Our venture studio is launching our first startup! Very excited to start talking about this. I'll document and share and much as possible about the journey from idea -> to paying customers -> to spin out.

Join for free: a virtual conf with 1000+ LPs, Family Offices, Funds of Funds, & GPs of VC, PE, RE, & Hedge Funds – Nov 26 on Zoom. $100M+ & $1B+ Single FOs, LPs, FoFs & other investment firms have confirmed their participation. Like & reply "+" to get the invite in DM (we're at

The latest article in my newsletter: Venture Team Composition

Have you heard of the 10 Design Dimensions of a Venture Studio? It was the single most important exercise to help our team align on the direction of our emerging venture studio. Reducing down to 10 key factors greatly simplified and accelerated our discussions. I write about

Big idea → ???? → Millions in revenue. Venture studios want to make that messy middle a repeatable system. There are 4 stages of support typically offered by a venture that each come with assigned activities across capital, services, talent, and validation. Different

How to find B2B leads today using Koala

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Want to learn more about Carrd’s journey and strategies? Check out the full case study here: https://t.co/w3E0ifik4F 📚 #CaseStudy #LearnAndGrow #startup

Key lessons from Carrd: leverage community platforms, use existing networks, and focus on profitability.

Carrd’s unbeatable pricing, leveraging static hosting, made their operating costs trivial and accessible to a wide audience. Pricing started at just $9/year!

Carrd’s customer-funded approach was strategic: high-quality templates, a referral program, and a freemium model. This helped them scale without VC funding.

The ProductHunt launch according to AJ: →Thousands of new sites and users — thanks in large part to that "no signup required" experience I was so set on implementing. → Hundreds of upgrades to Pro. → A flood of user feedback, feature requests, and, of course, bug reports 😅

Launching on Twitter first, then Product Hunt, was key for Carrd’s early success. The Product Hunt launch alone helped them achieve $1000 in monthly recurring revenue! 💸

Carrd’s early traction came from leveraging existing networks like Twitter and Product Hunt. AJ used his freelance clients and previous projects to gain initial users while also building in public on Twitter [CARRD DONE TWEET]

Carrd was founded in 2016 by AJ Kohn to fill the gap for an easy-to-use, non-technical website builder. Within months, they had their first customers!

Basic details: → Founders: AJ Kohn → Founded: 2016 → Time to first customer: Within a few months → First customer source: Product Hunt and existing connections → Industry: Website building tools → Distribution model: B2C (Business to Consumer)

Ever wondered how Carrd got its first customers? 🤔 Dive into the journey of this simple, free, and fully responsive one-page site builder created by AJ Kohn! 🧵 #Startups #buildinpublic #bootstrapping

What's next in trade finance? @BryceKaiser talks about how revenue-based repayments are powering a new startup offering at City Innovations, a Michigan-based venture studio.

SXSW 2024 was a blast! Here's my recap with Josh. Funny moments: - 2 encounters with Mark Cuban. One involved a lot of yelling... - Ate at a food truck that got shut down 5 minutes later by the health department. Do not recommend. - "Bad Luck Barker" is very entertaining. Josh

Can you start a group text with 5-10 people who are ideal customers? If you don’t have that, you probably are not connected well enough with the industry/community to launch your startup. Build community before building a product.