Spearhead

By Naval

Business Investing

What's Spearhead about?

This podcast will give you insights into how to become great at angel investing. Spearhead is a program that funds and mentors founders so they can start angel investing. To learn more go to spearhead.co or follow @HelloSpearhead on Twitter.

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Rapidly Growing Valuations ...

06.29.2020

Humans are bad at understanding exponential growth

Spearhead episodes:

06.29.2020 Rapidly Growing Valuations Shouldn’t Scare You Off Humans are bad at understanding exponential growth
06.26.2020 Reading Social Proof Is an Art Form The ultimate social proof is a credible VC increasing their ownership
06.22.2020 Social Proof Is a Valid Signal If every investor brings new information to the table
06.17.2020 Ask About the Metrics They’re Not Showing You One weird trick to get the truth about metrics
06.16.2020 It’s Easy to Exaggerate Early Traction Put yourself in the customer’s shoes instead of fixating on traction
06.12.2020 Everything Is a Proxy for Traction The holy grail is explosive growth, stickiness and an ability to monetize
06.10.2020 Early Winners Don’t Always Make It to the Finish Line Competitors can catch up while the market’s still small
06.08.2020 Invest in the First Credible Mover Pick the right founder at the right time
06.05.2020 Monopolies Fall When Platforms Shift Companies that fail to innovate will get displaced
06.03.2020 A Lot of Great Tech Businesses Are Natural Monopolies Silicon Valley’s dirty secret
06.02.2020 Great Companies Expand Their Markets Seed investors can’t wait for obviously large markets
05.29.2020 Invest in $0 Billion Companies If you can’t make at least a 100x return, you’re not seed investing
05.27.2020 Invest in Pure Tech Companies Ask: What portion of every dollar invested goes to technology development?
05.25.2020 Raising Money Without Any Product Is a Red Flag If a team hasn’t built anything, what makes you think money will help?
05.22.2020 Product Is the Resume of the Team At the seed stage the product tells you what the team is capable of
05.19.2020 Expanding Fast vs. Dialing in the Model The investing criteria of growth investors determines the balance
05.15.2020 In PayPal’s Early Days, We Lost Money on Every Transaction The dot-com crash forced us to charge a fee
05.13.2020 Get the Operation Working at a Small Scale Know your unit costs, focus on pricing and prioritize zero-to-one problems
05.11.2020 ‘Tech-Enabled’ Often Means Thin Margins The economics of tech-enabled businesses look like the businesses they're replacing
05.08.2020 Startups Didn’t Have to be Good at Accounting Until Software Ate the World Pure software businesses never had to be cost-conscious
05.06.2020 You Can’t Optimize Profits If There Are No Profits to Optimize Scaling with negative unit economics leaves no profit to optimize
05.04.2020 Negative Unit Economics Create the Illusion of Success This leads to a brutal restructuring at massive scale
05.01.2020 Startups Are Susceptible to ‘Happy Talk’ The burden of proof should be the same for good and bad news
04.30.2020 Mature Your Culture as You Grow What works at the early stage won’t work at scale
04.24.2020 Startups Often Pick Cheerleaders for Their Board Founders should seek board members who balance their psychology
04.23.2020 Nobody Wants to Give a Founder Tough Love Smart founders ask people what they really think
04.22.2020 Founder Psychology Is at the Heart of Most Blitzfails When ‘good crazy’ turns into ‘bad crazy,’ the company goes off the rails
04.21.2020 Culture Is a Macrocosm of the Founder’s Psychology A founder’s strengths and weakness percolate into the company's culture
04.20.2020 Micro-Bubbles Are Constantly Building and Bursting Companies that don’t adapt when a micro-bubble bursts will be swept away
04.17.2020 ‘High-Burn Startup Meets Macro-Shock’ Is a Recipe for Blitzfail Coronavirus is this decade’s macro-shock
04.16.2020 Moving Fast May Mean You're Not Really Moving at All Founders have to move incredibly fast to stay ahead of the competition
04.15.2020 Startups Are a Race to Get to Scale You’re better off blitzfailing than not blitzing at all
04.14.2020 Blitzfail: Why Startups Go off the Rails Companies that derail while they scale have common denominators
04.13.2020 Repeat Founders Don’t Really Want to Start Over From Scratch Test repeat founders for passion
04.09.2020 ‘First-Time Founders’ Often Have Been Tinkering for Quite a While Their ‘first’ startup isn’t always their first startup
04.08.2020 Avoid Teams That Would Sell Early 3x returns won’t move the needle on your net worth
04.07.2020 Founders Almost Can’t Be Referenced A founder who’s great for one business may be terrible for another
04.06.2020 Your Reputation Is Built by the Companies That Are Doing Poorly Don’t invest so much that you’ll behave badly when things get rough
04.02.2020 Coachability Is Overrated Great founders listen to lots of advice and follow little of it
04.01.2020 You’re Not Investing in Nice People Invest in people with high energy, intelligence and integrity
03.31.2020 Invest Only in Technical Teams If there’s no technical team, you’re not investing in technology
03.30.2020 Invest in the Smartest Scientists in a New Field You’re not going to become a great tech investor by reading TechCrunch
03.25.2020 Don’t Fantasize About What You Would Do If You Were the Founder You're not running the company—you’re betting on the founder
03.23.2020 You’ll Get Less Money in Your Winners Always try to get your standard bite-size
03.11.2020 You Can Give Every Deal One Fatal Flaw A startup that breaks all the rules won’t get anywhere
03.09.2020 The Best Deals Look Weird If nobody thinks it looks weird, you’re making a consensus investment
03.06.2020 Judgment Requires a Willingness to Be Unpopular Groupthink leads to poor judgment
03.04.2020 Are Good Investors Piling in the Round with You? It’s a sign of good judgment when proven investors pile into the round
03.02.2020 Pivots Mean Your People Judgment Really Matters Bets on seed-stage startups are bets on founders
02.27.2020 Judgment Is the Work You Do Before a Deal Arrives Over time you’ll need less data to assess a deal

Older episodes

Spearhead

What's Spearhead about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Spearhead episodes:

Rapidly Growing Valuations Shouldn’t Scare You Off

Reading Social Proof Is an Art Form

Social Proof Is a Valid Signal

Ask About the Metrics They’re Not Showing You

It’s Easy to Exaggerate Early Traction

Everything Is a Proxy for Traction

Early Winners Don’t Always Make It to the Finish Line

Invest in the First Credible Mover

Monopolies Fall When Platforms Shift

A Lot of Great Tech Businesses Are Natural Monopolies

Great Companies Expand Their Markets

Invest in $0 Billion Companies

Invest in Pure Tech Companies

Raising Money Without Any Product Is a Red Flag

Product Is the Resume of the Team

Expanding Fast vs. Dialing in the Model

In PayPal’s Early Days, We Lost Money on Every Transaction

Get the Operation Working at a Small Scale

‘Tech-Enabled’ Often Means Thin Margins

Startups Didn’t Have to be Good at Accounting Until Software Ate the World

You Can’t Optimize Profits If There Are No Profits to Optimize

Negative Unit Economics Create the Illusion of Success

Startups Are Susceptible to ‘Happy Talk’

Mature Your Culture as You Grow

Startups Often Pick Cheerleaders for Their Board

Nobody Wants to Give a Founder Tough Love

Founder Psychology Is at the Heart of Most Blitzfails

Culture Is a Macrocosm of the Founder’s Psychology

Micro-Bubbles Are Constantly Building and Bursting

‘High-Burn Startup Meets Macro-Shock’ Is a Recipe for Blitzfail

Moving Fast May Mean You're Not Really Moving at All

Startups Are a Race to Get to Scale

Blitzfail: Why Startups Go off the Rails

Repeat Founders Don’t Really Want to Start Over From Scratch

‘First-Time Founders’ Often Have Been Tinkering for Quite a While

Avoid Teams That Would Sell Early

Founders Almost Can’t Be Referenced

Your Reputation Is Built by the Companies That Are Doing Poorly

Coachability Is Overrated

You’re Not Investing in Nice People

Invest Only in Technical Teams

Invest in the Smartest Scientists in a New Field

Don’t Fantasize About What You Would Do If You Were the Founder

You’ll Get Less Money in Your Winners

You Can Give Every Deal One Fatal Flaw

The Best Deals Look Weird

Judgment Requires a Willingness to Be Unpopular

Are Good Investors Piling in the Round with You?

Pivots Mean Your People Judgment Really Matters

Judgment Is the Work You Do Before a Deal Arrives

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