"If you're building in insurtech and it's not AI, don't bother raising. Not this year. Probably not next year either."
- Christian Lassonde, Founding Managing Partner at Impression Ventures - $150M+ AUM, early backer of Wealthsimple.
In 2015 @tksimpson was running Wave from a broom closet, on the phone with Silicon Valley Bank, asking them not to pull the debt keeping the company alive.
Wave later sold for $537M. Here's what he told the room at TiEQuest 2026.
@tksimpson He could have stayed on a beach after the exit. He started Courtyard instead.
"Once you kind of have that entrepreneurial itch, it really doesn't go away."
Two founders who actually built and sold consumer brands got on stage at Tech Week and disagreed about the one thing every founder is told to build right now: community. Here's what they said instead. 🧵
"The problem is the problem. You can't pivot the problem. Focus on solving something different - not building something better."
- Will Hsu, General Partner at Mucker Capital, backed Honey ($4B exit), ServiceTitan ($9B IPO), and AuditBoard ($3B) all outside Silicon Valley.