For most founders, the deck is a cornerstone of their seed fundraising process. Unfortunately, most decks are terrible. They’re often difficult to understand, too detailed, or missing key details. The goal of the deck is to provide a clear, simple overview of your company and encourage investor questions to begin…

Today we are talking about how to get feedback on your first versions. 1. Don’t try to build the full app immediately. Instead, start with screenshots of a workflow, then collect feedback, make edits and after a few rounds, you might create a basic interactive UI and then move to a simple experiment with real data. 2. The feedback will be broad. Expect your first…

Today we’re talking about some other channels you can use to get feedback on your product. 1. Conferences — Industry conferences are a great way to meet potential customers and get lots of quick feedback, as well as make ongoing connections. Try to hustle for free tickets or just take…

Every startup in the Sterling Road portfolio, with more than 12 months of runway, has open positions. However, founders often make the mistake of skipping out on December hiring, assuming they can use January to begin their next recruitment push — but waiting until the new year is the wrong…

This week’s big news is the GOP winning the US House of Representatives. Many in the GOP have expressed disdain for Big Tech, and so here’s my unsolicited thoughts on what might happen over the next 2 years. Will the GOP actually do anything about Big Tech? They will certainly talk about it. I expect at least one investigation…

Today we’re talking about how to use your personal network to get early feedback on your product. 1. Friends in the Industry. If you have friends who work in the market, you’re addressing or might be potential customers, talk to them early. They will be a valuable source of honest feedback. If you don’t have…

Fundraising is the topic I’m asked about most and the same questions are often asked by founders all across North America and Europe. Here’s a list of the most popular questions on fundraising, and their answers: #1. VCs vs. Seed Funds vs. Angels If you’re raising a seed round, one of the first tasks will be to…

This week’s big news is the collapse of FTX. Here’s my unsolicited thoughts on the main questions from yet another Crypto brand stealing from its customers. Doesn’t this prove that Crypto is a scam? No. But these situations are certainly not helping the case with skeptics and the mainstream. Crypto has a large number of valuable use cases…