Jason X Yang

Founder @ ML/NLP Practitioner, Author of 'The Autonomy Mind' (Aug 2021), @JohnsHopkins, @BrownUniversity, @quora, and @GoldmanSachs alum

[Hubert Thieblot @hthieblot]

Series A expectations have gotten so insane that hundreds of great companies can’t raise despite growing 50–100% YoY on $5–10M in revenue.

They’re not growing 300%, so traditional Series A firms pass.

Seed funds are now leading the Series A themselves. Big opportunity

[sarah guo @saranormous]

nobody can learn for you, not even your agents

[Hubert Thieblot @hthieblot]

Current State of VC:

• "Big labs will own this" → Pass
• "No defensible moat" → Pass
• "Growth isn’t venture scale" → Pass

Anything new on the x timeline:

"Invest immediately"

[Jason X Yang @jxi_yang]

@sabakarimm exactly

[Jason X Yang @jxi_yang]

@MartinGTobias It's shaped by the power dynamics between startups, investors and the market

[Jon Lai @Tocelot]

seed investing is really about finding 1-2 really STRONG reasons to say yes. early on, every start-up has a hundred reasons to say no - the product is janky, the team is incomplete, the market is too competitive, etc

instead, look past the obvious weaknesses every early start-up has to find the unique strengths - why will this team succeed vs everyone else, what sets them apart and gives them the "right to win"?

similarly for early-stage founders, i think it's a more successful strategy to focus on strength of strengths vs shoring up weaknesses. this applies equally to company building (double down on what's working), fundraising (showcase what's working), hiring talent (hire for spikes vs lack of weakness), and even personal development

there are some caveats - glaring weaknesses like a career-ending work habit, a broken product etc should absolutely be addressed. but in general i find cultivating strengths > fixing weakness

[James Cadwallader @thejamescad]

@spenserskates Lack of focus kills

[Jason X Yang @jxi_yang]

If you care about AI search, brand perception, or digital visibility in the LLM era, follow @Egaki_ai.
Early insights and dashboards coming soon.

[Jason X Yang @jxi_yang]

I’m building https://t.co/6rMPCtawqs — a platform that helps brands understand and improve how they’re portrayed across AI search platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.

Because people aren’t just Googling anymore — they’re asking AI.

[Jason X Yang @jxi_yang]

We’ve been refining the dashboard prototype with early supporters and will soon share findings on what actually influences brand visibility across AI platforms — and how to improve it.

[Jason X Yang @jxi_yang]

@fdotinc crying in nyc

[Brycent @brycent]

Founders should chase strategic Angel Investors as their first check

Not VCs

The Angel Investor with a strong network is your warm intro for VC convos.

[Jason X Yang @jxi_yang]

@audiencon depends on where you launched, I guess

[Jason X Yang @jxi_yang]

@_devJNS please don't win the Darwin award this way

[David Park @Davidjpark96]

I’ve done the whole circus of raising money

I’ve also experienced the slow bootstrapped lifestyle

Imo the best way to run a company is to have exactly enough cash to execute at a high-level and not a dollar more

VC-funded startups often raise too much (sometimes at the insistence of the VCs) and bootstrapped founders try to make magic happen with basically no capital in their bank account

You put your company in a dangerous position if you find yourself in either of these scenarios

I like this new model of seedstrapping where you raise a round to reach escape velocity and then you can continue to improve your product + team with the revenue coming in (which is what we did)

Seedstrapping slightly dampens the upside, but it significantly improves quality of life and iteration cycles in the early days

The question I'd ask myself if I were to create a new company:
"What is the minimum amount of cash I need to hit escape velocity for my product?"

If I have that amount in my bank account, then I would bootstrap

If I don't have that amount, then I would raise

Once I hit escape velocity, I'd just ask myself the same question again:
"What is the minimum amount of cash I need to take our product to the next level of growth?"

If the revenue coming in covers that amount, then I would just stay seedstrapped

If our revenue is not enough, then I'd raise another round

I'd continue to ask myself this question over and over indefinitely at each inflection point of the business

So far, I don't see a point in raising money because we have trouble spending the revenue each month, but that doesn't mean this will always be the case

I'm interested to see if that opportunity will ever present itself, but for now very grateful for how the company is currently running!

[Joshua Martin @Jbm_dev]

Conferences, Tech week, events, networking are the GOAT for starting conversations and getting users.

Get out there and talk to real people.

[Jason X Yang @jxi_yang]

Your AI conversations are a secret new treasure trove for marketers https://t.co/TIw6iZBRli via @theregister

[Jason X Yang @jxi_yang]

@jomatech But lots of views and likes