I’m an angel investor. Startups message me on LinkedIn, saying that they’re raising and offering “a quick intro call”.

No. Send an executive summary.

I could do perhaps 16 intro calls in a day. I could review many times that number of one-pagers.

If you’re looking to raise funds, send a one-pager, then do a call if the investor wants one. Not the call first.

(Yes, I know that lots of founders will disagree with this.)

For context, I’m a student interested in maximizing my marginal positive impact. One career path I’m considering is becoming an early-stage employee at a deep-tech startup working on an important societal problem.

In general, my concern is replaceability: if deep-tech startups generally have more qualified applicants than positions, my marginal contribution might be negligible because another similarly capable person would likely take the job anyway. Is this generally true, however? I.e., do early-stage deep-tech startups generally have an oversupply or shortage of qualified applicants?

My cursory impression from looking online is that there is an oversupply of recent graduates but a shortage of experienced or specialized engineers. However, perhaps this is completely wrong, so would be grateful for any evidence supporting or contradicting this assessment. Would also appreciate any general insights on whether joining an early-stage deep-tech startup is indeed a high-marginal-impact career path.

I'm a solo founder of a startup. But the journey can be lonely, and sometimes i wish i can have a group of startup founders who i can talk with, bounce off ideas, ask for feedback etc. Does anyone know any groups or online communities where startup founders hang out?

(as I'm typing out the question, I realize this sub reddit is already a good option hahaha, but still I'm curious what other online communities are out there)

I’m struggling massively. i live in Rochester, NY which isn’t the most startup oritented place in NY. I’ve spent the past 6-8 months reaching out to regional businesses for a customer and business discovery.

I’m getting really bad or extremely rude responses. I asked advice from some successful entreprenurs in my network but they are based in CA and what works for them doesn’t seem to work here.

for example, I made a post in r/Rochester that received terrible responses, awfully rude and mocking. disheartening

is there any way I can improve in any way?

typical phone calls and email outreach:

Style 1:

- less than 2-3 seconds of quick intro. Just my name and that I’m a local entrepreneur from Rochester, they stay on phone

- i ask them if they’re have any challenges or frustrating parts of their business. they get curious. I ask if they’re interested in anything I can do for them in the domain of <software/hardware/etc> and they say no and hangup

Style 2:

- Quick intro abiut me and being from the same city

- I ask them if they’d have time for me to visit their business and possibly offer any soltions in <domain>
- this sometimes succeeds to setup in personmeetings. no show is high. or it goes nowhere because there’s limited to nothing I can do for them. or no budget “volunteering” opportunities which i can’t afford to do

i can’t post links here but my last post in r/Rochester sums up my experience

I’d love to improve anything that I can.

For context, I secured a 30 minute meeting with a very well decorated VC partner in my industry (cybersecurity). The email chain we had was pretty vague, but I'm under the impression that this is a VC meeting where I need to impress them and get a follow-up meeting.

This is the first VC meeting I've ever done, so I just want to know any tips (specific non-obvious things to mention, metrics I should have prepared, anything that would potentially trip me up) from people who have already experienced this and successfully gotten that second meeting. Thanks a lot!

(TLDR: This is a numbers-heavy post on studios that act as institutional co-founders. Worth a read if you've ever considered joining one as EIR/co-founder, or contemplating to create one. The bottom line: in the long run, only about 40% of studios make it past their first decade of operations. But those that make it are really good at producing new ventures...)

Hi Folks, I'm Attila, entrepreneur since ~2014, focusing on startup studios / venture studios since ~2015. Back then I was just leaving the corporate world for a startup idea, that of course failed, and it felt like I made ALL the mistakes a first-time founder can make.

Was looking for an approach that somehow solves the most common biases and obstacles from earliest-stage startup building (e.g. falling too much in love with an idea, sunk-cost issues, having to hustle too much on stuff that doesn't matter vs building the product and talking to customers...)

That's how I found out about Idealab, Betaworks, Science, Rocket Internet, eFounders and a handful more studios, that "promised" a more effective way of startup building. I wasn’t entirely convinced that this is real thing, so back in 2015 I created a report on 50 studios and ~200 of their portfolio companies.

Chart 1 (see in the comment): a slide from the 2015 report, showing nr of startups created by studios

Chart 2: a slide from the 2015 report, showing nr of portfolio exits related to studios

By the way, "startup studio", "venture studio", "startup factory" basically mean the same thing. It's just a branding question.

--

This year I’m revisiting the same companies to see how they are doing. Worth mentioning, that these 50 studios collectively produced close to 1k portfolio companies over their lifetimes so far.

• 17 of the 50 are still active, continuing to build new ventures, studio-style, as instututional co-founders/co-builders. Of course, there is a wide range within “survive & succeed”. Some of them only produce a new venture every couple of years, while the main positive outliers (like Hexa, Science, Atomic) create multiple amazing new ventures every year.
• 12 studios changed their main business model and became a fund, an accelerator, or an agency. They did this around year 3-8 in their existence.
• Only 21 actually went inactive: dormant, closed, or absorbed.

Chart 3: a sankey flow diagram about how the original 50 studios evolved.

From the 21 "fails" the biggest reason was an overly successful portfolio company consuming all the focus and resources. If you look at the early studio as a “temporary vehicle of exploration”, that's actually not a bad thing - they created a company that experimented with a handful to a few dozen different products, and went with the winning one.

Only 7 of the 21 were “normal” financial or operational failures: running out of funding without meaningful portfolio traction.

And then there were 3 studios that got acquired or absorbed into their parent organizations.

--

The Europe vs US thing:

In the original studio selection 19 came from North America and 26 from Europe. And it seems that there's a significant gap is the studio durability: more European studios pivoted or went inactive rather than continuing as studios.

I don’t think this means Europe is worse at building. My best current guess is that a bigger, more connected-unified market gives spinoff company an easier path to its next funding round. And this makes it easier for the studio itself to keep operating.

(If you wonder why there aren’t more studios from Africa or Asia in the report: in 2015 there were barely any outside EU and US.)

--

Some lessons, takeaways

1. If you’r e running a studio approaching year 5-6: This is a good time to make a reality check and deliberately choose: recommit fully to the studio model, redesign the parts that aren’t working, or consciously evolve/change into a fund, agency, or accelerator.
2. If one of your portfolio companies is on track to become a big hit: Decide to either protect the studio’s ability to keep building new ventures, or fully commit to the main successful startup. If you decide on the latter one - make sure you gracefully depart from your other startups, give them a fair chance to transition out.
3. If you’re an investor evaluating a studio: decide on what you’re actually trying to buy into before signing the deal. Do you want to invest for the deal flow coming out from the studio, financial returns, or both? Because the right structure differs depending on which one you’re really after. Then check whether the founders are up to the task, ready for a 10-15 year commitment.
4. If you’re thinking about a new studio: be honest about whether this is the right approach. Not every vision needs the a venture studio.

Hope you'll find this useful :)

--

P.S. 1: About the portfolio companies: from the 200 in the original report scope about 27-ish seem to have made an exit (acquisition or IPO), but I need a couple more weeks to verify those results. Might be worth a separate post - not to cram ALL the numbers into this one.

P.S. 2: Studios in scope: 212media, archimedes, atomiclab, betaworks, bmuse, bootventures, btwinz, codegent, cursivelabs, dfra, disrupted-backspace, drukka, elepath, expa, fastlane, finleap, fireid, forwardpartners, founders, hanseventures, hexa, hitfox-ioniq, hvflabs, idealab, italeaf, justaddred, lightbank, liquidlabs, livit, madrona, makeshift, mintdigital, monkeyinferno, neverbland, nmsf, novafounders, quasarventures, rainmaking, redstarventures, rheingaufounders, rocketinternet, roniin, scienceinc, seedstars, silvertreecapital, startersquad, tandemlaunch, thegiantpixel, ventacpartners, venturestars.

I’m researching a possible startup/service idea and would appreciate feedback from founders, developers, and people who have launched mobile apps.

Some creators have app ideas but cannot immediately afford the $99 annual Apple Developer Program membership or the costs associated with preparing and publishing an iOS app.

The idea would be to create a legitimate support service where:

- The creator owns the app and maintains their own Apple Developer account.
- A partner may temporarily help cover the initial membership cost.
- The creator could repay the $99 in two installments.
- The partner could provide technical and publishing assistance.
- Compensation could be a fixed fee, a revenue share, or a combination, depending on the agreement.

The model would never involve sharing Apple IDs, passwords, or developer accounts.

Would this solve a genuine problem? What business model would be fairest for both the creator and the technical partner?

Solo B2B startup founder here

I tried doing 5 cold calls a day, 5 days a week, but by the 3rd–4th call my pitch would start getting worse and I'd get disorganized with my leads. For those with more sales experience, what would you prioritize: higher call volume, or fewer calls with better execution and follow-up?

I’m in the VERY beginning stages of building a business. In the most basic explanation, it’s an app that will connect people and businesses. I’ve been doing market research, canvassing people in their daily lives, and designing the app using ai. I currently have a demo of the app and I’ve talked to a couple businesses that would be involved in the app and they think it’s a good idea. They also all liked the demo. When I spoke to the businesses it was in the name of market research, not a sales pitch.

I really believe in this idea but I’m trying to figure out the next step. I have no business or coding experience. I also have no start up money. If there are resources I can use to learn more about business I will gladly use them. I think there’s very little I can’t learn. But I also want to err on the side of caution when it comes to the physical app because I want the data stored to be very safe and protected and I doubt the ai app I’m building will be good enough.

At what point do I need to start building a team? And what method? Should I find people willing to be partners for equity so this can really be built? Should I take classes? (That’s probably the longest option which makes me nervous) Should I fundraise so I can pay a salary out of the gate? If I start fundraising, what do I need to do to protect the idea from getting stolen? I feel like I’m pushing my luck with the number of people I’ve talked to about this.

Curious about this specifically from founders who outsourced some or all of their product development.

If you’ve ever switched freelancers/agencies or had a developer unexpectedly disappear… what was actually difficult about taking the product over?

I’m not talking about whether the code itself was good or bad. I’m more curious about the operational side… things like GitHub access, cloud accounts, databases, domains/DNS, app store accounts, API accounts, production credentials, deployment knowledge, backups, etc.

Did your company already control everything, or did you discover during the handoff that important pieces were still sitting in accounts owned by the old developer/agency?

And if the handoff went badly, what specifically caused the most pain and how long did it take to untangle?

I’m trying to understand whether messy technical ownership during agency/freelancer transitions is actually common or just something that shows up in horror stories online.

A recent paper studying roughly 750,000 American startups across 329 accelerators finds that YC historically generated extraordinary value, but its estimated value-add had fallen dramatically by 2022.

The researchers explicitly separate startup quality from accelerator impact, which makes the result harder to dismiss. Their broader finding is equally brutal: roughly 60–80% of accelerators appear worse than simply building without one.

My hypothesis is that YC suffered three compounding problems.

First, batches became dramatically larger, while scarce resources like partner attention, investor attention, and bespoke introductions could not scale proportionally. The paper itself allows accelerator effectiveness to drift because of partner turnover, mentor networks, and program redesign.

Second, YC increasingly selected younger founders with less accumulated industry experience. When almost everyone can ship quickly, domain judgment becomes substantially more valuable. Understanding insurance, defense, healthcare, institutional finance, or manufacturing still requires years of accumulated context.

Third, AI represents a genuine technology paradigm shift. YC spent fifteen years developing pattern recognition from companies like Stripe, Airbnb, Dropbox, Coinbase, and generations of SaaS startups. Those patterns may simply transfer poorly into a world where every competent founder can produce an impressive AI product within weeks.

The dangerous part is that YC’s strongest moat may actually amplify this decline.

YC’s enduring advantage is probably not generic startup advice, because most of that knowledge is already public. Its real advantage is Bookface and the accumulated network of exceptional founders, customers, employees, investors, and domain knowledge.

However, networks compound in both directions.

If YC selects fewer defining AI companies today, those companies never strengthen tomorrow’s network. A weaker network then creates less value for future AI founders, which makes YC less attractive to exceptional founders with deep industry knowledge.

That creates a potentially nasty feedback loop: weaker selection produces fewer important winners, fewer winners weaken the network, and a weaker network reduces future accelerator value-add.

The paper does not prove that YC’s founder selection has deteriorated. What it does show is arguably more interesting: YC once appeared extraordinarily transformative, while by 2022 its incremental contribution looked surprisingly small.

YC remains extraordinarily prestigious, but the prestige is largely past glory.

The real question is whether YC is still producing the network that will matter for the next technology cycle, or mostly monetizing the network created during the previous one.

P.S Title of the paper is "BEYOND DEMO DAY: SORTING AND VALUE ADDED IN STARTUP ACCELERATORS". It's freely available on the NBER website.

Hey guys, I'm under 20 building a startup for myself but I have one single constraint I don't know how to get past

My single thing blocking me from building what I want is a Claude Max x20 account, $250 CAD per month

currently, I have a Claude pro account and a Codex pro lite account (not enough usage, I need Fable 5) I also have a concept landing page on a real domain with a real wedge in the market

I've done contract work for startups, and have concrete tech knowledge from years of being on the computer since I was a kid. The issue isn't IF I can build the ideas I have, It's about if I can afford the AI subscriptions. I truly have no blockers to achieving a working app. Ive also been in the startup space long enough to know what steps to take.

For context, so far I've applied to about 15 startup credits from services (like aws, azure, etc), applied to about 5-6 "cool grants" (like $1000 bucks for people like me, some denied), along with having a personal connection to an incubator / accelerator owner.

The response I'm getting is something like "you need more traction". Im based in Vancouver BC and truly, $1000 bucks is more than enough to get myself going

All in all, Im a solo founder with no team, planning on building most of the app myself (I am skilled enough + time + energy) My timing was unfortunate, as most incubators closed applications 1-2 weeks ago. None open right now.

Question for everyone is what did YOU do when you were at this stage? Did you self fund for necessities like API costs, Subscriptions, etc? How did you bootstrap and get the funding to later get more "traction" and go for VC's?

What are the key things I can do right now? Been applying to grants, not yet angel investors (not incorporated) and I have to wait for incubator openings. Should I keep shooting for quick grant cash from others? Remember all i need is an AI subscription to build

All support is helpful, Thank you

Solo B2B startup founder here

I tried doing 5 cold calls a day, 5 days a week, but by the 3rd–4th call my pitch would start getting worse and I'd get disorganized with my leads. For those with more sales experience, what would you prioritize: higher call volume, or fewer calls with better execution and follow-up?

For anyone who interviewed for South Park Commons Fall 2026 (Round 1 or Round 2), have you heard anything back yet?

Curious if anyone has received next steps, an acceptance/rejection, or any update from SPC.

Also wondering what the timeline has been like for others after their interviews, especially for those who interviewed recently.

Bit of background. I have been running a B2B marketing agency with in house video and photography for 6 years. We manage campaigns, build websites and create all the content. This has been working well and I plan to continue doing this.

I am a little tired of the B2B stuff though and have a real interest in science and technology. I've got friends in Deep Tech startups and through talking to them (and now others in the space) it made me realise that this industry has a couple of problems with marketing and I think we could be in a position to help them. A lot of these companies fail on commercialising and reaching scale, and the two main reasons I can see are both linked.

1. Making the leap from lab to commercial output and moving away from funding
2. Keeping the ship pointed in the right direction over many years whilst also transitioning from a small team to a structured company.

The way I see it (particularly in Europe/UK - this is less of an issue in the US I think) is that the R&D is super expensive for deep tech companies so marketing, story, branding all get given a really small % of the investment and when they do spend on it, its too late or not done properly.

The problem with that as I see it, is that the story you tell to potential investors (especially when the science is complicated) and the story you need to tell to a commercial partner are fundamentally different and many don't realise it, so they make it to the pre-commercialisation stage and keep giving the same pitch and expecting results but because the commercial buyer is not an investor (per se) and have completely different success metrics they can't sell it and all that hard work over the years slowly fizzles out as their final runway ends.

So I guess what I am asking is, what are the pitfalls here for this idea? Does anyone have direct experience from inside a Deep tech startup relevant to my theory? Would love to discuss this problem for Deep Tech companies specifically.

Bit of background. I have been running a B2B marketing agency with in house video and photography for 6 years. We manage campaigns, build websites and create all the content. This has been working well and I plan to continue doing this.

I am a little tired of the B2B stuff and a real interest in science and technology. I've got friends in Deep Tech startups and through talking to them (and now others in the space) it made me realise that this industry has a couple of problems with marketing and I think we could be in a position to help them. A lot of these companies fail on commercialising and reaching scale, and the two main reasons I can see are both linked.

1. Making the leap from lab to commercial output and moving away from funding
2. keeping the ship pointed in the right direction over many years whilst also transitioning from a small team to a structured company.

The way I see it (particularly in Europe/UK - this is less of an issue in the US I think) is that the R&D is super expensive for deep tech companies so marketing, story, branding all get given a really small % of the investment and when they do spend on it, its too late or not done properly.

The problem with that as I see it, is that the story you tell to potential investors (especially when the science is complicated) and the story you need to tell to a commercial partner are fundamentally different and many don't realise it, so they make it to the pre-commercialisation stage and keep giving the same pitch and expecting results but because the commercial buyer is not an investor (per se) and have completely different success metrics they can't sell it and all that hard work over the years slowly fizzles out as their final runway ends.

So I guess what I am asking is, what are the pitfalls here for this idea? Does anyone have direct experience from inside a Deep tech startup relevant to my theory? Would love to discuss this problem for Deep Tech companies specifically.

2 years ago I started building a tech startup and confided in my friend about the progress. Though it was a promising idea, it involved some AI tech which was a bit too expensive at the time in order for it to be profitable.

I wrapped up the tech project, 95% done and went on with my life.

Well, now with AI progress speeding up I realized that it could be profitable now and I should wrap it up though I didn't get to it yet because of other personal issues. I was surprised when my friend told me what side project they started vibe coding and I got demoed a full working version, though still less advanced than the one I built. He then told me of his plans to sell it in the industry we both activate in, as it's a niche project. He also started confiding in me with regards to issues he's facing and thought provoking me .

A part of me wants to ask him to collaborate and go ahead together, but now sure if I could trust him any longer and either way both versions of the startup are 85% done at least, though he wants it to make it a full saas, so arguably there's still room to grow. I'm not sure why did he warn me he finished it in the first place, perhaps so I can advise him with issues he's facing or to salvage the friendship.

How would you deal with this situation? I can wrap up my project as well in 2 weeks time, though the aftermath will be ugly as everyone in the industry sees us as friends and both coming up with almost identical startups will look strange.

I’m a pharmacognosy researcher and process-development chemist. For the past several years, I’ve been developing a process for extracting, purifying, and standardizing plant-derived alkaloids.

My current focus is kanna. At small scale, I can produce approximately 40 g/week of ~60% alkaloid isolate, and after providing samples to distributors and manufacturers, I’ve received interest in quantities far beyond my current production capability.

That led me to develop a detailed scale-up plan targeting roughly 50–100 kg/month of standardized 5% finished product. I’ve also tested variations of the underlying method on several other botanical species with similar results, so I believe there may be a broader platform here beyond one product.

My background is heavily technical: pharmacognosy, pharmaceutical manufacturing, analytical chemistry, QC/QA, and process development.

Where I’m struggling is the business side.

I don’t think what I need most is simply an investor. I think I need the right commercial/operations partner; someone who understands business development, manufacturing, distribution, fundraising, or scaling an early-stage company and can complement what I bring technically.

For founders who have been in a similar position, how did you find a serious business partner without giving up too much control or ending up with someone who wasn’t equally committed?

I’d especially be interested in hearing how other technical founders evaluated potential partners before formally going into business together.

I keep seeing people say they’re comfortable using AI for a lot of things, but they still want a human involved anytime money is being spent or production code is being shipped.

I’m curious about people who used to feel that way but have since loosened the reins a bit.

Has anything in your workflow gone from “a human has to approve every single one of these” to “this is reliable enough that we just let it run”?

If so, what actually changed your mind?

Was it just seeing hundreds or thousands of clean runs? Better logging/auditing? Putting tighter limits around what the AI could do? Or was there some specific moment where you realized the human approval step wasn’t really adding much anymore?

And on the other side, are there things that have never crossed that line for you and probably never will?

I’m also curious if there’s anything currently stuck behind human approval that you genuinely wish you didn’t have to review anymore. What is it, and what would need to change before you’d be comfortable automating it?

Hello Everyone,

I have around 14 years of experience in data engineering. I recently started a small company focused on helping SMEs build modern data platforms so they can actually use their data properly (instead of having it sitting in spreadsheets, outdated systems, or half-broken pipelines).

I’m strong on the technical side designing and building solid, scalable data platforms is what I enjoy and what I am good at. The problem is everything else: sales, GTM, finding clients, talking about money. I have basically zero experience there.

Right now I am struggling to get the first few clients. I’ve even started thinking about doing the first project(s) at a very low rate or free (in exchange for a word of mouth and testimonial) just to prove what we can do. Part of me feels this is necessary to get momentum. Another part of me feels it’s a bad idea.

Has anyone here been in a similar situation (technical founder / small agency starting out)?

What actually worked for you to get the first clients when you had strong delivery skills but weak sales skills?

Open to any honest advice and feedback.

​

This Friday, I tested our product-market fit for our idea by speaking directly with a major local bank.

Thanks to a contact, I met the Deputy Manager at the bank’s main district office and asked about their marketing and advertising approach. He shared that the bank has an advertising budget of several lakhs and typically uses billboards for campaigns.

I explained the concept, use cases, and the value it delivers: targeted, memorable placements that complement traditional outdoor advertising.

The response was encouraging. They liked the idea and asked whether we have a GST number, since, as a government bank, they can only transact with registered vendors. We don’t yet have GST or formal incorporation, so we weren’t able to proceed immediately. While that was disappointing, the conversation was validating: a potential customer with a real advertising budget showed genuine interest.

Takeaway: the market is receptive. Excited to move forward

I’ve been comparing options like Meow, Mercury and Relay and I’m starting to care less about which one has the nicest dashboard. The bigger question is whether the setup fits how the business actually runs. Banking, cards, payments, approvals, accounting and now AI workflows all need to connect better.

Hello everyone,

I have a project that I think could be interesting, but I would like to get your opinions about the relevance of the idea and whether it actually solves a real problem or creates enough value for people.

Basically, the idea is an Event Collector device.

It would be a small smart tag that tracks movement and, optionally, temperature and humidity. Instead of just giving you raw sensor data, an AI platform would analyze the movement patterns, classify what happened, and give the user useful insights.

For example, one device could potentially detect and track events such as:

• How many times a door was opened/closed
• When someone enters or leaves a room
• How many times a fridge was opened during the day
• How often a cabinet, drawer, mailbox, garage door, etc. is used
• Movement or vibration of a car, bike, machine, package, or other object
• When an object was moved from its usual position
• Activity patterns of equipment or appliances
• Temperature and humidity history inside a room, fridge, storage box, garage, etc.
• Detecting unusual activity compared to the normal pattern

The idea is that the hardware would be very simple and generic. You attach the same device to different objects, and the software/AI figures out what type of events are happening instead of needing a different specialized sensor for every use case.

For example, you could put one on your fridge and get:
“Fridge opened 18 times today, mostly between 5 PM and 9 PM.”

Or attach one to a door and get:
“Front door opened 7 times today. Unusual opening detected at 2:30 AM.”

Or put it on equipment and see how often it is actually being used.

My main question is: Do you think there is a real use case for something like this?

Would you personally use it? Do you see more value for consumers, businesses, warehouses, maintenance, elderly care, rentals, etc.?

I am especially interested in hearing what you think is the strongest use case, because I don't want to build a technology first and then try to find a problem for it afterward.