The new school year starts next week, which means, counting my years as a student, I guess I’m about to kick off something like my 35th year of “doing school.” And that’ cycle is definitely one of the strange things about being an educator: every academic year has the same rhythm. The same anxious energy in August. The same mid-semester lull. The same finals-week exhaustion. It’s comforting in its predictability. But if you’re not careful, that predictability can also feel… stale.
I bring this up because the rhythms of startups are basically the exact opposite. They’re not cyclical at all. There is no “semester” to guide you, no reassuring pattern to lean on. Every day is different. A new fire to put out. A new opportunity to chase. A new surprise you didn’t see coming. That lack of structure is both the best and worst thing about startups.
Humans, after all, are wired for patterns. We like comfort, predictability, and knowing what comes next.
I often find myself wondering if this lack of a pattern is what makes startups so darn difficult. Building a company is exhilarating and exhausting at the same time. Rather than giving you the steady cadence of a school year, it drops you into the messy middle of life with no syllabus to guide you — just the thrill (and terror) of having to figure it out as you go.
Anyway… to all my readers out there in the cyclical, academic world like me, welcome back to the start of the pattern. And to all you startup founders out there… welcome back to yet another week of chaos.
Whatever the case, remember to keep enjoying the journey.
-Aaron
This week’s new articles…
The Real Danger of Babying Your Startup
Founders love to refer to their startups as “my baby,” but if that’s how you’re thinking about your startup, it might be time to consider adoption.
The Most Dangerous Kind of Startup Feedback
Good entrepreneurs are constantly getting feedback on their startups; great entrepreneurs know what kind of feedback they actually need.
Office Hours Q&A
QUESTION:
My cofounders and I are almost done having our startup built, and now we want to fundraise. What's the best way for us to get in contact with VCs like Andreessen Horowitz? Do we just email them? Or do we need to do something like a YCombinator?
- Chris
You’re asking the wrong question.
If your product is almost finished and your next step is fundraising… I’ve got some bad news: you’re operating backwards.
Fundraising isn’t what gets a startup off the ground. It’s what accelerates a startup that’s already flying.
VCs — especially firms like Andreessen Horowitz — aren’t in the business of funding ideas or MVPs. They fund traction. They fund momentum. They fund systems that are already working and just need fuel to scale.
So don’t think of fundraising as the thing you do next. Think of it as the thing you earn the right to do later.
Your job right now is to prove your startup deserves capital. And you don’t do that by pitching or cold emailing a16z. You do it by doing the one thing that matters more than anything else: showing that customers want what you’re building.
If you want to talk to investors, start by getting users, and revenue, and feedback. Then, once you have those things, use all of that to build a clear, confident answer to the question every investor is going to ask:
“What are you going to do with my money that’s going to turn it into more money?”
Until you can answer that all-important question with data, you're not ready to fundraise. So forget the cold emails. Forget YC. Forget fundraising.
Focus on building something valuable. If you can do that, the investors will find you.
Got startup questions of your own? Reply to this email with whatever you want to know, and I’ll do my best to answer.