link] [Tweet]

For all the talk that founders have about how much money they want to raise or how high their valuation ought to be, I’d love to see more questions around what metrics those same founders think are necessary to achieve a 10X valuation increase.

6. “It’s not money until you can buy beer with it.” [Link] [Tweet]

If you want to better understand why VCs make the decisions they make, start by reading this.

7. “Maps shape how we see the world.” [Link] [Tweet]

I grew up with maps (and hope my daughter loves them as much as I do) but I’ve never seen some of these. Just look at the one depicting the trade partners of the US and China. Eye opening, to say the least.

8. “You don’t want to be king of the garden gnomes.” [Link] [Tweet]

Another observation on the tech tour this year: each city seems to have it’s share of power players that wants nothing more than to be the biggest fish in the little pond of their own city. Seems like wasted breath to me.

9. “VCs running a playbook they didn’t write, investing money they didn’t make, chasing returns they’ll never see.” [Link] [Tweet]

The irony of the venture industry is that we give money to founders that are trying to do something in a new way while we keep running our investing businesses the same way we have for the past fifty years. And then we wonder why the returns aren’t coming.

10. “Lambs think increasing headcount is success. Lions understand eliminating work with automation is the goal.” [Link] [Tweet]

Focus. On. The. Right. Stuff.

Firehose

You can get the full stream of the things I read, it’s all on Twitter — follow me: @paulsingh. Sometimes I write stuff too. You can always find me in the Brain Trust, apply to join.

Have a great weekend!

-P

Hey,

You should have already received a calendar invitation from me for this Friday’s call — it’s at 2p ET and we’ll use Zoom for this one. (If you haven’t used Zoom before, please sign in about 10 minutes early to download/install the free software. For those of you dialing in, those details are in the calendar invite.) If you didn’t get the calendar invitation, hit reply and let me know.

More importantly, this week’s guest is Mesh Lakhani (AngelList & Twitter) — he’s a friend, an investor (in companies and funds) and is the founder of Future Investor. We’re going to have a frank discussion about anything you want. Seriously, pretty much everything is fair game and it’s only for the Brain Trust. (e.g., “Why did you invest in that fund?”, “What made you invest in XXXXX?”, “What happened to your man bun?”)

If you have specific questions, you’ll be able to ask them directly via video. Bonus points if you hit ‘reply’ on this email and send your questions to me so I can get Mesh thinking about this stuff sooner rather than later.

See you Friday!

-P

P.S. if you have smart friends / coworkers / peers that should be part of the Brain Trust, please send this to them: www.resultsjunkies.com/brain-trust

P. P.S. come hang with me in-person on the North American Tech Tour or follow my firehose on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

Hey,

Thanks again for joining my free course on public speaking — I hope you found it useful — and give yourself a pat on the back: you just took a huge step towards learning how to be a more effective entrepreneur and I’m looking forward to helping you in any way I can.

There are plenty of blogs out there giving advice to entrepreneurs — as if all you need is the right growth hack to become the best entrepreneur overnight.

Being a great entrepreneur is about keeping it simple: focus, execution and iteration.

Every week, 30+ people email me for advice. I used to tell them to “just give a shit” or “just be passionate about a topic, you’ll be fine” but I now realize that advice was useless. (I’m sorry, you guys.)

Here’s the thing: they’re trying to raise more money for their company, or trying to influence more customers or just trying to get noticed at work — they’re all trying to get ahead — just like you and me.

As you know, there’s no way to become a great entrepreneur overnight. The problem doesn’t lie in you getting that one killer tip to become a better entrepreneur. The problem lies in you understanding why certain tactics and behaviors are so important.

Get ready to learn the invisible game.

That’s probably why you’re here. You’ve felt that invisible game being played when you read about other entrepreneurs getting ahead and you want to earn that same success for yourself. You want your personal brand, your career, your business and everything you make, to be more effective. Becoming a great entrepreneur is your ticket to the next level.

To gain a better sense of how to improve your own entrepreneurial skills, you need to start listening to other great entrepreneurs — but in a different way. You need to start paying attention to what great entrepreneurs do, not what they say. Don’t worry, we’re going to get into more of that later.

The invisible game isn’t something I was born knowing, it’s something that took me a long time to learn. Let’s rewind the clock back to late 2009 and let me share a bit of my story: 500 Startups didn’t exist yet and I was working for a small family office in San Antonio, TX where I was charged with managing the existing portfolio of tech investments and looking for new companies to invest in.

Every venture firm — like every successful person — has some form of uniqueness but, at their core, the most successful have two job functions: attract and hunt opportunities.

That sounds obvious, yet most get it wrong. My job as a professional was (and is) to end up with financial stakes in successful companies and projects. Frankly, that’s not so different than what I — and you — need to create a successful career.

Here I was with my first opportunity in the venture capital industry and I had to figure out how to make a name for myself. I came up with three operating rules for myself that I still use to this day. I call these the Rules of the Invisible Game:

Invisible Game Rule #1: Your personal brand isn’t what you say it is. Rather, it’s how other people perceive you.

I grew up in the DC suburbs — I didn’t have connections, contacts or experience — I was an outsider to Silicon Valley, I didn’t know anyone. So I Googled them. I dug around their LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profiles.

I studied everything about them: who they hung out with, what they were wearing and what they had accomplished in the past. What I noticed is that what they said and what they did seemed to be very, very different.

It turns out: who you know, what you wear and what you’ve done are certainly helpful but how you make people feel is extremely important.

Through that careful study, I also noticed something else: these people were very, very good at what they do. They understood that credibility was table stakes. Once you’re credible at something, you should focus on notability. In other words: once you’re good at something, it’s important that others view you as the expert.

So the key is to thoughtfully shape your personal brand once you understand that personal brand is how others perceive you.

Invisible Game Rule #2: Never pick a fight with an elephant head-on.

Regardless of the industry you’re in, there are two important facts to recognize: the incumbents will have more money and experience than you. They are your competition in an already-crowded market full of similar resumes, similar goals and a vested interest in staying on top — they don’t care about you. I call these the elephants and you should never attack them head-on. It’s best to flank them.

If you want to be relevant, you need to say (and do) something that matters. This will be the base that you use to dominate the market.

In my industry, attacking the elephant head-on meant that I’d need to (1) blog about venture capital and (2) spend all my time in Silicon Valley. I chose to do neither of these — I chose to flank the competition. I wrote the five most common things I saw them doing in their professional careers. Then I sat down to figure out what I should do that they weren’t already doing.

I chose to focus my efforts on spending time outside Silicon Valley and learning how to be a better public speaker. Neither of these were something that my competition wanted to do. (Seriously, when is the last time you saw a Partner at a major VC firm get on a flight to some small town in the Mid-West to meet with founders or speak publicly about something? When was the last time you listened to a VC on stage that wasn’t boring? Go ahead, I’ll wait.)

Unless you’ve got unlimited time and money, it’s best to out-skill the competition — beat them before they ever see you coming.

Invisible Game Rule #3: Never forget the psychology of the person sitting across from you.

Humans are funny but predictable: we haven’t changed much since the beginning of time — we want to get paid, made or laid.

Whether you’re hustling publicly or privately, remember that no one cares what you need. They only care about what they want. Your job is to figure out what they want and give it to them.

When I studied investors that did speak on stage, they tended to be boring, self-focused and (perhaps unwittingly) prone to using off-putting body language. These speakers gave little thought to their audiences. At times, I suspect they forgot there was an audience at all. Their missed opportunity was going to be my gain: I would shape my content and my presence to serve the listeners’ needs. Pumping up my ego didn’t need to be done on a stage.

Someone really smart once told me, “if you help other people get rich, you will too.” (I’m pretty sure his name was Hiten Shah. 🙂 Again, the key is to focus on what your audience wants — not what you need.

And with all of that in mind, let’s bring it back to the point: what you’re working on simply doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have a system for improving your skills and abilities — and that’s what I hope to share with you through everything I do.

Introducing the Results Junkies Brain Trust

Unless you’re already based in Silicon Valley, NYC or some other large tech hub, you’re facing the same challenge that I faced in the early days of my own career: finding and connecting with smart, like-minded people on a regular basis is incredibly tough — especially when they don’t live near you.

Over the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of meeting (and investing in) some of the smartest people in the world. I hop on regular video calls with them each week to exchange tactical tips, learn about new things they’re testing and introduce them to other investors and founders I’ve met along the way.

Now I’m opening it up to you too.

Each week, I coordinate a video call for the Brain Trust and we all hop on together. On some weeks, I’ll bring fellow investors (or founders in my portfolio) on to the call for a no-bullshit chat. On other weeks, I’ll do live office hours to review your pitch, critique your term sheet or answer any of your other questions. I’ll even tell you the behind-the-scenes details of what I’m working on too.

I want the Brain Trust to be an exclusive group for smart people focused on growing their startups and small businesses. And I’m hopeful that you’ll join us. You can find all the details here: www.resultsjunkies.com/brain-trust

-P

P.S. While you’re waiting for your first weekly Brain Trust call, join me in-person on myNorth American Tech Tour or follow my firehose on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram andSnapchat.

Happy Saturday.

I’m just about 5 miles in the sky over someplace in Colorado at the moment and heading to DC tonight. I’ll do a quick keynote in Charleston, SC later this week, spend some time in DC and then head back to Vegas to begin hauling the Airstream over to Lincoln, NE. Busy, busy, busy.

I kicked off the first Brain Trust video call yesterday and it was a hit. We’ll keep doing this each Friday and I’ll bring on special guests from time to time. You can join the Brain Trust here: www.resultsjunkies.com/brain-trust

1. A Stanford dean on adult skills every 18-year-old should have [Link] [Tweet]

I’ve had a lot of time to think as I’ve pulled the Airstream around the country. One of those thoughts: some people (like the ones referenced in the article) grow up at 18, I’m trying to grow up at 35.

2. “Tech fatigue is a signal.” [Link] [Tweet]

Tech fatigue is real — I’ve experienced it. Sometimes all I need to do is close the laptop, get a good night’s sleep and pick it up in the morning. Other times (especially on this tech tour), I need to remind myself that the things I’ve learned and experienced may not be common knowledge in some of the cities I’m visiting. The key is to know the difference.

3. “you can never step into the same startup zeitgeist twice.” [Link] [Tweet]

At each stop of the tech tour, I sit down for 1:1 office hours with 20-30 local tech companies. Sometimes we’re talking about ideas, sometimes we’re talking about their revenue growth and other times we’re talking about their hiring plans. The hardest thing, by far, is listening to the same pitch from different founders across the country. The list of bad statements in the article read like a transcription of some of the toughest office hour slots I’ve had to date.

If I could find an economical way to pull one investor and one founder from each city I visit and have them join me in at least three other cities on the tour, I bet I could help them make even better decisions in their home towns. After all, seeing and meeting more companies outside your home town is probably the #1 way to learn.

4. “it’s crucial that you learn to invest your time, your resources, and your capital to greatest effect.” [Link] [Tweet]

This: “The right engagements are ultimately what propel your career. You can’t say ‘yes’ to everything.”

5. “development of technologies tends to follow an S-Curve: they improve slowly, then quickly, and then slowly again.” [Link] [Tweet]

Whether we’re talking about smartphones, some social platform or whatever technology you’re working on, this is worth internalizing: “The point of this excursion into tech history is that a technology often produces its best results just when it’s ready to be replaced – it’s the best it’s ever been, but it’s also the best it could ever be. There’s no room for more optimisation – the technology has run its course and it’s time for something new, and any further attempts at optimisation produce something that doesn’t make much sense.”

6. “If you listen to none of the feedback, you will learn nothing. If you listen to all of it, nothing will happen.” [Link] [Tweet]

When in doubt, seek out people that have recently experienced (and, ideally, overcome) the situation that you’re dealing with at the moment. At the rate the world’s moving forward these days, recent experience trumps vast experience.

7. “Try to avoid having too many small dollar investors.” [Link] [Tweet]

As a general rule of thumb, you should understand that there’s an inverse correlation between the size of an investor’s check and the amount of handholding they’ll need. Founders beware.

Bonus tip: never, ever, ever, ever be someone’s first investment. Trust me on this.

8. “Online audiences have never been larger or easier to reach. But making money off them is proving trickier.” [Link] [Tweet]

The goal isn’t to the gain the largest audience anymore. It’s about finding, fostering and enabling passionate niches within the larger audience. The revenue will follow.

9. “Don’t start that start-up, it won’t work, there aren’t enough customers, and the technology doesn’t work.” [Link] [Tweet]

If you’re currently in the thick of the entrepreneurial grind, you’d do well to have this list printed and hung right next to your monitor.

10. “I’ve always wanted to be in financial control of our future, so we are.”  [Link] [Tweet]

I have to admit that I envy this author’s sense of clarity. Pardon me while I go re-read it.

Firehose

You can get the full stream of the things I read, it’s all on Twitter — follow me: @paulsingh. Sometimes I write stuff too. You can always find me in the Brain Trust, apply to join.

Have a great weekend!

-P

Happy Saturday.

I’m at 34,000 feet somewhere over Nebraska on the way to Phoenix today. The Airstream’s been parked ~40 miles south in a little town called Casa Grande, AZ this week where it’s received a HUGE electrical upgrade (read: lots of solar, 600ah of lithium batteries and a tricked out hybrid inverter). Follow me on Snapchat to get a quick tour later today: resultsjunkies.

Tomorrow afternoon I pull into Las Vegas where I’ll be parking right next door to Tony Hsieh — who happens to live in an Airstream as well. I hope to see you there: Las Vegas Tech Tour. (Keep an eye out for the pet alpaca… or was it a pet llama? Come find out.)

One other request: If you love this newsletter, share it with a friend. If you hate this newsletter, share it with an enemy. Please?

1. If I held open office hours via Google Hangouts, would you join? [Link]

I tweeted that question out and got hundreds of responses over the course of 24 hours — 88% of people said they would join. So, I’ve created the Results Junkies Brain Trust.

I’m looking for 10 people to join me as “founding members” and we’ll get started this week. For now, we’ll keep it simple: a weekly Google Hangout where we’ll talk about our businesses and give each other no-BS tactics for getting to the next level. Each week, I’ll also pull in a fellow investor and/or the founder of my latest investments to join us as well. You can learn more (and signup instantly) here: Results Junkies Brain Trust.

2. “The Facebook of India is Facebook, the Google of India is Google, and the Twitter of India is Twitter.” [Link] [Tweet]

I’ve had the privilege of investing in companies across a number of countries over the past few years and I’ve made two observations in the process:

1. The world isn’t divided by N geographic or political boundaries. Rather, it’s divided by five major languages (in no order of importance: English, Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish and Hindi). Companies that do well in one culture may or may not do well in others — it’s hard to tell in advance.
2. It’s incredibly hard for companies to “jump” across those cultural lines without acquiring a company locally. There’s just no other way to quickly learn the cultural nuances.

3. “The point is we are at the cusp of technological innovation that is beyond our imagination.” [Link] [Tweet]

The rate of the rate of change (in this case, progress) is only increasing. It’s hard for us to recognize this in our day to day lives but consider the fact that I’m writing this email as I sit ~6 miles in the sky in a metal tube that’s flying 500+ miles per hour. Ten years ago, we were all sitting in these tubes watching shitty moves on curved CRT monitors that hung from the ceiling of the airplane.

It’s a great time to be alive.

4. “94% of companies never hit $1 million in revenue in a calendar year, ever.” [Link] [Tweet]

First things first: you don’t need to hit $1M in revenue to be successful.

The minute you sell one thing to one person you don’t know, you’re in business. At that point, focus on selling to the next 10 customers. Then the next 100 customers. You get the idea.

Sales will keep your company alive long enough for you to win — however you define a “win.” It’s your company, after all.

5. “It’s from late 2011. When raising $600,000 was a monumental task.” [Link] [Tweet]

I had the privilege of investing in Intercom’s earliest round while I was at 500 Startups. (Intercom recently raised $50M — so, they’re doing pretty well.) It’s been a long time now so my memory might be a bit faded: I’m sure this is the deck Eoghan shared with us but that’s not what I remember about him.

Eoghan had his shit together, he knew what he was building and he had a small — but growing — list of customers. He subtly changed the conversation from “will this product work?” to “hmm, how big could this thing be?” In a world where nearly everyone else is pitching ideas and smoke, how could you not want to invest in him?

6. “At seed stage, CEO’s have to be able to sell to be successful.” [Link] [Tweet]

Everyone should have a sales job at least once in their lives. Whether you choose to start a company or work at someone else’s company, you’ll always be in sales.

7. “It’s snobbish & dangerous. It relies on the idea that there are businesses that are inherently better than others.” [Link] [Tweet]

I’m glad to see more people sharing the idea that VC-funded companies aren’t the only way to be successful. As you know, an extremely tiny percentage of companies in any country (probably <1% but I’m too lazy to look it up at the moment) are venture backed.

Again, just focus on selling one thing to one person you don’t know. Then repeat it as much as necessary to keep your company alive.

8. “You ever notice how the first slide in any pitch deck these days is ‘[industry] IS BROKEN?'” [Link] [Tweet]

Whenever a founder uses this line with me, my nearly-instant response is usually: “yeah, but that ‘broken’ business appears to be making $XXXXX in revenue.”

There’s nothing wrong with having a chip on your shoulder and / or wanting to make an industry better. But, broadly claiming that everyone else is too dumb or stupid usually reflects more poorly on you than the industry you’re trying to disrupt.

9. “Tesla saw 276,000 people sign-up to buy its newest all-electric Model 3 sedan — in two days.” [Link] [Tweet]

The best selling cars in America (the Honda Accord and the Nissan Altima) both sell about 300,000 units per year. Tesla’s new model — that doesn’t even exist yet — sold that many units in two days.

How is this not a bigger story?

10. “Email copy from great companies.” [Link] [Tweet]

Two thoughts on this:

1. How is this website not getting taken down? It’s a gold mine.
2. I wish this had been around earlier. One of my habits has been to signup for nearly every newsletter I can find and then tag them in Gmail. Later on, usually when I’m thinking about drip techniques to test on my own newsletter, I look back the other newsletters to see how they spread out their content over time. (This is the kind of stuff I hope we’ll all share more often with each other via the Brain Trust.)

Firehose

You can get the full stream of the things I read, it’s all on Twitter — follow me: @paulsingh. Sometimes I write stuff too. You can always find me in the Brain Trust, apply to join.

Have a great weekend!

-P