Steve Waidelich

African startup operator & advisor. Exploring African VC. On here because @naval. Come on you Spurs.

[Steve Waidelich @WaidelichSteven]

Demystifying PMF for African startups. These four levers can help founders navigate the tricky path.

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[cat @_catwu]

Excited to share our most powerful new Claude Code feature: dynamic workflows!

Mention "workflow" in a prompt and Claude will dynamically create an orchestration plan that it strictly follows, allowing you to confidently trust that every stage happens in the right order even across 100s of agents.

[Steve Waidelich @WaidelichSteven]

@Magda_Wierzycka I’m building Polarix to help more African businesses leverage the power of AI for marketing: https://t.co/G346T5GkvJ

[Steve Waidelich @WaidelichSteven]

@Jason I’m in

[Will Ahmed @willahmed]

You have no experience.
You’ve never started a company.
You’ve never had a full time job.
Nike is going to kill you.
You’re a kid.
You don’t have technical skills.
You shouldn’t build hardware.
Apple is going to kill you.
You can’t build hardware.
You can’t measure heart rate non-invasively.
Athletes don’t care about recovery.
Under Armour is going to kill you.
It won’t be accurate.
You don’t listen.
You’re an ineffective leader.
You can’t recruit great talent.
You’re going to have to pay every athlete.
You can’t measure sleep non-invasively.
It’s too expensive to research.
Athletes are a small market.
The product costs too much to make.
The product costs too much to sell.
Your valuation is too high.
Consumers aren’t going to want it.
Hardware is too hard.
You should measure steps.
Fitbit is going to kill you.
You can’t build a marketing engine.
You can’t raise enough money.
You need a real CEO.
Google is going to kill you.
You can’t be a subscription.
You can’t build a brand.
You can’t do consumer in Boston.
Your valuation is too high.
You shouldn’t make accessories.
You shouldn’t make apparel.
Lululemon is going to kill you.
You can’t predict Covid.
Stay in your niche.
You are going to run out of money.
You can’t build a health platform.
Amazon is going to kill you.
You can’t measure blood pressure.
You can’t get medical approvals.
The market is too small.
You don’t understand AI.
The market is too competitive.
It won’t work internationally.
The supply chain is too complicated.
You can’t build an AI.
You can’t raise enough money.
It’s too competitive.
Healthcare isn’t going to want it.
…

Just keep going ✌️

[Steve Waidelich @WaidelichSteven]

@MarikHazan @ycombinator Feltsense

[Steve Waidelich @WaidelichSteven]

@gregisenberg @grok - in the video he refers to a tool called Pulse or Pulsie or somethig to set up an AI business. what tool was he refering to?

[Steve Waidelich @WaidelichSteven]

@oliverwhudson meta vault

[Olly Hudson @oliverwhudson]

We’ve had over 4000 downloads of our Meta resources in 2026 and we’ve put them all in one place for you to access.

The Meta Vault is a free, ungated collection of our best Meta resources - 8 guides, playbooks, and frameworks that represent everything we know about winning on Meta in 2026.

It covers the full picture: why the algorithm changed, what it means for creative strategy, and the exact systems that high-performing DTC brands are running right now.

Meta's algorithm changed everything in October 2025. Targeting precision is no longer the performance lever. Creative is. The brands pulling away from the pack right now aren't just producing more ads - they're running a system. Persona-driven, research-backed, and built to feed the algorithm exactly what it needs to find new audiences at scale.

Every resource in this vault exists to help you build that system.

We recommend working through these in order. Each one builds on the last - from understanding what's changed, to diagnosing the problem, to building the system, to scaling it.

Retweet this post and comment “meta vault” and we’ll send it your way.

[Steve Waidelich @WaidelichSteven]

@MichaelJordaan @BankZeroSA Growth is good. Flattening cohort retention curves are better.

[Steve Waidelich @WaidelichSteven]

@sweatystartup 🔥

[Steve Waidelich @WaidelichSteven]

@gregisenberg LFG!

[Deedy @deedydas]

ChatGPT's product retention curves is a product manager's wet dream.

Their 1 month retention has skyrocketed from <60% 2yrs ago to an unprecedented ~90%! Youtube was best-in-class with ~85%.

6mo retention is trending to ~80%. Rapidly rising smile curve.

Generational product.

[Steve Waidelich @WaidelichSteven]

@rohitdotmittal that's bold - why?

[Steve Waidelich @WaidelichSteven]

@mrstephendeng Magic metrics for PMF; 60% acquisition from organic and a cohort retention curve that flattens at 40%. I cover both of these for African startups here:

https://t.co/dNdxpjJZ0k

[Turpentine @TurpentineMedia]

Good VCs ask for metrics. Great VCs live by them. @alexisohanian on building @sevensevensix's scoreboard.

[Paul Graham @paulg]

The classic software startup writes code to solve users' problems. If AI makes writing code more of a commodity, understanding users' problems will become the most important component of starting a startup. But it already is.

[Peter Walker @PeterJ_Walker]

What percent of startups get from Seed to Series A?

Typical rate from 2017-2020: 30-35% in 2 years.

For startups that raised their seed rounds in 2022: ~17% after 2 years.

So what's happening?

[Bill Trenchard @btrenchard]

"Finding product-market fit is more art than science" is bad advice that keeps getting repeated.

After 20 years of pre-PMF investments and hundreds of founder interviews, we’ve created a series of tactical sessions for taking a straighter path.

Now we're sharing it with early B2B founders in PMF Method — and applications for the spring cohort open today.

Whether you're pre-product or pre-idea, whether you’re working full-time or planning to leave your job soon(ish), don’t overthink it — just apply.

We’re hosting the retreat in Sonoma from March 30 - April 2. Applications close at 11:59pm PDT on 2/7.

[Martin Tobias (Pre-Seed VC) @MartinGTobias]

8/ Exit Strategy: Beware of exit slides in pre-seed pitches. Huge opportunities should overshadow exit talk. Founders focused on exits may not be fully committed.

[Stephen Deng @mrstephendeng]

Financial inclusion in Africa, with all its faults, was aligned with market pull and profitability at scale.

Impact LPs want to move onto the next thing now and the biggest crisis in African VC is going to be intellectual honesty around continued alignment (or not).