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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

Happy Saturday.

I’ve spent the last few days meeting founders, investors and policymakers in Taos, Los Alamos, Santa Fe and Albuquerque. New Mexico’s an interesting place — more on that in a blog post soon. Tonight, I’m parked in Casa Grande, AZ where the Airstream’s electrical systems will get some much-needed upgrades to support the tour. I’ll fly back to DC tomorrow and am looking forward to catching up on everything. If you’re in Vegas next week, please join me — I’ll be parked in the Airstream Village and we’re hosting a bunch of events throughout the week.

Add me on Snapchat, my username is resultsjunkies. I’m posting the unedited version of the tech tour, maybe you’ll find it interesting.

1. “Snapchat is, in many ways, bigger than television.” [Link] [Tweet]

I admit that I should’ve taken Snapchat much more seriously a year ago, you should have too. I’ve only been active over the past 2-3 weeks and the engagement is surprisingly higher than I expected.

For me, the key is to understand that Snapchat’s different from my other social media efforts. If Twitter has my thoughts and Instagram shows the “prettiest” parts of my life, Snapchat shows the rough / unedited reality. No wonder the engagement is higher, it feels much more authentic.

2. “Without operating experience, the road to successful VC will be tougher and longer, less fun and even more muted.” [Link] [Tweet]

Something that people don’t consider when they actually get that role in the VC industry: it’s nearly impossible to get another job after you’ve been a VC.

3. “Dangerous companies are dependent on venture capital. It’s like a heroin drip.” [Link] [Tweet]

One of the most refreshing (and mostly unexpected) things I’ve seen as I tour across the country: there are so many bootstrapped companies that have little-to-no interest in ever raising outside money.

You don’t have to raise money to be a great company.

4. “That’s the business we’re in: Buy our software, sell more stuff.” [Link] [Tweet]

It’s hard to tell where reality ends and exaggeration begins. Regardless, don’t ever let your culture look like this.

5. “Be prepared for tough questions around profitability.” [Link] [Tweet]

Founders seem to have forgotten that your first round of outside money is the easiest to raise. After that, the number of questions and the amount of scrutiny skyrocket.

If the pitch deck you’re using for your second round looks like your first round, you’re in trouble.

6. “Community hasn’t taken a backseat — but VCs are being left behind” [Link] [Tweet]

The only VCs (and angels) that are getting left behind are those that think that they’re capital is somehow better than everyone else’s.

7. “The first and most important thing you can do is minimize the amount of money you invest in your losers.” [Link] [Tweet]

I’m curious how other investors think about something: yes or no — do you prefer to lead inside rounds in your own portfolio companies? Why?

8. “As for technology, my working definition is: a tool that radically solves problems.” [Link] [Tweet]

My favorite line: “Indeed, the printing press was once technology, as was writing — as was the wheel.”

9. “follow-on rates are also a core metric and critical to understand a young fund’s performance.” [Link] [Tweet]

If your portfolio companies aren’t growing, you’re in trouble.

10. Do we need a #10?

I’m thinking of changing things up a bit with this newsletter — is there something else you’d like to see? (eg, should we reduce it to 5 of the most interesting articles and I’ll write a longer personal piece in each newsletter? something else?)

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 on Slack, apply to join.

Have a great weekend!

-P

P.S. If you loved this newsletter, share it with a friend. If you hated this newsletter, share it with an enemy.

Happy Saturday.

I wrapped up a fantastic week in Tulsa yesterday, more details on that soon. I’m in Guymon, OK tonight and en route to Taos, NM tomorrow. If you’re on Snapchat, add me — my username is resultsjunkies. I’m posting the unedited version of the tech tour, maybe you’ll find it interesting.  

1. “most of the things we’ve funded are mostly crap and largely worthless.” [Link] [Tweet]

Ignore the clickbait headline and pay attention to the rest of the article. There’s a reason why Chamath’s been so successful.

2. “The hard truth is: Trump only cares about Trump.” [Link] [Tweet]

This is a fascinating read from one of Trump’s defectors, I’m surprised it hasn’t gotten more media coverage though. Why is that?

3. “VC is crap for most startups.” [Link] [Tweet]

Having met 20+ companies in 1:1 office hours in Tulsa last week, it seems that the lack of early stage venture capital forced a number of companies to bootstrap their ways to $1M+ in ARR. That’s pretty cool.

4. “Don’t finalize the logo before you come up with a business plan that works.” [Link] [Tweet]

My favorite line: “Hiding takes many forms. Inappropriate attention to detail is a big one, because it feels like a responsible thing to do.”

5. “You have a bigger opportunity than ever before to build a long-lasting, fundamentally important tech company.” [Link] [Tweet]

Remember when you used to buy business books to get advice like this?

6. “Every company will be a tech company — or it won’t be around.” [Link] [Tweet]

This: “The people who have problems that we need to solve do not live in San Francisco and New York — they live in New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Charleston, San Antonio, Nashville, Raleigh-Durham and Birmingham.” (Ahem, tech tour anyone?)

7. “you don’t start at rare and valuable, you start at answering every email.” [Link] [Tweet]

There’s no shortcut for experience. In our parents’ generation, that experience was a function of the number of years you’d been around a particular industry. Today, your experience is a function of the number of things you’ve tried.

8. “Many startup businesses – tech or otherwise – fail.” [Link] [Tweet]

The default state of your company is failure and you, the founders, are the only ones that can turn it around. Read this and avoid making common mistakes.

9. “There’s a strategy behind the economies of scale that can be created through larger co-working environments.” [Link] [Tweet]

Why are people surprised by this? If you’re a landlord / real estate professional, coworking spaces represent an entirely new product for your buildings. Without coworking spaces, today’s tech-enabled workers would likely never step foot in your building until they needed a larger space… which they might never need at all.

10. “Our phones are also diaries, confessional booths, repositories for our deepest secrets.” [Link] [Tweet]

Our phones are the future to our individualized healthcare: “All my life, my doctors tended to be vague, making my bodily functions seem ultramysterious, when in fact they are just individualized, and easily understood with the assistance of software.”

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 on Slack, apply to join.

Have a great weekend!

-P

P.S. If you loved this newsletter, share it with a friend. If you hated this newsletter, share it with an enemy.

Happy Friday.

I’m en route to Tulsa, OK and spending the night in Zanesville, OH tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll aim for a winery somewhere near St. Louis, MO — if you’re around, hit reply and let’s see if we can line up a tasting somewhere fun.

If you’re on Snapchat, add me — my username is resultsjunkies. I’m posting the unedited version of the tech tour, maybe you’ll find it interesting. Also, you can laugh at how much of a noob I am. 🙂

I’m still considering making an angel investment in at least three Pittsburgh companies ($100K+ revenue, reasonable valuations, clean term sheets and incredibly smart founders), please join my AngelList syndicate if you’d like the opportunity to participate alongside me. You can invest as little as $1,000 in deals, you get to opt-in/opt-out of deals as you wish — no pressure and more dealflow for you.

1. “Startup is just a glorified word for an SME (small medium enterprise).” [Link] [Tweet]

If you’re calling yourself a startup and you’re wondering why no one cares, it’s time to open your eyes. The only thing that separates your “startup” business from the restaurant down the street is the fact that one of you needs bricks and mortar to exist. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you’ll be OK.

2. “Raising money means that the kind of company you can build is now limited.” [Link] [Tweet]

Everyone wants higher valuations but very few people really understand the implications. As your valuations increase, the number of potential exits drops.

3. “The era of bullshit is over. You need to raise now.” [Link] [Tweet]

I can’t say this enough: if you’re spending more than 50% of any investor meeting explaining the product, you’re in trouble. Focus on making something people want, the money will follow.

4. “Thus begins Snapchat and why you don’t get it. That’s the point.” [Link] [Tweet]

I have to admit that I’m still figuring out how to use Snapchat. (You better be following me, look for “resultsjunkies” on Snapchat.) That being said, it’s fascinating to see just how much the platform seems to have “grown up” over the past year or two.

5. “The ride-sharing company is reportedly hungry for autonomous cars.” [Link] [Tweet]

When’s the last time that anyone bought 100,000 Mercedes S-class sedans in a single purchase? That’s right, no one. Until Uber came around.

Over the next 25 years of our lives, Uber’s likely to make the most impact to our daily lives. Keep watching.

6. “A lot of founders start as doers but need to grow into leaders.” [Link] [Tweet]

I’m sharing this with myself as much as I’m sharing it with you: “Very few people want to be a cog in a machine. Very few people want to be told precisely what to do. They want to be challenged. They want to be given problems so they can find the solution. They want ownership so they can feel proud of their work and care about it.”

7. “It should be clear at a glance just how dependent the American economy is on truck drivers.” [Link] [Tweet]

Fun fact: there are 3.5M professional drivers in the US (and another 5M+ people employed in the trucking industry — there’s a lot more when you consider the international markets. My bet: autonomous trucks will likely flood the market much, much sooner than autonomous consumer vehicles do.

8. “Whenever you make an introduction you’re investing your reputation.” [Link] [Tweet]

There’s so much (crap) content online about people trying to “be the connector” for others. Please don’t fall for it.

I’d rather have you make fewer high quality connections to me than more low quality connections. I’ll bet every penny I have that everyone else around you wants the same.

If you want to get ahead in life, curate your network aggressively.

9. “Being alone, though uncomfortable, allows us to reflect on what we love and fear.” [Link] [Tweet]

I’m writing this to you from a quiet (and remote) Airstream tonight — this article’s right. You should try it some time soon, seriously.

10. “solar energy is only six doublings — or less than 14 years — away from meeting 100% of today’s energy needs.” [Link] [Tweet]

I’m not convinced that everyone’s going to drive electric cars in our lifetime but I’m sure that all of our homes will be powered by sun/wind/water sooner than we’re comfortable admitting.

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 on Slack, apply to join.

Have a great weekend!

-P

P.S. If you loved this newsletter, share it with a friend. If you hated this newsletter, share it with an enemy.

Happy Saturday.

The Airstream’s parked in Pittsburgh, just down the street from Alphalab, and we’ve wrapped up a week long set of events for founders, investors and the broader tech community. I didn’t come into Pittsburgh with any expectations or assumptions — I was blown away, they’ve got a good thing going here. You can find a bunch of photos here,here and here.

I’m considering making an angel investment in at least three Pittsburgh companies ($100K+ revenue, reasonable valuations, clean term sheets and incredibly smart founders), please join my AngelList syndicate if you’d like the opportunity to participate alongside me. You can invest as little as $1,000 in deals, you get to opt-in/opt-out of deals as you wish — no pressure and more dealflow for you.

I’m currently speaking with a few partners / sponsors for the 2016 tech tour — if there are any companies or organizations in your network that would like to be super visible in the founder/investor/technology community, please send them my way.

Next up: I’m in Vancouver Tues/Wed of this week before pulling the Airstream towards Tulsa next weekend for the second tech tour stop

1. “The staff’s inability to spell your name correctly is actually a giant conspiracy to make them more money.” [Link] [Tweet]

Yep.

2. “if you do decide to do a startup, keep an eye out for the deferred life plan.” [Link] [Tweet]

This part rings so true: Yet, many people I know are spending these years hunched over a computer, thinking of few things besides their company, their career, and how to “make it” in the world. They’ve bought into the same deferred life plan as the 22-year old banker at Goldman Sachs; it’s just sugarcoated with words like “disruption,” “ownership,” and “innovation.”

3. So I made a thing: It’s not sketchy, it’s UP AND COMING. (Gimme feedback, yo.) [Link] [Tweet]

I posted my first video on YouTube this past Sunday night, what did you think of it?

I tried to carry my GoPro with me the entire time I was in Pittsburgh. Now I have a ton of footage and no time to edit it all down into anything good. Any tips on how to get it done more efficiently (or tips on how to find the right editor to help me do it all)?

4. “Journalism is fun, but you’ll be a VC one day too. Once you realize how dumb and easy it all is.” [Link] [Tweet]

Another reality TV show focused on startups, y’all. Wonderful.

5. “It’s because they care about their dignity more than they care about their finances.” [Link] [Tweet]

For the sake of argument (and if we temporarily put aside Trump’s own verbal support of racism and other terrible things), what are the rational reasons to support him?

6. “Big Food maker plans to invest $125 million in startups.” [Link] [Tweet]

One more VC in the industry can’t be a bad thing, right?

7. “When in a new location, Uber will only employ three: marketing manager, driver ops manager & general manager.” [Link] [Tweet]

If you’re starting something new, your founding team should probably look as lean as Uber’s model. Someone building the product, someone marketing the product and someone making sure that the product has everything it needs to survive long enough to win.

8. “I had to quit to put myself in a position to believe in myself.” [Link] [Tweet]

Saying ‘no’ is a tool to do the few things that matter to you very well.

9. “Angel investing is about experience.” [Link] [Tweet]

Successful angel investing is about seeing a lot of deals and doing a lot of deals. Sure, there’s a bit more to it than that but the point is that you’re not going to get better at it by reading more of the same stuff.

If you want to see all the deals I’ll be doing this year, you can back my AngelList syndicate. It won’t cost you a penny and you’ll likely see more qualified deals through my tech tour this year than you will on your own.

10. “there’s a big difference between pleasing people and helping them.” [Link] [Tweet]

Can someone build these into Gmail’s canned responses or something?

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 on Slack, apply to join.

Have a great weekend!

-P

P.S. If you loved this newsletter, share it with a friend. If you hated this newsletter, share it with an enemy.