Ti Morse
@ti_morse
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Interviewed a founder yesterday that:. - Bootstrapped to $4m in rev as a hard tech company.- Doesn’t pay himself a salary.- Got turned down by 100 “early stage” investors before saying “fck it I’ll do it myself”.- Currently has 25 employees, about to bring on 5 more bc they need.
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One framework I’ve recently adopted is the idea that everything is a skill issue:. Couldn’t get a job at an awesome startup? Skill issue. Couldn’t raise a seed round? Skill issue. Couldn’t close an important customer? Skill issue. Weren’t able to get a meeting with Jeff Bezos?.
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My conversation with Cat Orman (@CatOrman1) co-founder of Flyby Robotics. Flyby is building a versatile machine-learning drone platform used across consumer, industrial, and military applications. It's here on X and also on YouTube and Spotify. Links in the comment. Enjoy!
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Trust is the most powerful economic force on earth. — Charlie Munger.
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Here's my conversation with Chris Power (@2112Power) founder of Hadrian. Hadrian is building highly automated precision component factories to enable Space & Defense manufacturers to get parts 10x faster and halve the cost of making Rockets, Satellites, Jets & Drones. It's
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Here's my conversation with Isaiah Taylor (@isaiah_p_taylor) the founder of Valar Atomics . Valar aims to build hundreds of nuclear reactors and use the energy to pull hydrocarbons out of thin air. Isaiah has a fascinating story and I'm excited to see what he builds over the
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22 today. this year we are going to make a dent in the universe.
@BasedBeff you cannot outaccelerate me.
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Here's my conversation with Jason Carman (@jasonjoyride) the Creator of S³ & Head of Content at Astranis. Jason is on a mission to increase the % of people changing the world by creating inspiring mini-documentaries on some of today’s most ambitious hard-tech startups. It's here
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Here's my conversation with Augustus Doricko (@ADoricko) the founder of Rainmaker. Augustus is one of the most relentless human beings I've ever met and I feel incredibly lucky to consider him a friend. It's here on X and is up on YouTube and Spotify. Links in comment . I
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Here's my conversation with Garrett Scott (@thegarrettscott) the founder of Pipedream Labs (@pipedream_labs). This was a fascinating convo and Garrett is one of the most relentless founders I've ever met. It's here on X and is on YouTube, Spotify, and everywhere else. Find links
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Here's my conversation with Aaron Slodov (@aphysicist) the founder of Atomic Industries & Remesh. It's here on X and is on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Find links in comment. I recommend listening on 1.5x; it's best that way. Timestamps:.0:00 Growing Up In Cleveland
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Here's my conversation with Soren Monroe-Anderson (@soren_ma) the founder of Neros Technologies. Running an experiment for this ep. I'm giving a $1,000 equity-free grant to one founder/builder who re/quote tweets this ep. Reply with whatever you’re building and what you'd use
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This is my conversation with Will O'Brien (@willobri), co-founder of Ulysses. @UlyssesEcoEng is building autonomous underwater drones to restore seagrass ecosystems and automate other critical tasks in the ocean. It's here on X and everywhere else. Links in the comment. Enjoy!
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This is one of my favorite quotes and I fully believe it is correct: . The world is a very malleable place. If you know what you want, and you go for it with maximum energy and drive and passion, the world will often reconfigure itself around you much more quickly and easily than.
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Here's my conversation with Christian Keil (@pronounced_kyle) a VP at Astranis and host of First Principles. Christian is helping connect the world using high-orbit satellites at Astranis while creating a hardtech startup playbook with his podcast First Principles. It's here on X
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Here's my conversation with my friend, Filip Aronshtein (@FilArons), the founder of Dirac. Fil is incredibly driven and one of the most customer-focused founders I've met. He spends over three hours a day talking with potential customers. It's here on X, YouTube and Spotify.
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Being willing to get on planes to meet someone in person is extremely underrated.
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Reindustrialize compressed six months worth of coffee meetings into two days.
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Super pumped that Beast Games is finally out!. In early April, I went on a side quest to figure out how to interview @MrBeast. Later that month, Jimmy posted an application link for Beast Games and I immediately filled it out. They seemed to like crazy people, so I got a
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Every single founder I’ve interviewed in the gundo is an outlier. If you had the opportunity to back any of them and didn’t, you made a massive mistake. Whatever they’re raising at today is going to look ridiculously cheap in 10 years. If someone simply goes from office to.
Ok quick story time (don’t blame me, Danielle started it). Valar is the first company I’ve raised venture money for. I lived in a town of 22k in north Idaho with no close friends or family who were founders, VCs, or really in tech in general. No college network (I skipped.
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“My exit strategy is death.” – @ADoricko.
Announcing @RainmakerCorp ‘s $6.3M seed from @LongJourneyVC @1517fund @starship_vc @tamarackglobal @dayoneventures and angels like @garrytan and @balajis . Our farms and ecosystems at risk of collapse because we are running out of water. Rainmaker’s cloud seeding solves this.
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Here's my conversation with Curt Lary (@curt_lary) founder of Hextronics. Curt bootstrapped Hextronics to $4m in revenue as a hard tech company by “fundraising from customers” and is now expanding his team from 25 to 30 to fulfill customer orders. It's here on X and is also on
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Here's my conversation with Siqi Chen (@blader) the founder of Runway, Hey, and Serious Business. Siqi has created multiple extremely viral products over the past 20 years and I really enjoyed hearing his war stories. It's here on X and is also on YouTube and Spotify. Find
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Here's my conversation with Andrew Arruda (@AndrewArruda) the founder of Flexpa & Ross Intelligence. Startups are like chewing glass and staring into the abyss and being a founder is being someone who likes it. It's here on X and is also on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
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Here's my conversation with Sheel Mohnot (@pitdesi) founder of Businessman, Innovative Auctions, and Better Tomorrow Ventures. Sheel has a bunch of crazy stories like getting married by Taco Bell in the metaverse, staying at Brian Chesky’s Airbnb, getting in a Justin Beiber music
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.@eightsleep is going to become a massive company. I’ve been using the eightsleep pod the past few months and my sleep quality has improved by more than 50%. Instead of tossing and turning for hours, I fall asleep within 15-20 minutes. Going to bed is actually something I look.
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Want to put this out there. If you’re someone with enough agency to actually reach out and ask, I’ll probably go out of my way to help you. Especially if you’re an early stage founder.
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My conversation w Nathalie Gouailhardou (@nathaliegou), co-founder of Neurode. Neurode is developing a headband that improves ADHD symptoms without the use of drugs. It's here on X and everywhere else. Links in the comment. Enjoy! . Timestamps:.0:30 What Is Neurode.2:39 ADHD
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S³ shows why you should be excited to wake up in the morning.
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This is my conversation with Rahul Sonwalkar (@0interestrates), founder of Julius AI. Julius is an AI data scientist loved by millions of users. It's here on X and everywhere else. Links in the comment. Enjoy!. Timestamps:.0:33 Building his own email service .3:03 Trying to
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Here's my conversation with Aleksandr Gampel (@AGampel1) co-founder of Cuby Technologies. Cuby is drastically decreasing the skilled labor hours required to build a home by rethinking the homebuilding process and creating hundreds of Mobile Micro-Factories. It's here on X and is
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Red Bull and Celsius have the best startup deal flow of anyone and they don't even use it. Red Bull Ventures would instantly become a tier 1.
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I'm kinda confused why so few investors ask early stage founders things like:. - Have you ever started a business?.- Have you ever sold anything?.- What was the first thing you created to sell?.- What have you created/designed previously?.- Did you hack any systems to your.
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Here's the current (non-exhaustive) list of founders I want to interview:.- Brian Chesky | Airbnb.- Palmer Luckey | Oculus, Anduril.- Brian Armstrong | Coinbase.- Immad Akhund | Mercury.- Drew Houston | Dropbox.- Sam Altman | Loopt, OpenAI.- Elon Musk | Tesla, SpaceX, Boring Co.,.
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Want to share part of the why behind Relentless. I've always loved watching early interviews of future greats — Steve in 81, Bill in 83, Jeff in 94, Elon in 98, or Mark in 04. The problem is almost all the interviews are less than five minutes long and the interviewers ask bad.
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@entropywizard what’s funny is there are literal John D Rockefellers out there building but most investors wouldn’t back them even if they got the chance. in my experience, the greats get turned down hundreds of times on average before they hear the first “yes”. going to fix this.
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You can get a meeting with anyone in the world with six months of focused effort.
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One thing I love about El Segundo is the extreme level of ambition + speed of execution. Everyone is basically doing an any% speedrun to see how fast they can build a generational company.
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I’m happy to announce that I’m no longer chewing glass and staring into the abyss.
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Here's my conversation with Zane Mountcastle (@zanemountcastle) the founder of Picogrid. Picogrid is already profitable leading some to believe Zane is unreasonably obsessed with unit economics. I recommend listening on 1.5x. Timestamps:.0:00 Intro.1:22 Before Picogrid.3:11 UAV's
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Going to put some numbers down for good measure. Assume on average every founder is willing to take $10m for 10%. For ~$70m I own 10% of Rainmaker, Valar Atomics, Picogrid, Dirac, Neros, Rangeview, and let’s throw in Pipedream for good measure (since I think Garrett is an.
Every single founder I’ve interviewed in the gundo is an outlier. If you had the opportunity to back any of them and didn’t, you made a massive mistake. Whatever they’re raising at today is going to look ridiculously cheap in 10 years. If someone simply goes from office to.
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The level of serendipity in SF is wild. Interviewing some incredible founders over the next couple weeks.
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We deserve more awesome behind-the-scenes stories/lore about the greatest founders & startups early days. Working hard to make it happen.
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I think most people massively underestimate how unplanned/messy great companies are at the beginning. What actually matters is a founder who:.- has a track record of doing lots of interesting/unusual things.- a general idea of some problem they want to solve in the world.- is.
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Had an awesome time interviewing @nathaliegou in Sydney!. It’s a lot of fun to watch your brain solve math problems.
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The gundo is unstoppable.
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If you could only ask a founder one question with the goal of trying to predict whether or not they're likely to eventually build a massive company, what is that question?. *In this scenario the founder is just starting out and hasn't raised any money or got any customers.
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It's important to admit when you are wrong and I was wrong on this one. 1. You probably could've bought ~20% of each company for $10m. 2. Those stakes will be worth over $150B in 15 years. Will check back on this in a year.
Going to put some numbers down for good measure. Assume on average every founder is willing to take $10m for 10%. For ~$70m I own 10% of Rainmaker, Valar Atomics, Picogrid, Dirac, Neros, Rangeview, and let’s throw in Pipedream for good measure (since I think Garrett is an.
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success in startups is really a game of being willing to beat your head bloody against the wall for many years – sama.
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I’ll be off the grid filming something for the next few weeks starting today.
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Every startup I've visited thats killing it has incredible vibes at the office.
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Most mission driven team I’ve ever met. The deserts don’t stand a chance.
Announcing Rainmaker’s $25M Series A lead by Lowercarbon Capital, with participation from Naval Ravikant, Acequia Capital, Drover Ventures, Sovereigns Cap and others. We have begun nextgen precipitation enhancement operations across the US to make rain, snow and green deserts🧵
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Here's my conversation with John Coogan (@johncoogan) the founder of Soylent & Lucy. I recommend listening on 1.5x . Timestamps: .0:00 Soylent vs Lucy.3:03 Cost To Launch A New Nicotine Product.5:31 Building A Brand That Sticks In People's Minds.8:57 Marketing A Nicotine Product
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@jasonjoyride Was incredible to see this in person. The next Lucasfilm is being built in San Francisco.
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You can just put mirrors in space.
Announcing our $20M Series A led by @Lux_Capital with participation from @sequoia and @starship_vc. We truly couldn’t be building this with better partners. The sun will power ~everything until we outgrow this solar system, and we are taking the first practical steps to
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Right now the founder quality in the drone space is insanely high. Not sure if that has been the case historically. If you can get one of these founders to take a check, you’re going to do well. Neros: @soren_ma, @OHichwa .Hex: @curt_lary .Flyby: @CatOrman1, @JHL_Express.
Introducing Neros Archer, the first FPV drone on the BlueUAS list.
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It’s absolutely wild what you can make happen if you be persistent and ask.
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If you’re interested in NASA or the Apollo Program, this is great.
NASA was FOUNDED in 1958 and put a man on the moon just 11 years later — this is the story of how they did it. This is the story of the Apollo Program.
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I know this type of interaction has become more common, but it’s still crazy that the CEO of a $90B company responds to user feedback on X in less than 30 minutes
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This is going to be awesome! Jason is absolutely cooking.
Most people don't realize how big of a deal Starship is!. Ahead of today's Flight 6, here's a first look inside a new series I'm working on called "Frontier Films." . The first one is all about New Space.
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There’s lots of alpha in getting on planes to meet people in person.
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Absolutely love this quote. When you have loving and supportive people in your life, you end up being able to take risk. It's an emotional thing. You know somebody has your back. If you feel and experience unconditional love, it helps you take more risk in life. – @JeffBezos.
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Still blows my mind that the first batch of YC had Sam Altman, Steve Huffman + Alexis Ohanian from Reddit, and Justin Kan + Emmett Shear from Twitch. The founders in that batch have collectively built companies worth over $410B. And… 5 out of 15 founders in that batch ended up.
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