Alfred Lin from Sequoia Capital | Advice for founders, future of consumer social, and more

Venture Capitalist Alfred Lin (Partner at Sequoia Capital) sat down with On Deck to share advice for founders around fundraising, how to pitch your idea to VCs, navigating the idea maze, and more. Alfred Lin focuses on consumer, mobile, and enterprise investments, including Airbnb, Dolls Kill, DoorDash, Truework, Zipline, Reddit, Zappos, and more.
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[@olisaemekaani1999]

This channel really needs more subs.

[@BeOnDeck]

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[@christopherarmstrong2710]

5:17 Angel funds raised from friends and family money
5:34 Sometimes when you don’t have the luxury of failing, you find your way to success.
9:50 If you're at the seed stage and are going to be founding the company yourself, know that it's going to be a lonely road - you won't have anyone to bounce ideas off of. The reason you have a co-founder is because you want to make sure that whatever weaknesses you have are plugged. From seed / Series A timeframe, it's all about product market-fit. Founder market-fit is also very important. They've lived the problem themselves. Many of the disruptors in the consumer space are from people who are not from the industry.
12:00 Many technical founders don't focus enough on storytelling. Human beings have evolved by storytelling. Don't think about fundraising as a pitch - think about it as just telling your story. You need to tell your story to investors and to potential employees, business partners that you'll need to convince to work with you.
38:15 If you’re worried about industry incumbents being massive, and that they’re competitive and they’re going to crush you, then in some sense being the founder is not the right job for you. *All great companies are not deterred by the massive companies. It’s not that they’re already large, it’s that they haven’t gotten everything right.* (Look for the opportunities and contrarian perspectives)
48:35 The best form of financing is a (steady) revenue model, it’s the least diluted. If you can get paid on day 1, it’s great.

[@Faust_77]

You forgot to add the min 3 something where a random dude just showed up on the screen lol

[@you9111able]

Amazing pod

[@BeOnDeck]

Thanks Nubs! We're always sharing more content for founders on our channel!