Lessons Learned After Investing in Over 100 Startups
summary
An investor who reviews about 2,000 pitches per year and has backed 15–20 deals annually across 20–30 company portfolios shares lessons from investing in over 100 startups. Concrete examples include building early virtual fairs that were acquired by On24, supporting Carto through a €25M raise, a missed‑option regret worth roughly €10M, successful pivots (e.g., power‑bank maker pivoting to hand sanitiser), and the recommendation to hire a Chief Psychologist for founding teams.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction
- 3:27First startup success
- 6:19Early investment failures
- 9:10Transition to angel investing
- 12:42Lessons from both sides
- 21:25Frugality and product focus
- 23:55Adapting to corporate stacks
- 26:05Investor incentives
- 28:51Future-proofing investments
- 30:37Handling startup failures
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