Fazlur Shah

Growth Stage Investing| Startup Advisory| Angel Investing| Fundraising for Funds & StartupsI Venture Capital|114k+ Followers on LinkedIn|

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

@nic_detommaso Happy Birthday, Nicole! Wish you a beautiful day full of love and happiness!

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

An IPO Banker meets with two founders:
🤵‍♂️Legacy Profitable Founder: "Hi, my family business does ₹1000 cr in revenue and ₹450 cr in PROFIT."

😎Tech Founder: "Yo, my startup does ₹100 crore in revenue and ₹700 crore in LOSS. But we have tech. Also, is IPO spelled E-Y-E-P-O?"

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

“You know we lost 12 million last year, and we are doing great”.

Jeff Bezos got laughed at in 1999 because Amazon was unprofitable.

To this question, Mr. Bezos responded that “we are a famously unprofitable company and we are investing in the future, which isn’t unusual."

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

@ChrisHarveyEsq @ADJBlog @venturehacks @DerekColla @CooleyLLP @tdavidson Thank you very much Chris for the mention.

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

@hvgoenka You are right on the trust part but in terms of Safety practices at the workplace, it's an unsafe work environment.

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

OYO once valued at $10 billion, seeks new funding at a 70% discount.

The new funding round is likely to see some Secondary Transactions as well that will value the startup at as low as $2.5 billion.

Earlier 87% valuation cut happened with PharmEasy.

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

"Networking is overrated."- Naval Ravikant
His advice to Startup Founders: “Don’t spend your time doing meetings unless you really have to.

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

Some of the most revolutionary people and ideas were revolutionary because they were misunderstood in their time.

You envision something that people don’t see yet and say, I’m willing to be misunderstood,

You can’t predict the outcome. Just do what you believe.

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

In this beautiful video Mark Suster, Partner, Upfront Ventures talks about IPO, Strategic Acquisitions, and Secondary.

He believes that Secondary is the fastest growing part of the market right now.

VC: @HarryStebbings

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

VC DPI Performance by Fund Size

Data source is PitchBook and up to date as of Q1 2024.

They have evaluated 1500 VC Funds globally with vintages between 1976-2014 (where the underlying fund investments are realized or the fund life cycle, 10 years, has ended)

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

Love this..💕

[anand mahindra @anandmahindra]

And every now & then you stumble on a video which makes you wish: Why couldn’t the whole world be like this??

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

This is relevant for all Early-Stage startup Founders when they put in a lot of effort for success.

The same goes for the First Time Fund Managers also; lots of rejections from the LPs.

[Andrew Gazdecki @agazdecki]

Startups sound awesome but the reality is:

- you'll be working far more for far less
- you’ll be working for a decade
- you’ll be working harder than ever before
- you’ll be working with tons of uncertainty
- you’ll be working with lots of doubt
- you’ll be working with less resources
- you’ll be working against constant failure

Yet the risk is still so worth it:

Because entrepreneurs feel most alive when building and chasing their dreams.

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

“Don’t worry about people stealing your idea. If it’s any good, everyone will dismiss it.

Some of the most revolutionary people and ideas were revolutionary because they were misunderstood in their time."- Brian Chesky

[Billy Oppenheimer @bpoppenheimer]

In 1993, Jensen Huang pitched a startup idea to his former boss, Wilf Corrigan.

After Jensen's pitch, Wilf said,

“I have no idea what you just said. That was one of the worst pitches I've ever heard.”

Wilf then called the renowned venture capitalist Don Valentine, and said,

“Don, I'm going to send a kid over to you. He's one of the best employees I've ever had. I'm not sure what he's doing, but I think you should give him money.”

As the founder of Sequoia Capital, Valentine had made early investments in companies like Apple, Atari, and Wilf's LSI Logic (which had generated a $150 million return through its 1983 IPO).

So, walking in to pitch to Valentine, Jensen (then 29 years old) was nervous, and therefore, “I did a horrible job with the pitch.”

“Well, that wasn’t very good,” Valentine said. “But Wilf says to give you money, so against my better judgment, I’m going to give you money.”

With funding from Sequoia, Jensen and his co-founders, Curtis Priem and Chris Malachowsky, started Nvidia—initially, a company focused on creating graphics processing units (GPUs) to improve the quality of video game graphics.

Over time, Nvidia's GPUs and other computing technologies would spread beyond gaming to a deep, broad list of industries, including self-driving cars, AI, medical imaging, weather forecasting, and on and on. As a result, Nvidia (at the time of this writing) is the 3rd most valuable company in the world, worth around $2.2 trillion.

Takeaway 1:

Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull talks about how great ideas often fail the “elevator pitch” test—the ability to deliver a compelling description of an idea in 20 or 30 seconds, about the length of a short elevator ride.

“The way to pass the elevator pitch test,” Catmull says, “is to pick an idea that other people are already familiar with. So if you pick something that hasn't been done before, you will fail the elevator pitch test.”

After hearing Jensen's pitch, both Wilf Corrigan and Don Valentine said Jensen's idea sounded terrible. Jensen’s idea repeatedly failed the elevator pitch test, but it went on to birth one of the most valuable companies in the world.

Takeaway 2:

The director Tommy Kail (Hamilton, In The Heights, Freestyle Love Supreme, and more) likes to say of his approach to casting actors, hiring for his production company, and choosing collaborators:

“Humanity over talent ... Humanity is more important to me than talent. If there’s a choice to make, I’ll go humanity over talent, every time.”

Despite being terrible at pitching, because of his humanity, because he had been a good employee, because he had left LSI Logic on good terms, because he had maintained his relationship with his former boss—Jensen got the endorsement then the money that ultimately launched Nvidia.

“The thing I learned from that,” Jensen said, “is your past is more important than your ability to pitch, interview, or anything like that. You can’t run away from your past. So have a good past. Try to have a good past.”

- - -

“Greatness is not intelligence. Greatness comes from character.” — Jensen Huang

Follow @bpoppenheimer for more content like this!

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

@HarryStebbings How to deal with the third type? Just do the opposite of what they say. 😄

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

Paul Graham on how to build a successful startup?
"You need three things:
- to start with good people
- to make something customers actually want
- and to spend as little money as possible.
Most startups that fail do so because they fail at one of these."

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

@HarryStebbings @sama @bradlightcap @OpenAI Congratulations Harry!!

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

@AlejandroRomaan Hearty Congratulations, Alejandro!!

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

@HarryStebbings The latest one- ' Where Should We Begin?'-is excellent. It offers intimate insights into couples' therapy.

[Fazlur Shah @hello_faz]

@HarryStebbings Congratulations Harry!