🗒️ A VC Just Shared His Formula for Requesting Introductions. It's Pure Genius and Will Work for Anyone
Inc.com: Kirby Winfield, founding general partner of Seattle pre-seed venture capital firm Ascend just shared his incredibly smart formula for entrepreneurs to request "warm" introductions from their investors. The instructions are clear, sensible, can easily be followed by anyone with a LinkedIn account, and should work for anyone seeking business introductions for almost any purpose. (Many thanks to my friends at GeekWire for linking to this from their email newsletter.)
I'm already planning how I can use this approach myself. It's well worth checking out Ascend's blog post, which includes lots of screenshots so you can see exactly what to do. Here's a quick overview.
🗒️ Global startup funding hits a 5-year low, AI boom defies the trend
SDX Central: 2023 concluded with global startup funding reaching its lowest point in five years, totaling $285 billion, according to a recent report from Crunchbase.
This figure represents a significant 38% decline from the previous year’s $462 billion, marking a continued trend of caution among venture capital investors.
Notably, the final quarter of 2023 was particularly slow. The report showed the quarterly funding in Q4 totaled $58 billion, down 24% quarter-over-quarter and 25% year-over-year and overall deal volume was down 15% quarter-over-quarter and 33% year-over-year
🗒️ Bloomberg Businessweek: Venture Capital for 2024
Bloomberg: Jeff Grabow, US Venture Capital Leader at EY, discusses the VC landscape and outlook for deals in 2024. Hosts: Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. Producer: Paul Brennan.
🗒️ Retiring the Patagonia fleece: what investors do after they leave VC
Sifted: Jennifer Phan had been working in VC for three years before she decided to take a leap of faith to become a founder herself.
It wasn’t an overnight decision, however, but one that required “very long and hard” thought.
“VC is so hard to crack or get into, that it was hard for me to pull the trigger and make the jump out of it. Because you think, ‘this is such a privileged job, how could you think about leaving it?’ Especially for me as a woman with a minority background,” says Phan, who cofounded her creator economy company Passionfroot in 2021.
Phan is one of many who have left the highly coveted career path that a role in VC represents. Many young people are falling over themselves to break into an industry that promises face time with the brightest entrepreneurs — and a healthy paycheck.
Top 3 book summaries this week 📚
Make Your Idea Matter by Bernadette Jiwa
According to Jiwa, the path to success is littered with great ideas poorly marketed. She warns us to not let ours be one of them. Her book is a series of calls to action for budding and established entrepreneurs. We can all come up with great innovative ideas, but unless we make them matter to someone, then they will wither on the vine.
The Character Based Leader
Although there may be differences in the detail, all the authors agree on the core message of this book: that character counts in leadership, and there are key elements that shape character. Character-Based Leadership is leading from who you are, rather than from your power or position.
Contagious by Jonah Berger
Why do some things 'catch on'? Marketing plays a role, but sometimes it just doesn't explain viral success. Jonah Berger has come up with a smart structure for runaway contagious success.
