Raghav Talwar

Startups, Tech and Finance excites me | @iitmadras '23

[Raghav Talwar @raghavtalwar__]

I spent the last two months raising pre-seed funding for my startup, and the experience has taught me some valuable lessons that I'd like to share. Here are some of the key takeaways: 1/10
[A Thread]

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

Your product ships fast. Your videos should too.

@goClueso turns any rough screen recording, document, or slide deck into a stunning video in minutes.

1,000+ startups and enterprises already use Clueso for product demos, onboarding, training, product marketing, support documentation, sales enablement, L&D, and more.

https://t.co/uNobrLJ7uv

[riley. @lamxnt]

I’ve been saying

There is an incompetence epidemic

The bar has never been lower

You can steamroll your entire generation just by actually working hard, understanding nuance, having good critical thinking abilities, working on your sense of agency, and not watching Reels

[robin @zebird0]

Life is poker, not chess

Four years ago I walked away from a guaranteed promotion at McKinsey and a $300K PE offer to work in gaming for a third of the salary.

Many thought I was insane. They were playing chess: calculating the optimal move with perfect information.

[Shreepoorna S Rao @shreepoorna365]

Just 🤌

[Raghav Talwar @raghavtalwar__]

Master of Puppets – Metallica. Heard it way back in 4th class. Took years to truly understand and appreciate it. Breaks my heart that metal is pretty much dead now.

[Phunsuk Wangdu @Phunsukwangduji]

What was your first English song ??

[Raghav Talwar @raghavtalwar__]

The software/product/design job market is royally fucked right now. Even folks with very top-tier pedigree are in the market since months. Good time for founders to hire, but hard to tell if people are joining for the right reasons.

[Raghav Talwar @raghavtalwar__]

Looking for small scale PR agencies who take up pay-per-placement projects. Kindly refer if you know relevant folks in your network, thanks!

[Raghav Talwar @raghavtalwar__]

Wish raising money alone attracted top-tier talent
They may love your pitch but dread admitting to peers they're working for a junior with lesser pedigree. Some also delude themselves: "If HE raised X, I can raise 10X," but never do
Hustle for the 1st believer-the rest follow

[Raghav Talwar @raghavtalwar__]

@abhinav_nahata o3 model far outstrips previous models in performance by a huge margin, it's like LLMs are reborn

[Raghav Talwar @raghavtalwar__]

Not many people realise the delta that ChatGPT o3 model has created

[Raghav Talwar @raghavtalwar__]

Hiring interns was an amazing Return of investment for us - said no early stage startup ever

[Raghav Talwar @raghavtalwar__]

The Google-Wiz deal is a brutal reminder of how far ahead their startup ecosystem is—insights, team-building, market timing, execution, and fundraising all at another level. Meanwhile, I’ve spent two years just figuring things out. Thought of competing in such market is daunting.

[Raghav Talwar @raghavtalwar__]

@nithinnnm Vo nahi pata, but insta is starting to give similar ick as FB back then. Quite many people around agree

[Raghav Talwar @raghavtalwar__]

Why do I feel that Instagram is going to have its Facebook 2014-15 moment soon

[Raghav Talwar @raghavtalwar__]

Indian standup comedy scene desperately needs a disruption. It is stuck in a loop of the same 4-5 themes, familiar tropes, and predictable narratives. Much like Bollywood.

[Raghav Talwar @raghavtalwar__]

Somebody please ban these NGO fundraisers from 100 ft road

[Shreepoorna S Rao @shreepoorna365]

Long way with the OG bois

Madras Mafia ftw

@realAkashAnand @BalarNeel @sanghvian @_abhishek__13 @raghavtalwar__ @PJPrakash747

[Raghav Talwar @raghavtalwar__]

Insti gets its second tweeleb @shreepoorna365 🙇‍♂️

[Raghav Talwar @raghavtalwar__]

"GenAI" "workflow" "automation" "augmentation" "transforming enterprises" "business goal alignment" "data" "proprietary data" "agents" "integrating existing systems" "ai at scale" "native ai" "ai", "ai" again for that extra $

Randomly picking these terms yields a fundraise news

[Raghav Talwar @raghavtalwar__]

Middle class Indians with high levels of ADHD are royally cooked. Boards, entrance exams (JEE/NEET/CAT/CLAT), end-sems, placements: all well designed to fuck you over. Till the time you read & interpret the ques, its game over already. Good enough reason to consider starting up.