Do it
Do it
“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” ― Sheryl Sandberg
As we’ve been having conversations with many community members since the start of the new year, one thing that is distinctly noticeable is the general down sentiment, a sharp contrast with 2021 when we started Iterative Ventures. (And for valid reasons)
The economy is down, layoffs are still happening in the valley, and the fed is still raising the rate. Many are hoping not to disrupt their current way of life, although that seems to be increasingly precarious. In short, we see a lot of confusion and paralysis.
This reminds us of the time at Facebook/Meta where we were reminded to be bold, make progress, move fast and break things (obviously not user trust, that is). We were expected to unblock ourselves, keep progressing, and ruthlessly prioritize.
Many community members joined the Iterative community with the hope of learning about new technology and supporting founders in their endeavors, and the desire to one day be founders themselves.
Thus, we challenge you with the same question: What would you do if you weren’t afraid?
Times like this, when the existing paradigm is shifting, are actually the perfect opportunity to start something new. After all, many successful companies, including Uber, Airbnb, and others, emerged from the last recession.
On the flip side, we also need to consider the time value of things - every moment that we waste contemplating whether we should do it and stay paralyzed is another moment we lose to actually do it.
With this, we also want to put down some lingering doubts with research from Super Founders by Ali Tamaseb.
Misnomers about starting a company
Am I too old for this?
Naw. People start successful companies at all ages. You definitely don’t have to be a college dropout. Remember Colonel Sanders?
Do I need to be an expert in a field before getting started?
Nope, unless you are going into healthcare. “Directly Relevant Industry Experience Does Not Matter; It Matters Even Less For CxOs”
What if I don’t have the best idea and cannot become a unicorn?
How do you know you won’t? You can always learn, find a better path, and iterate right? Hence startups “pivot”.
Many successful entrepreneurs had modest success in their previous startups only to be massively successful in their next ones. What’s more important is that you iterate and apply what you learned in your next journey.
Should I work in a startup first?
It’s not necessary. You learn best by doing it and taking it personally (Yeah, really - so you feel the pain full-on. Fail harder was another Facebook poster.).
No other way. (We at Iterative Ventures learned best by getting our behind handed to us, and we reflected over every one of our mistakes - experience is the best teacher).
But many successful founders come from top institutions and companies.
Sure, but there’s also a long tail of founders that didn’t come from top colleges and companies that still succeeded, many of them unicorns or had an exit (Airbnb, Uber, Dell, Adobe, to name a few)
There are other factors, such as the founding team, team dynamic, and personal drive, that determine a company’s success more than others.
This is a journey of dedication by not giving up, being resourceful by keep unblocking yourselves, and always going for the ball by ruthlessly prioritizing than anything that is on the resume.
Keep iterating! 💪
Upcoming Events
[In person] Fireside Chat with Mathieu, former research engineer at Facebook, Founder and CEO of Linera Protocol in San Francisco, Time/ Date TBD (1st week of Feb) - RSVP
Linera is a Layer 1 protocol inspired by technologies behind FastPay (Libra's low-latency payment protocol)
Join us for a talk with Mathieu to learn more about Linera’s design, vision, and opportunities to build as well as a networking event with a group of developers/ builders in the Iterative community!
New Investment Opportunity
Sundial
Sundial is an automated insights product founded by former Facebook executives Julie Zhuo and Chandra Narayanan. Their mission is to empower organizations to make better decisions with data.
Current and previous recent investors include Sequoia Capital, F7 Ventures, Unusual Ventures, Slow Ventures, Tribe Ventures, Brian Hale, Avichal Garg (Electric Capital), Fidji Simo (CEO of Instacart), Howie Liu (Co-Founder/CEO of Airtable), Deb Liu (CEO of Ancestry), Brain Hale (VP Growth at Doordash).
Please follow the link below to find out more about the investment opportunity:
Top news of the week
Microsoft made $10 billion investment into OpenAI taking 49% of the company. There seems to be a potential marriage between Bing and ChatGPT.
Did you know Google has an answer to that? Deepmind’s chatbot, Sparrow, is planning to launch a private beta later this year. Find out more here.
Our very own portfolio You.com also created YouChat that you should check out: link
We, for one, are very happy to see that what (inflation) has set fed on the rate hiking regime is starting to mitigate.
Please share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues as we continue to source interesting opportunities.
Also, you may reach us at any time at team@iterativeventure.com