Steve Waidelich

Growth advisor to African tech startups. Spurs fan. But, I’m really only here for @naval tweets.

[Steve Waidelich @SteveWaidelich]

@pmarca Do ex operators make better early stage venture partners than ex investment mangers? If so, why?

[Andrew Gazdecki @agazdecki]

My favorite startup strategy:

- Talk to customers
- Talk to customers
- Talk to customers
- Talk to customers
- Talk to customers

[Steve Waidelich @SteveWaidelich]

Factors influencing investment criteria have changed significantly in the last 18 months. PMF signals are more important than ever. #FintechFest 🇿🇦 @FoundersFFA @QuonaCapital

[Steve Waidelich @SteveWaidelich]

@aaronqfu Be keen to chat through learnings from 63 pre-seed + seed investments we’ve made. Going deeper than most VCs go into PMF fundamentals.

[Steve Waidelich @SteveWaidelich]

@MartinGTobias @MartinGTobias some pre-seed product metrics can serve as good leading indicators for strong series A metrics. Eg. Good activation and active usage rates can indicate good retention as they scale

[CJ Gustafson @cjgustafson]

Stop wasting your time with vanity metrics.

Start tracking these 15 proven business metrics.

(They all come from real startups).

[Suhail @Suhail]

Being a large startup without great retention is one of the worst sins of well intentioned founders that ultimately fail.

[Steve Waidelich @SteveWaidelich]

@Skinbaron_EN Bullish!

[Steve Waidelich @SteveWaidelich]

@Skinbaron_EN Just buy more

[Suhail @Suhail]

1/ Getting my first 100 customers always felt like a puzzle. The next 1000 seemed unreachable. Besides, how can you get feedback to make the product better w/o users? After many years, we ended up w/ 6,000+ paying customers. It was a grind to get there.😩 Here's what I Iearned...

[Steve Waidelich @SteveWaidelich]

@HOUGOUNGAGNE Win the Karambit @kukis3570 @Iceman362 @NathwaniAyush @nls_leleu @EdwardGunter77 @Frandjoooo @NeoWu33 @LasseMue @MyUserName_HQ @MLGChaosX @KaninWithRice @AddeLG1 @iEmtec @TheMulykii @Grantje2110

[Steve Waidelich @SteveWaidelich]

@shahedkhan What metrics did you focus on at seed stage?

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

Last year, I had a conversation that changed my life.

It caused me to upend everything and move across the country.

The lesson from it may change yours:

[Steve Waidelich @SteveWaidelich]

@paulg @engineers_feed @paulg Did the seemly unimpressive startups have remarkable founders? Or were they equally underwhelming?

[Alex Garcia 🔍 @alexgarcia_atx]

MasterClass used SEO to build a $2.7B education empire.

Here's how:

[Steve Waidelich @SteveWaidelich]

@shahedkhan @theetory @kbalakri @Julian @akshayadinesh19 @sdamico Should angels and VCs be looking at activation, active usage and retention at seed? They may be poor, but improving. Surely leading indicators of PMF?

[Steve Waidelich @SteveWaidelich]

@Daudex Reading The Power Law currently. Loving the stories about Valentine in the early days.

[Steve Waidelich @SteveWaidelich]

@nw3 @AmyAThatcher Nestle used to make a Candy called Rolo

[Steve Waidelich @SteveWaidelich]

@jarridvtingle What data do the best VCs analyse at seed?

[Steve Waidelich @SteveWaidelich]

@Daudex @FoundersFFA