Some Saturday morning thoughts on the next wave of unicorns:
1) We invest in the US, CAN, & SEA, and ppl ask us why we lump all our investments into 1 fund as opposed to regional funds. This is because the next wave of startups are global from day 1.
What do I mean by that?
1) We invest in the US, CAN, & SEA, and ppl ask us why we lump all our investments into 1 fund as opposed to regional funds. This is because the next wave of startups are global from day 1.
What do I mean by that?
2) 5 years ago, you'd be crazy to try to go global first. At that time, it was unfocused and challenging to manage. Today, you're at a disadvantage if you are not global first.
3) Let's dive into the data. 5 years ago, most unicorns that were started then were in the US and China. news.crunchbase.com/news/unicorn-cβ¦
I believe that we will continue to see this trend. But you have to look under the hood at what that means.
I believe that we will continue to see this trend. But you have to look under the hood at what that means.
4) If you look at the up-and-coming companies that will be unicorns in the next couple of yrs, many of them will be SF HQed companies. But their roots were elsewhere. E.g. companies like Front, Talkdesk, & I'd put Intercom in that category too.
5) And it's important to look at beginning stories, because that's how startups get their foot on the first rung of the ladder. E.g. If you can keep your costs down on engr talent AND manage well, you can go far.
6) I recently caught up w/ 2 past portfolio cos. I was floored that both were doing $5m ARR w/ fast growth and had raised very little seed funding. I asked them how they were able to build so much and sell so much w/ so little.
7) All of their devs were in Vietnam and Argentina (respectively). Both teams had a tech co-founder leading product outside the US. Both teams sell to companies in the US and have all customer acq (sales / mktg / BD) in the US.
8) When I look at my @HustleFundVC portfolio which is newer, I also see the same trend. Even if not hiring abroad, they are hiring outside of SF. One of my current portfolio cos who actually has raised a lot of cash based in SF has more employees in Dallas than SF.
@HustleFundVC 9) Then I have a couple of current portfolio cos doing some crazy global arb things. E.g. Canada gives startups a TON of grants reducing the cost of tech talent: a 3-5x difference to SF tech talent costs. 1 of my SF based cos set up a Canadian entity to take advantage of this.
@HustleFundVC 10) On the business side, we have portfolio cos selling to Asia and SEA cos selling globally / to the US. 5 years ago, this seemed weird / impossible. Today, this makes a lot of sense for the right biz.
@HustleFundVC 11) When I looked at our portfolio, I could not quite "bucket" so many of our companies. They are SF based & US corp but have most ops and devs in Y country / city. Or a SG incorporated co that sells to the US.
@HustleFundVC 12) There's no clear cut geography anymore and founders who can navigate this new way of hiring / managing remotely (or w/ hub and spoke) / and selling remotely are at a serious advantage in this new economy.
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