From the Investors

Brittney Riley of Village Capital reveals research on the traits of founding teams with the goal of reducing bias in the investment process and ultimately making better decisions around what makes founders "strong" in “How Do Investors Evaluate Founding Teams?”

Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures believes investment funds that will do the best are the ones that remain disciplined in size and also are looking actively for the next wave of innovation in “Venture Capital is a Capacity Industry with Boom and Bust Cycles”

Eric Pakravan of Amplify finds that total Los Angeles funding at the seed stage fell 42.2% from Q4'16 and 43.8% YoY, and more in “Q1 2017 LA Seed Deal Report”

Hunter Walk of Homebrew highlights two main reasons why they might miss a seed investment opportunity and how they plan to improve in “Seed Investing & Dark Dealflow: You Lose 100% Of The Deals You Don’t See”

From the Operators

Ellen Chisa of Lola reflects on how to gain a foothold, break into a market, and build something differentiated in “Building Product in a Saturated Niche [Traction Podcast #39]”

Steve Huffman of Reddit and Emmett Shear of Twitch chat with Michael Seibel of Y Combinator about how they built their products as founder-CEO’s in “How to Build a Product: Part I” (video)

Andy Dunn of Bonobos expounds on why entrepreneurs need to recalibrate away from valuation and towards investor quality in “Stop Obsessing Over Valuation”

Sarah Brown of Service Rocket encourages employees to adopt a learner’s mindset and find ways to become an active participant in the transition in “Startup Employees: Here’s What To Do If Your Startup Is Acquired”

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