Raphael Gindrat

Helping early-stage startup operators survive daily ups and downs | Former CEO and Co-Founder @Bestmile | Board Member | @WEF Technology Pioneer | @EPFL alumni

[Raphael Gindrat @RGindrat]

May 28th, 2021 is that day that could have changed my life.

I was selling my startup and offering a high 8-figure exit to my team and my investors. For me, the amount was life-changing.

This was the result of 18 months of excruciating work.

Here is what happened 🧵

[Jason ✨👾SaaStr.Ai✨ Lemkin @jasonlk]

Part of being a successful founder is a commitment to excellence that many won’t understand or even see or perceive

To next-level excellence

This will create some friction among those without that commitment. Actually, lots of friction.

[Jason ✨👾SaaStr.Ai✨ Lemkin @jasonlk]

"Your First 50 Employees Must Be Pirates Or Romantics"

https://t.co/bRwtA6uMig

[Jason ✨👾SaaStr.Ai✨ Lemkin @jasonlk]

I have done one investment where it was a non-CEO founder that reached out, and it worked out well (Pipedrive, $16m entry -> $1.5B exit)

But still -- don't do it Only worked once.

The CEO just has to do it.

[Advany @advany]

Supervised a project 2 week ago. Two programmers where hired to create an MVP. I have worked with both before.

- Alex from Germany. 100% code. 19 years experience.
- Hamid from Pakistan. Code + Copilot + GPT-4 + no-code. 4 years experience.

What do you think happened?

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

What I heard 6 months ago turned out to be correct. Last week, Robinhood announced RTO at 4 days/week or more.

Going all-in on a trend that looked hip at the time, and then do a full reverse barely a year after: speaks of inconsistent and impulsive leadership.

[Raphael Gindrat @RGindrat]

@bentigg Rippling

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

Early stage Venture Capitalists:

Asking for a friend: When you see an accelerator or incubator company where the founding team owns 50% or less of the company in their first raise, is this a flag?

[Raphael Gindrat @RGindrat]

@benkellyone Biz

[Jason ✨👾SaaStr.Ai✨ Lemkin @jasonlk]

Yes, things are harder today than 1 year ago and so, so much harder than 2 years ago

But ...

Gartner is predicting SaaS will still grow 18% in 2023 to $200 Billion worldwide this year.

And grow another 18% in 2024

[Harry Stebbings @HarryStebbings]

To me the most powerful power a startup can have:

When they innovate on the product of an incumbent and the incumbent knows it is better, but to embrace this change they would have to cannibalise their entire existing business.

[Jason ✨👾SaaStr.Ai✨ Lemkin @jasonlk]

Having a truly great cofounder is rarer than anyone realizes

You can just go so far, for so long

And no one can really stop you

Remember to tell them a couple of times this year. Maybe even today.

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

The difference between an overhyped startup failure and a valuable real business that makes it the long haul is sometimes as simple as:

Do the founders themselves believe in what they are doing to the point where they will not quit?

[Raphael Gindrat @RGindrat]

@cjgustafson Sadly NO crm will give you such metrics out of the box without tone of setup/customization and lots of daily discipline in the way the crm is being used

[Michael Seibel @mwseibel]

Thank you to all the investors who are investing in the YC w23 batch. After working with over 800 YC companies over the past 10 years I also wanted to offer 1 piece of advice.

[Matt Turck @mattturck]

The new startup founding team:
* CEO
* CTO
* 2 engineers
* GitHub Copilot

[Luke Sophinos @lukesophinos]

VC's are FINALLY starting to realize the power of industry specific software aka vertical SaaS.

In the last few months I've seen more and more top tier investors come out of the woodwork with blogs and overviews.

Why the time is right for YOU to start a vSaaS business 🧵

[Matt Turck @mattturck]

The journey to even just get to a pre-seed round is so intense: committing to an idea, finding a co-founder, leaving a job, convincing family members you're not crazy. For most founders, it's a phase that's full of danger, ripe with charlatans, predatory types, and naysayers.

[Jason ✨👾SaaStr.Ai✨ Lemkin @jasonlk]

Honest truth about venture:

25 active investments
15 boards
4 new deals a year
50 partner meetings a year
500 pitches a year

Really, isn't all that much time to help any one portfolio company

Not really

[Jason ✨👾SaaStr.Ai✨ Lemkin @jasonlk]

"We all have tons of issues.

But for raising capital?

There are no excuses.

The worse thing you can say to a VC is 'we didn't grow that fast last month because we were fundraising"

[Raphael Gindrat @RGindrat]

@Cokedupoptions This is not. It’s an airport close to Davos during the WEF