Stanley Stilwell III

Consumer Services Investor | Former @a16ztxo and Cosmic Venture Partners Investor | Just call me The Next-Gen Generalist

[Robert Graham @Robert_E_Graham]

The 2023 Self-Funded Search Study is now available for download and our podcast on Acquiring Minds is live. 72 pages of insightful content and never before known stats on the self-funded path of ETA:

Download the study:
https://t.co/lt9Qnoz85R

Podcast:
https://t.co/dGxD6iP8kJ

[Eric Hsu @lawyer4SMBs]

"My SBA lender OK'd my deal so I think I'm just going to rely on their diligence instead of paying for my own - that's OK right?"

No, this is a very dangerous mistake.

Let me explain.

A brief primer on how SBA 7a loans work.

🧵👇

[Jason Hunt @Jasonhunt]

Buying a small business is the best financial decision you'll ever make.

& it’s never been easier to buy one...

Here are my top 8:

1) Car Wash

[Stanley Stilwell III @thestanstilwell]

The team I will fund 100% of the time is the “Egomaniacal” founder.

They have to be partly delusional to start a company given the prospects of success and have the need to keep pushing forward in the wake of the constant stream of doubters.

[Niko Bonatsos @bonatsos]

The VC world needs more believers, not more capital. Especially on the early stage.

[Stanley Stilwell III @thestanstilwell]

“Hustle” is seeing opportunities at the margins and pursuing them

[Stanley Stilwell III @thestanstilwell]

@hpierrejacques Traditional venture as we know it today started in the 1950’s as the premiere investment vehicle giving founders access to capital. I think today’s VC reset will help investors find a new way to back private businesses - the investment vehicle in question is still in the making…

[Stanley Stilwell III @thestanstilwell]

@cloudocows Tell us more!

[Stanley Stilwell III @thestanstilwell]

Some great businesses today are built on ignoring lessons we were taught as a kid.

For example, ‘don’t take candy from a stranger’ became food delivery with Postmates, and ‘don’t get in a car with strangers’ turned into ride share with Uber.

What lesson are we ignoring next?

[Stanley Stilwell III @thestanstilwell]

@michaelaolaya This is a good one! The market is already experiencing a dynamic shift away from the traditional 4 year college degrees towards vocational programs amongst Gen-Z’s today.

[Paul Couvert @itsPaulAi]

Microsoft is turning Windows laptops into AI PCs with Copilot.

I've been using the new feature that reads any file for a few days.

It's the most powerful update deployed so far.

3 quick examples to understand why:

[Hunter Hammonds @hunterhammonds]

This is Mike Cessario.

He turned Liquid Death into a $1.4 BILLION brand in a boring industry.

Mike sells water in beer cans & hires pornstars for ads.

Here's how he used branding to build a $1.4B water brand 🤘

[Paul Couvert @itsPaulAi]

Google's new AI tool allows you to have an ultra-productive second brain

You no longer need to organize, format or search for your notes with NotebookLM.

Here's how to use it and how you can benefit from it 🧵

[Stanley Stilwell III @thestanstilwell]

With the coming of the Internet in the mid-1990’s, the average consumer was not satisfied with the mere doubling or tripling of phone line capacity SO I also expect that todays consumers will not be okay with just 2x - 3x enablement capacity granted by the proliferation of AI

[Stanley Stilwell III @thestanstilwell]

I’ve been saying it since day 1 - FMF is my favorite ‘unintentional social media app’ and the quick adoption of it proves how tech can be built and achieve hockey stick traction by flipping consumer orthodoxies on their head (in this case unintentionally)!

[Rex Woodbury @rex_woodbury]

Find My has quietly become the social app of the moment.

Most young people I talk to track 5, 10, 15+ friends on Find My. This gets at the biggest trend in social: latent awareness. Curiosity about what other people are up to.

I expect the concept will extend to other data. Strava already does something similar for workouts.

What if our phones could auto-populate a social feed with other data on us? Not just location, but everything else. What is your friend reading, writing, eating, watching? How much did they sleep last night, how far did they walk today, how many articles did they read?

This future isn't too far off, particularly with younger generations not caring as much about privacy.

[Stanley Stilwell III @thestanstilwell]

📈📈📈

[Sam Altman @sama]

i'm very happy to welcome our new board members: fidji simo, sue desmond-hellmann, and nicole seligman, and to continue to work with bret, larry, and adam.

i'm thankful to everyone on our team for being resilient (a great openai skill!) and staying focused during a challenging time.

in particular, i want to thank mira for our strong partnership and her leadership during the drama, since, and in all the quiet moments where it really counts. and greg, who plays a special leadership role without which openai would simply not exist. being in the trenches always sucks, but its much better being there with the two of them.

i learned a lot from this experience. one think i'll say now: when i believed a former board member was harming openai through some of their actions, i should have handled that situation with more grace and care. i apologize for this, and i wish i had done it differently. i assume a genuine belief in the crucial importance of getting agi right from everyone involved.

we have important work in front of us, and we can't wait to show you what's next.

[Meghan Reynolds @MeghanKReynolds]

Heard from VC LPs this week:
@stepstonegroup & @hamilton_lane gave annual market reviews. When they talk, I listen closely. Why? Their data, relationships, & toolkit (great team, fund, commits, secondaries, coinvests) make them very strategic to the GP/LP ecosystem. Takeaways👇

- 68% of Venture backed companies have to raise by end of ‘24. 😳

- Hang on to your lack of liquidity hats. We are still at record (GFC-type lows), but GP-led secondary activity is picking up which should drive some DP

- In the best 5 yr annualized return period, buyout return was +26%, VC was +48%, in the worst buyout was 2% and VC was -12% (At its worst, buyout hasn’t lost money!)

- Lots of indicators implying it should be a very attractive vintage of investments

- The big message to LPs - it’s hard to time markets, keep a steady commitment pace (this message every year) for the benefits of private markets

[Nicole DeTommaso 🪄 @nic_detommaso]

2024 new VC fund launches 🔥

15 firms have announced new funds (<$200M in size) since Jan 1st.

Some include:
- @DefinitionCaptl
- @BluesteinVC
- @EqualVentures
- @WonderVentures
- @BasisSet

Full list below!