Hot in Enterprise IT/VC - What's 🔥 in Enterprise IT/VC #376
Following last week’s tweet and newsletter, I had the pleasure of jumping on a podcast on 20VC with Harry Stebbings and Jamin Ball (Altimeter). Here’s a clip from our no-holds-barred, ☕ fueled Sunday morning chat. I encourage you to listen if you want some hard truths on the discussions that should be happening in board rooms, what questions founders and investors should ask themselves when deciding to keep going or find an alternate path, why the game of musical chairs in M&A is in full swing - yes, we have 5-10 of each enterprise software co in every category, and why 2024 will be one of most epic classes for startups who build lean + mean from inception 🚀! Get extended 75 minute version on Youtube or listen to the 66 minute version on Apple Podcast or Spotify. BTW, I want to be 100% clear, this is not a call to shut companies down and quit, more a call to be realistic with one’s company, asking yourself if you still have the energy and conviction to keep going, and if you do, laying out a plan with your board to get there. Just having lots of cash and runway does not cut it. The time is now. Here’s a segment in which I share what that looks like. And here are some of the 🔑 questions boards and founders should ask. Sometimes when you have that conversation, you’ll find that many founders may feel relieved when investors tell them, it’s ok if we just get our money back. Every company is different, and I just hope if you’re in this situation you have an open and honest dialogue with yourself, team, and board. And if you don’t get a F^%& you, then you’re not doing your job 🤣. BTW, it’s not all doom and gloom, just creative destruction at its finest and from near death experiences, many companies have risen to become super valuable businesses. Here are a few from the boldstart portfolio 👇🏼 I also believe that the 2024 class of new startups will yield one of the best classes ever when we look back in 5+ years as founders build lean and mean from the start, take the right amount of capital at each round at the right prices without getting way over their skis while leveraging one of the biggest platform shifts in history with AI infused into all enterprise software where it makes sense and where customers will pay for it. As the wise Kenny Rogers once sang in his famous song The Gambler - Know When to Hold ‘Em, Know When to Fold ‘Em (my original blog post from Feb 2011 here). Here’s an excerpt and it was true then and true as ever now:
Here’s another story of survival from the dot.com era. This is how one of my former portfolio companies, Greenplum in the data infrastructure space, survived the dot.com crash, sold to EMC and IPOed as Pivotal Software. Here’s a timely 🧵 from Lenny Ratchitsky on what one can do when stuck. You can also read more as Jamin covered his extended views from our conversation in his awesome weekly Clouded Judgement: What it comes down to is founder energy, conviction, and realism, and all I’m trying to do is ensure that we all ask the right questions! As always, 🙏🏼 for reading and please share with your friends and colleagues! Scaling Startups
Enterprise Tech
Markets
What's Hot in Enterprise IT/VC is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell What's Hot in Enterprise IT/VC that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments. |
Older messages
What's 🔥 in Enterprise IT/VC #375
Saturday, January 6, 2024
The come to Jesus moment for founders, investors, and boards - either you're early and lean, growing efficiently + lean with cash in bank or access to cash, or you need to find a home or die...
What's 🔥 in Enterprise IT/VC #374
Saturday, December 30, 2023
Predictions for 2024 and scoring 2023
What's 🔥 in Enterprise IT/VC #373
Saturday, December 23, 2023
Thoughts on M&A in light of Adobe Figma, what's the right number of founders to start a company, + Top 5 What's 🔥 Posts in 2023
What's 🔥 in Enterprise IT/VC #372
Saturday, December 16, 2023
On pattern recognition in venture and startups
What's 🔥 in Enterprise IT/VC #371
Saturday, December 9, 2023
Back to First Principles Building Startups from Inception, hands on keyboard ⌨️ - get the Google Doc now
You Might Also Like
Investor relations going sour?
Monday, April 29, 2024
We dive into the results of our latest survey, IBM goes to court and unexpected UK royalty in Dubai. View in browser ITA We make future final Good morning there, Wow, founders are going through a
📈 What’s getting funded now
Sunday, April 28, 2024
The Lightcone crew dives into the trends they're seeing from the latest YC batch. | This Week at YC April 28th, 2024 What a week! The deadline* for Summer 2024 applications was on Monday, which
Mailbob, Athina AI, Style AI, and Formula Wizard
Sunday, April 28, 2024
WebsiteGPT to make fully customizable websites in seconds BetaList BetaList Daily Mailbob Exclusive Perk publish and manage your email newsletter with ease Athina AI Exclusive Perk Monitor and Evaluate
Initiator Creator - Issue 140
Sunday, April 28, 2024
Initiator Creator - Issue #140 - ( Read in browser ) By Saurabh Y. // 28 April 2024 Presented by DesignThingy This Week's Notes: Directionless bull All our efforts get wasted when we get stuck
Knowing is not enough
Sunday, April 28, 2024
you must apply , The Start Your Ecommerce Business 2024 was a huge success thanks in part to you. We hope you left feeling inspired and equipped with actionable strategies from our expert speakers. But
#177 | Request for Startups, Real Estate Tech Themes, & more
Sunday, April 28, 2024
April 22nd–28th | Insights from Crossbeam, Altimeter, Ansa, Scale VC, and others ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
The $4M SaaS nobody knows about
Sunday, April 28, 2024
Starter Story's Sunday Breakfast #90 ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Twitter’s former Head of Product opens up: being fired, meeting Elon, changing stagnant culture, building consumer…
Sunday, April 28, 2024
Kayvon was the longest-serving head of product at Twitter and was GM of Twitter's consumer division until the platform was acquired by Elon Musk. He originally joined Twitter in 2015 through the
Parea AI, Notion to Calendar, and VisualInvoicer
Saturday, April 27, 2024
Simplest way to create invoices BetaList BetaList Daily Parea AI Exclusive Perk Developer tools for evaluating, testing and monitoring LLM-powered apps. Notion to Calendar Put your Notion Databases in
From 0 experience to 160 orders for her business
Saturday, April 27, 2024
Read foundr+ student wins , Here at Foundr, we can't get enough of our student wins, both big and small. (These student wins are just the tip of the iceberg when you join foundr+.) Whether it was