Miles 𓂀

building and funding tech ventures | @HorusGroup_ 𓂀 | @Orbitmoney_

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

last months in fundraising:

- success-fee broker blasting 32 projects in one go

- founders ghosting VCs I intro'd them to

- a team we almost invested in scamming other investors for $10M+

- a GP publicly humiliating a founder we know

and this is just what i can talk about.

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

@data_nerd you can clock it way before the cycle turns. ask a loud founder something specific and it falls apart. dont need the quiet to test it

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

"pick one vertical and go all in" is good advice with a missing prerequisite.

niching down only works if you actually have an edge in that niche first. picking a vertical because it's hot, with no real expertise underneath, just makes you loud, and loud gets exposed the second the cycle moves and the easy attention dries up.

the focus only becomes a moat if the expertise was already there underneath it.

[Simon Chadwick 👨‍🚀 @simonch00]

Not many people talks about the fog of war phase of building a startup.

You have a good vision of where you're going, but the exact path to it isn't always clear.
Every step you take is a bet and you're trying to extract as much signal from the market as possible, but it's not always clear.

You see so many success stories after the fact where the path they took looked obvious, but you didn't see the 2-3 years where they were pivoting wedges and stuck in the fog of war themselves, you just read about the one path that worked.

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

@LexSokolin this gets tricky on the funding side. subscriptions gave VCs predictable recurring revenue to underwrite. usage-based agent businesses are speculative at seed until the usage actually shows up

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

@dara_venture easy, im neither and thriving

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

@dara_venture naah the vc-money-bought patek is coming, preseed bought it, seed iced it out

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

@dotcuriouscat its a top signal for you as an investor, but it flips for founders already building privacy. if they started before the wave hit, the hype is exactly when they should raise IMO

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

@data_nerd yeah just free optionality

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

"you only need one yes"

sure. you only need one yes.

you just have to collect 47 nos, 12 ghosts, 8 "let's reconnect next quarter," 5 "a bit early for us," and 3 "love this, keep us posted" to get there.

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

@Shaughnessy119 the concentration starts at fundraise, before the token market. your opportunity-cost point means even good crypto projects cant raise, the same dollar buys AI. the filter hits way before any token

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

@LoganJastremski @neuralunlock @kelxyz_ whether or not the gap closes, the funding market is ignoring the question youre asking. these raise on the training narrative, inference-revenue path hand-waved. capital isnt pricing this risk

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

@data_nerd yeah speed on the first yes beats the terms every time. lock it and let the round bid up

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

the first term sheet matters way more than the terms on it.

one term sheet, almost any term sheet, flips a round from "interesting" to "other people are already in." VCs back what other VCs are backing and a signed term sheet is the cleanest proof someone else committed.

the move most founders miss is asking for a modest believable number, getting the fast yes, then letting the round get bid up off the scarcity that creates. asking for the moon upfront is how you end up with 4 months of "we'll keep an eye on it"

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

@garrytan caring about the problem is necessary but the patience moat actually needs patient capital. most founders can sit 7 years on something they love. almost none have investors who will sit with them

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

@brettcalhounn capital buys runway, but too much of it delays PMF more than it funds the search. funded teams flail longer than lean ones because the big raise kills the forcing function

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

@simonch00 the fog is also when founders feel the most pressure to raise, which is the worst time to. you lock in a narrative and valuation youre gonna pivot away from in six months

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

@jonah_b low CAC but the TAM ceiling is the catch. a neobank for dubai watch dealers has a hard size cap. most of these 10,000 would be small businesses, not venture-scale

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

@adamshuaib the emotional stability point matches what i see in raises. charismatic founders pitch great then crack under diligence pressure. steady founders close more often

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

@0xfishylosopher @bgurley this repeats the TGE pattern though. retail buys at a 20-40% premium, no short side to correct it. at the IPO the premium compresses and retail holds the bag again

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

@data_nerd pretty much, yeah. and best to have that cash on hand when these unknowns become knowns haha

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

when you're bootstrapped, everything ends up 3x more expensive and 3x slower than you planned.

even when you think you're being conservative, you're still off. i'd put money on it. early on, first 6-12 months, every decision runs on theses that only exist in your head, and you're a founder so you're bullish on all of them.

people say second-time founders cut losses faster, and they do, but it's less about discipline and more that they already know nothing's as easy as the version in their head.

you'll learn the same thing the first time around, just more expensively. the thing i was most grateful for starting @HorusGroup_ was knowing the hard part was still ahead. when it came the team and i were ready and made it through. most of the peers i was watching at the very beginning aren't around anymore.

[Miles 𓂀 @milesgr_]

@KuphDev yeah exactly hence why best to have much more cash than u anticipate is gonna be needed. that way you keep that flexibility for longer than these first few laps