Jon Lai

GP @a16z @speedrun 🌱 | former PM @RiotGames @TencentGlobal | dark souls fan & dad to 3 zerglings

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

Applications for @speedrun are now open! If you’re an ambitious, high agency founder - we want to meet you

We’ll bring the capital, customers, & talent - you bring yourself and your wildest ideas

Speedrun is an inception fund. We are your first believers - writing the first check and growing with you as your startup scales

Speedrun founders get up to $1M in funding and over $10M in startup credits across compute, cloud, marketing, and more

Speedrun is for founders with big ideas. We have teams creating new forms of datacenters, constructing orbital space platforms, disrupting 50yo vertical software incumbents, building novel AI doctors, and more

In a world where AI has made building easier than ever, the only cap on what a startup can achieve is the limit of their ambition. So we write the first check precisely on the ideas that sound a little crazy

apply at the link below before apps close on Nov 1st

[Troy Kirwin @tkexpress11]

~1 in 3 teams we accept for speedrun are reapplicants

they use the 3-6 months between applications to:
- narrow in on a stronger idea
- find a cofounder
- get to traction

a "no" is temporary

keep building - that's all that matters

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

@tkexpress11 this is the way

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

@GEVS94 so excited for self improving companies!

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

@sujaldkl huge opportunity to modernize healthcare!

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

@tmhammer @bhorowitz eventually you'll have to hire people who aren't your friends!

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

"working on your story" is one of the most important things you can do as a founder - write it down, keep upgrading it, share it with your customers, employees, investors, etc

the story of the company is also the strategy of the company - great advice from @bhorowitz

[a16z @a16z]

Ben Horowitz on treating your story as your strategy, and why founders often skip writing it even though it's one of the most important parts of the job:

"The story of the company is also the strategy of the company... In your mind, you're kind of adjusting that strategy a little bit at a time every day. But then a quarter later, it's actually pretty different than what you started with."

"So it's really important that you keep upgrading your story. The articulation of your story. I would definitely recommend it be in written form."

"Something that you can share with everybody in the company, and everybody you're recruiting, everybody you're trying to raise money from, all your constituents, every customer."

"The problem that I think founders have is it doesn't feel like work. Like, 'What are you doing today?' 'I'm working on my story.' That doesn't sound like work."

"Because it doesn't feel like work, people don't do it, but it's probably one of the most important parts of the job."

@bhorowitz w/ @speedrun GP @Tocelot

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

@tmhammer @bhorowitz That’s kind of crazy! How do they explain what they do to potential hires, investors etc?

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

@tkexpress11 @speedrun lets get to more yes!

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

@emilybenn12 @speedrun terrific advice!

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

@speedrun @ndrewlee @kenanhsaleh @emilybenn12 @seeamshahidnoor @tkexpress11 great advice for applicants!

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

@a16z "working on your story" is some of the most important work you can do as a founder

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

@tetrisgm @speedrun i think teams are def getting smaller but that just makes each person that you add even more impactful and important to get right! recruiting will be more targeted

I do think that there will be solo founder companies but that won't be right for every product / industry

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

early stage founders often spend >50% of their time recruiting - the right hires can massively compound the business

our @speedrun talent team delivers founders curated talent and has directly placed ~150 hires into portcos this year across engineers, designers, ML etc

[Jordan @justmazer]

founders: getting up to $1M in funding via @speedrun is actually the easiest part of the journey - as you start to build your product, you'll need to build your team... and I have some bad news: recruiting sucks.

Most experienced founders will tell you that they spent at least half their time in the early days trying to woo early missionaries to join their cause.

Your options at the earliest stages aren't great:

• Agencies are expensive + generally have perverse incentives
• You could do all the recruiting... but it's often too time-intensive to do effectively
• Hiring an internal recruiter doesn't make sense yet...
• Job postings... welcome to the nightmare of AI-generated apps!

I want to give you a better option. Our goal as the Speedrunun talent team: lend you our brand and hiring prowess. Not just hollow words and advice... because advice is cheap. Sourced candidates are not.

Our team of internal recruiters spends every single day cultivating relationships with world-class talent from the most heavily in-demand functional backgrounds (AI, ML, Full Stack Eng, Design Eng, Designers, etc), and then we curate and share that talent with founders across the portfolio.

We're on track this year to directly place ~150 hires into speedrun portfolio companies.

No fee.
No perverse incentives.

Just a purely aligned desire with the founders to get them exactly what they are searching for.

One day there will be a solo-founder unicorn, and all this hiring drudgery might go away. Until then, you're going to have to build your team - so let our team (@nazzari, @thetalentcarver, @joegarciaisme ) help you build yours.

APPLY TO SPEEDRUN >>> https://t.co/uyqMtC81fT

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

@Hantao @speedrun @SkyMavisHQ amazing! loved working with you! 🙏

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

@BruceMoku @Jihoz_Axie @Moku_HQ let's go!!

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

@byte_ua @speedrun hah yup

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

@boardyai @speedrun you've done an amazing job building a network yourself =)

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

@boardyai @speedrun a company unto itself =)

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

@justmazer @speedrun truth: recruiting sucks - we're here to make it better!

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

@Kalyx_triaD @speedrun finding the fun is the most important part imho!

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

It’s an amazing time to be making games - it’s easier than ever to get started on an idea and new tech is unlocking novel content formats that players have never seen before

We @speedrun are excited to meet AI-native devs building toward the new golden age of gaming!

[Tim Sweeney @TimSweeneyEpic]

The games we've long wanted, which didn't exist because they'd cost several times more to make than they'd earn back, will soon become possible. As will the games developers wanted to build, but couldn't with the resources available. It'll be a new golden age of gaming.