The Series A Crunch referrers to the fact that while angel-funded startups (think: $750k invested by angels in two founders) have grown 5x+ in the past three years, the number of Series A fundings (think: $3M invested by a venture capitalist in a 10-person startup) has stayed the same.
I'm telling you right now this is a complete non-issue.
Many folks are obsessing over the supposed "Series A crunch" because, quite logically, if there is a fixed number of Series A investments to go around and a lot more folks fighting for them, well, many folks will not get one.
Parents fleeing a public school system increase the demand for the (relatively) fixed number of slots in private education, making those slots more and more valuable. In fact, it only takes a percentage of actors to "switch teams" to cause an imbalance.
What these folks, largely journalists who have no experience in business, fail to realize is that "things" do not always stay the same in an equation -- and that founders should be wickedly good at adapting to changing conditions.
>> Fact one: the number of Series A fundings could dramatically increase.
The number of slots for players in the NBA this year was 435 (29 teams x 15 players). However, when the NBA started 60 years ago, there were only 11 teams, so the number of slots totaled just 165 (assuming 15-man rosters back then).
In the coming years, the NBA will, mark my word, add a half-dozen teams in Europe and Asia. It's safe to assume there will be a 40-team league some day.
Read moreOne of the most important skills of an entrepreneur is being able to gauge one's own performance.
Is the project you're working on a failure or success? How do you know?
Should you persevere, pivot or move on and focus on a new, more promising project?
If your company is a success, is it going to be a billion-dollar success or a $10M 'success’?
These questions are hard to answer, and they’re particularly hard for entrepreneurs, who are, as we all know, 'unique.'
And yes, by unique I mean bipolar, insane, moody, delusional, crazy, irresponsible and unbalanced -- at least the good ones are!
You see, self-rating is riddled with bias.
The 'illusion of superiority' leads most folks to believe they're better than they actually are. I read that 70% of folks think they are above average, which is statistically not possible.
A study once showed that over 94% of college professors thought they were above average.
Luke Skywalker thought he was a Jedi, and Darth Vader cut his hand off.
Read moreHow long does it take to make an excellent product?
That's the question I've been asking myself as I pivot and prod my own startups, and make a handful of angel investments a year.
In the '80s, it felt like the journey from good products to excellent took decades. In the '90s, it felt like it took 10 years. Today, it feels like it happens overnight.
[ Note: If you're reading this, I'm going to assume you read "the Age of Excellence" and agree that the world doesn't care about average or simply good products any more--and that you want to make something excellent in your lifetime. ]
The time to excellence, which I will refer to as T2E, has halved or more every 10 years since I came of age in the ‘80s.
Let's look at three groups of products: computers in the form of the Mac, iPod, iPhone and iPad; social networks in the form of Friendster, MySpace, Facebook and Path; and cars in the form of the Tesla Roadster and Tesla Model S.
Read more
