Practice doesn’t make perfect

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🎈 || STARTUP OF THE WEEK

In their words: Want to open a round, set terms, draft legal docs, collect signatures, and receive funds? PartyRound.com is making it easier for you to raise money. Your people. Your terms. Your cap table. 

In my words: It’s like Venmo for raising money. Fast, easy and fun. Sign up today and close your round faster. WDYT?

💰 || FEATURED INVESTORS

McKeever Conwell, better known as Mac The VC, is managing partner of RareBreed Ventures, a pre-seed fund investing primarily outside large tech ecosystems. Checks come in as large as $250K. With over 72K followers on Twitter, it’s not surprise his tweets are a goldmine to read. Fun fact: Mac dropped out of college junior year. Learn more here, here and here.

🔁 || PITCH PRACTICE

Week after week I can give you pitching advice, but if you don’t practice you’ll inevitably fail. A pitch deck is like a car. Your pitch (narrative/story) is how you drive it.

That’s why it doesn’t matter how nice the car looks, if you can’t keep it on the road. Lesson: Practice your pitch, don’t just keep making 1% cosmetic adjustments to your deck all day like I used to during my founders days. As Denzel Washington says, “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes improvements.”

In case you forgot, I made ClearPitch42.com for you to have an elevator pitch guide.

✨ || TALKING TECHSTARS

Applications are closing at 11:59pm PST this Wednesday June 1st for the Techstars Accelerators powered by J.P. Morgan. Some FAQ’s:

  1. No, you don’t need to be building in fintech to apply.

  2. Yes, there is a focus on diverse founders, but absolutely anyone can get in.

  3. Yes, it’s the same three-month program you’ve seen us do since 2007.

  4. Yes, usual funding of up to $120K… but remember, no-one does Techstars for the money. It’s for the fundraising opportunities, networking and mentorship.

📚 || BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

If you’re a recent subscriber, you may have missed my previous list of book recommendations. Beauty is that it still holds true after a couple of years. I’m sharing this so you can just go get a head-start on updating your library quickly and a new book recommendation will arrive every bulletin. Check out the 11 books every early-stage startup founder should read.

🧵 || TWEET OF THE WEEK

My first thread ever that went “viral”. The beauty of this tweet is that you can replace the word startup with life, and it still works as it’s the fundamentals that matter. “Don’t chase customers” in the life version could suggest to keep your friends group smaller and tighter, as opposed to trying to please everyone… because we know that never works.