The complete fundraising guide, with strategy, rationale, and examples to help build your unfair financing advantage — Let’s be candid. Fundraising is damn hard. Especially as a first-time founder. My first time, I pitched over 100 investors. I flew from California to Charleston, from Chicago to Austin, trying to find the right investors. It took 6 months of full-time effort, sometimes having up to 10 different video…

It’s the investor version of “It’s not you, it’s me”, and a cover for the real reason — While fundraising, particularly for first-time founders, it’s not uncommon to hear the following phrase from investors when they pass on your investment opportunity: You’re too early However, in my experience, this isn’t really a reason. Rather, it’s a red herring that feels like an acceptable reason to turn down an…

4 next-gen banking tools you can start using today to improve your finances — If you have cash sitting around (i.e. not in an investment account) that isn’t earning 10% interest annually, today is the day to change that. How, might you ask? It’s all made possible via defi and crypto lending. If you’re new to the space, I have another article coming shortly…

The visual “get smart fast” guide to understanding your options and key questions you should be asking — DISCLAIMER: I am not a financial advisor, and the contents of this article should not be taken as “the law”. Always consult with an actual financial advisor or an attorney when working with your options. …

Learning how/when to employ “Top-Down” v. “Bottoms-Up” communication styles is a priceless skill that will pay lifelong dividends — We all have an innate desire to be understood. There’s a reason supervillains are known for monologuing — they want someone to understand the genius of their brilliant plans. In real life, a similar phenomenon occurs in communication where people believe it’s critical for others to understand the context of…

Figuring out what to do next depends on your physical and mental energy — I recently had a conversation with a first-time founder whose tech startup was on its last breath. She could see the writing on the wall and was trying to decide what to do next. She had a handful of concerns she wanted to discuss, among them feelings of inadequacy and…

It’s selfish, and here’s why — As a pragmatic utilitarian with a lean process-oriented mindset, there’s much for me to love about the FIRE movement. I love that it advocates for people to take an earnest look at their wants and needs and figure out every opportunity to eliminate waste. I love that it encourages people…

The key is determining where to flex (hint: use the Triangle of Constraints) When I was a kid, we had this huge golden retriever named Chance. Even though he was a bear of a dog (he weighed over 90 pounds), he had a relatively small mouth. …

And answering the question “When is the right time to quit”? — The idea for my first business came to me in January of 2014. I was working with my 6th manufacturing client at McKinsey, and realized the fundamental behaviors driving the problem we were there to solve mirrored the previous 5 companies almost to the “t”. My engineering brain went into…