Landon Howell on LinkedIn: How much equity do founders give investors in each round? The key… (2024)

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"Just wing it" can be a superpower for early-stage startups, but the more you scale, the harder it is to just wing it, and the more significant the negative impact when just 'winging it' doesn't go to plan.

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I built a website to help startups with fundraising. Here's the free template. You only need 𝟭𝟮 𝘀𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗲𝘀 to raise funds for your startup. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gB7MadadOver the past 15 years, I've helped with more than 500 pitch decks as a team member, as a global mentor with Techstars, and as an advisor at Atlanta Tech Village.Startup fundraising is hard, but we tend to overcomplicate the pitch deck creation process even more. Why? We can't see the forest for the trees. We're so deep in our work that we overthink the story we're trying to tell with the information we already have.The result? Too many slides, confusing narratives, and failure to answer the most important pair of questions: "𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘺𝘰𝘶? 𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘯𝘰𝘸?"In reality, we only need these 12 slides to raise almost any round.

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$80M in Atlanta startup fundraising for the month of August...🎧 Soapbox: A platform for music streaming and entertainment services — 👤 Congrats Kevin Sellors and Ryan Sellors📱 Kobiton: A mobile testing platform that speeds up app delivery and testing — 👤 Congrats Sean Barry💸 OnPay: A simple, modern, and affordable payroll solution — 👤 Congrats Jesse Burgess🛠️ HubFleet: Industry-specific software that integrates business operations for real-time data access — 👤 Congrats Austin Matthews🎮 Mudstack: An asset management platform tailored for game studios and artists — 👤 Congrats Jordan Stevens and Nachiket Kumar🌕 Moonlight Therapeutics: Developing safe and patient-friendly treatments for food allergies — 👤 Congrats Vladimir Zarnitsyn and Samirkumar Patel💇 MYAVANA: A hair care recommendation system designed for women of color — 👤 Congrats Candace Mitchell🛒 Enloq: Reducing retail shrinkage using AI — 👤 Congrats Nikolaos Komianos, Pranu Prakash, and Omar El Barbir❄️ Rugged Road: Manufacturer of rugged, lightweight coolers — 👤 Congrats Spencer Sutlive🧠 Twistient Corp.: Neuromorphic chips designed for edge AI applications — 👤 Congrats Jahanzeb Khan

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Talent density drastically increases the odds of startup success. Atlanta is one of a handful of cities in the Top 10 across all four categories in B2B startup marketing... 🧭 Marketing Leadership📊 Product Marketing🚀 Growth Marketing & Demand Gen ✨ Content, Brand, & Design

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Super smart. I've never seen this before. It is so much cheaper to provide a discount upfront than to risk the chance of a return. About 1 in 8 products are returned, which, for the business, results in a lost sale, restocking, and a product you cannot resell as 'new.'

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Great insight from Praveen Ghanta on the power (and peril) of 360° anonymous feedback.I'm interested to see what Sam Parr is cooking up here: https://lnkd.in/eYQQsUBd

"You always feel like you're too late when, in fact, a lot of founders fail because they were too early." - Marc Andreessen (Andreessen Horowitz)It's a combination of tech, trends, and timing.The iPhone wasn't the first smartphone. Google wasn't the first search engine.Facebook wasn't the first social network. Zoom wasn't the first video conferencing tool. Salesforce wasn't the first CRM. WhatsApp wasn't the first messaging app.Tesla wasn't the first electric car.Venmo wasn't the first mobile payments app.Great products win, even when "late" to the party.

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Without knowing where I am, you know exactly where I am. That's how well this company has built its brand.If you're from Atlanta, Nashville, or Charlotte, your question for me is, "Which Switchyards is this?" and not "Are you at Switchyards?"Brand is one of the few things that prevents a business from becoming a commodity. Switchyards has been incredibly intentional about building theirs, which is important because, in just 5 short years, there will be 200 of them (there are less than 20 now). I've always loved this quote on brand from Seth Godin: "A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer's decision to choose one product or service over another."I took this photo at one of the OG locations, Decatur.It's packed. It's always packed. These people could be in a coffee shop. These people could be at a WeWork.Hell... these people could be working from home. All of those places have coffee and wifi, but Switchyards intentionally built a brand as a neighborhood work club at a time when nothing else offered what Switchyards offers. Build a brand that speaks so clearly that it doesn't need an introduction.

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The obsession with overnight success stories overshadows the challenges, failures, and doubts that most startups face.In this conversation with Sam Altman, Anne Wojcicki discusses the compounding effects over time.

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