This Week in Startups

In this "Startup Basics," Jason sits down with special guests, WSGR attorneys Rachel Proffitt and Todd Carpenter, who give us in-depth advice on the legal aspects of getting your startup off the ground. In this episode Todd and Rachel address the following critical question: How do I negotiate a term sheet? Tune in to find out!

In this "Startup Basics," Jason sits down with special guests, WSGR attorneys Rachel Proffitt and Todd Carpenter, who give us in-depth advice on the legal aspects of getting your startup off the ground. In this episode Todd and Rachel address the following critical question: If I'm starting a tech company, what type of corporation should I make -- an LLC, S-, or C-corp? Tune in to find out!

You want press for your product, right? It makes you feel good. It can bring customers and drive investment. But you must navigate these waters carefully, for email blasts and spam services will get you exactly nowhere. You need a goal, a plan, a presence, and a relationship. Want details? Then watch Jason lay it all out in this Startup Basics.

You created a product that you believe is awesome. Your next big hurdle? Convincing everyone else. Crushing your product demo is both an art and a science, and Jason breaks it all down for you here, step by step.

It's never easy, but sometimes you have to fire people. The key is to be calm, keep emotion out of it, and recognize that you probably made a mistake in hiring if it's come to this point.

What's in a name? It's either a literal description of your company, or it evokes something in your customer. Think: Yahoo, Google. In this edition of WSGR Startup Basics from This Week in Startups, host Jason Calacanis shares tips and tricks for finding a great name. Plus how important is the .com domain?

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

Goldbelly - Goldbelly.com

Every.io - http://every.io/

Zite - zite.com/twist

Today's show:

Today, Zapier's a multi-billion company helping enterprises integrate AI agents and other time-saving shortcuts into their workflows… but we had the founder on TWiST when they were just getting started!

In a 2016 chat, founder Wade Foster walked JCal through their 2012 seed round, running a small entirely remote team with no HQ, the complexities of building a tool that relies on third-party APIs, and why Microsoft Office was the "Holy Grail" for his integration software.

PLUS we've got a new entrant in your Gamma Pitch Deck competition! Tour CEO/CTO Amulya Parmer tells us how his app is saving property managers time and grief, while eliminating "looky-loos" and increasing their "hit rate."

FINALLY, Alex chats with Tomas Puig of TWiST 500 marketing analysis startup Alembic. It turns out, LLMs aren't ideal for scrutinizing marketing campaigns because they lack the requisite historical data. Find out how they're using Spiking Neural Networks (SNN) to dig deeper than GPT and Claude can go.

Timestamps:

(02:40) Amulya from Tour opens the show with praise for Jason

(03:34) Tour's 2-minute Gamma pitch: automated property tours for managers

(06:47) Why Jason thinks Tour is an ideal tool for Gen Z

(10:01) Goldbelly - Goldbelly ships America's most delicious, iconic foods nationwide! Get 20% off your first order by going to Goldbelly.com and using the promo code TWiST at checkout.

(13:32) How Tour can eliminate "looky-loos" and increase the "hit rate"

(14:38) Why Tour prices based on individual properties and apartments

(19:13) Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit every.io.

(20:23) Jason wants to sprinkle some AI into Tour

(24:29) Welcoming Tomas Puig from Alembic

(25:12) Does epic-scale brand marketing actually pay off for these brands?

(27:27) The hardest thing about being a marketer…

(28:31) Alembic's origins: organizing huge unstructured data sets

(30:18) Zite - Zite is the fastest way to build business software with AI. Go to zite.com/twist to get started.

(31:27) Case Study: making sense of Delta's Olympics data

(33:37) Applying simulation models and supercomputers to marketing data

(35:48) How Spiking Neural Networks (SNN) help Alembic spot trends and link causal relationships

(41:13) The key advantage of training models on private data

(43:16) Building their own clusters vs. renting

(44:41) "You don't ask if you have Product Market Fit… You hold on for dear life."

(46:28) Flashback with Alex and Lon to Jason's 2016 chat with Wade Foster of Zapier

(54:48) The dangers of building atop other platform's APIs

(01:03:00) What Zapier learned pre-pandemic about leading remote teams

(01:13:12) Why MS Office was the "Holy Grail" for early Zapier

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Follow Lon:

X: https://x.com/lons

Follow Alex:

X: https://x.com/alex

LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Thank you to our partners:

(10:01) Goldbelly - Goldbelly ships America's most delicious, iconic foods nationwide! Get 20% off your first order by going to Goldbelly.com and using the promo code TWiST at checkout.

(19:13) Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit every.io.

(30:18) Zite - Zite is the fastest way to build business software with AI. Go to zite.com/twist to get started.

Great TWIST interviews:

Will Guidara

https://youtu.be/pvJa2pzuXWQ

Eoghan McCabe

https://youtu.be/9dHN4YFkgv4