Gui Laliberte

People need to stop thinking that getting into YC is some kind of finish line. It’s not. It’s the starting point. You leave Demo Day with momentum, not success. You get a head start, but only if you sprint immediately. And most founders don’t. They slow down. Get distracted. Start hiring too much. Instead of doing the only thing that actually moves the needle: Getting more customers. Every good thing that’s happened to us post-YC came from that one mindset shift: We stopped optimizing for investors. We optimized for revenue. That means: • No time wasted prepping pitch decks. • No vanity features or roadmap filler. • No spending sprees just because there’s cash in the bank. Just relentless execution, daily revenue growth, and a simple rule: Make customers love us. Triple revenue every quarter. Repeat. The real work starts after YC.

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Three years ago, we launched Wisdom Ventures with a clear intention to support founders building at the intersection of well-being, human connection, and transformative tech. Since then, we’ve made 37 investments from our oversubscribed "minimum viable" $10M Fund I, backing early-stage companies in physical and mental wellbeing, women’s health, ethical AI, and human connection-centered innovation. We’ve always known we are on to something—what we didn’t expect was how quickly the data would back it up. Recent industry benchmarks show that most 2022-vintage emerging funds are experiencing the usual J-curve dip. In contrast, Wisdom Ventures is showing strong early performance: 📈 Net IRR (internal rate of return): >10% 📊 MOIC (multiple on invested capital): ~2x* ⏰ Median investment age: 18 months 💥 ....and # of our companies have a diverse founder by gender, race, or sexual orientation: 75% As we get ready to make our 38th and final investment out of Fund I and start deploying out of our significantly larger Fund II (first close May 1st), we’re filled with gratitude—for our founders, our LPs, our early supporters, our early believers, and this growing movement toward a more conscious, connected future, fueled by innovation from the ❤️ *Based on most current reports **Not in photo: Our fantastic operating partner, Zoe Rogers #WisdomVentures #ImpactInvesting #ConsciousTech #Wellbeing #AIForGood #FutureOfWork #VentureCapital

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Don't Build a Better Wheat Farm" - Why Defensibility Stakes Are Higher in Deep Tech Just published a new piece on my "Ignore the Confusion" blog, building on thoughtful insights from Eric Ver Ploeg at Tunitas Ventures about startup defensibility. Eric's core thesis: Too many startups pitch like wheat farmers - "huge TAM, slow incumbents, growing market, domain expertise" - but fail to think through long-term defensibility until it's too late. From a deep tech perspective, the stakes are even higher: ** Unlike software, deep tech founders must commit to defensibility strategies from day one - their funding depends on it ** Patent vs. trade secret decisions are often difficult to reverse and shape your entire competitive strategy ** Even "picks and shovels" providers (the tools that make industries more efficient) become commodities without proper moats The key insight that resonates: Defensibility can't be retrofitted. Whether you're building software or deep tech, your moat must be architected into the business model from the start. Thanks to Eric Ver Ploeg for sharing these insights on startup strategy and letting me build on his framework from a deep tech lens. Read the full post: https://lnkd.in/dEj_iF-Q #DeepTech #StartupStrategy #Defensibility #VentureCapital #Innovation

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996 is the bare minimum for most startups. That might sound harsh, but the math is simple. A startup is under-resourced by definition. Small team. Limited runway. Too many problems. And you’re competing with companies that have headcount, brand, distribution, and money to burn. So in the beginning, you have to squeeze water out of a rock. That ends up looking like: 9AM → 1AM 7 days a week Not forever. But long enough to get real momentum. Once you have product pull, real users, and a stable baseline, it has to become sustainable. Timing is key. 996 is a phase. If it becomes the business model, you’re stuck.

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How to get into YC (Advice from a 2x founder) 1. Everyone says YC invests in people. YC doesn't invest in people, it invests in narratives. Your application to YC has to tell the first chapter of a great founder's biography. If you're wondering why you got rejected from YC, it's probably because when the reviewers finished reading your application, they didn't feel compelled to turn the page. 2. Have an idea, make a logo, make a web landing page, make an MVP, and find someone willing to pay you to use it. Everything else is not essential. 3. Get referrals. It matters less how many referrals you have, and more what they're saying about you. Your referrals need to reflect the same narrative that you sell in the application: "This person is, for some reason, special." Referrals don't exist to back up the idea that you're accomplished (that's what your resume is for). Referrals support the idea that when your peers look at you, they see someone they believe can build a great company. 4. Do something substantial, and put it in your application. Hundreds of thousands of people went to top schools and then worked in big tech. This is not substantial. Your application has to reflect the idea of what you are capable of breaking this mold in some considerable way. DM me if this was helpful, and I'll send you a full guide.

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Founders often scramble to prep materials *after* a VC shows interest. That’s backward. You should be ready for diligence before your first meeting with a VC. Smart founders: 🗂 Have their data room ready 📊 Can share a clear KPI dashboard if asked 💸 Keep clean, up-to-date financials 📣 Track and communicate metrics Flailing around getting your files in order can erode investor trust. Put in the work ahead of time and it will build confidence in you and your company. #FundraisingAdvice #StartupTips #RSCMFounderFriday

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In 2026, everything I do will be in service of founders. Specifically: helping founders cross the line from 'builder' to 'operator.' It’s the first Sunday, and I felt inspired to share a mini-manifesto for the year ahead. This transition (from builder to operator) is where I see many high-potential founders struggle most. Building is the easy part (for most of you). - You can ship. - You can hustle. - You can close early deals. Where companies actually die? Business systems and operations. I’ve helped build three different businesses past $20M ARR. Never alone. Always with teams. Always with systems. At a certain point, founder-led everything becomes the bottleneck. Sales is usually the first place this shows up. When sales lives in the founder’s head + inbox, growth caps. Not because the founder can’t sell, but because the business can’t operate without them. From ‘Founder Chapel’ to ‘David Beats Goliath,’ and through the projects and partnerships I take on this year, everything will serve one goal: Helping founders transform into EXCEPTIONAL operators. The kind people want to work with, follow, invest in, and trust with real responsibility. Builders are common these days. Operators are much rarer. Companies scale when systems carry the weight founders were never meant to carry alone.

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Check out the latest funding news from across the Techstars portfolio. → Zipline (Techstars 2011), a drone delivery and logistics startup, raises more than $600M in new funding, boosting its valuation to $7.6B, as it expands commercial deployments. → Language learning startup Preply (Techstars 2015) raises $150M and becomes the 23rd known unicorn from Techstars accelerators. → Hydrosat (Techstars 2019) raises $60M in Series B funding → Tive (Techstars 2017) receives a $20M investment, valuing the shipment-tracking systems developer at slightly more than $500M. → Parambil (Techstars 2023) raises an additional $6M in seed funding ($8M to date). → Seasats (Techstars 2021) receives $24M in Department of War APFIT funding to accelerate the fielding of its autonomous surface vessels. → Hawaiian Airlines’ newly announced $600M Kahuʻewai Hawai‘i Investment Plan features a strategic investment in Ampaire (Techstars 2018) to support hybrid-electric aviation in the islands. → Fintalo (Techstars 2025) secures $500K+ in oversubscribed Pre-Seed funding. → PraxisPro (Techstars 2024) closes an oversubscribed $6M seed round. → Samara Aerospace (Techstars 2024) closes $10M seed round to help bring more stability to sats in orbit. → MyARC (Techstars 2022), a platform that enables fitness creators to train their communities at scale, secures £1.5M investment. Massive congratulations to these incredible portfolio companies!   🔗  Read more at https://lnkd.in/dxtCTvrg 

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Just found 5 YC startups with some of the most unique, “no one else would’ve built this” ideas I’ve seen 👇🏼 🚀 These are the kinds of concepts that make you stop and think “wait… that’s actually genius.” 1. Digipals (YC F25) Reinventing social media around real-life coordination instead of infinite scrolling. 2. Hypercubic (YC F25) Using AI to modernize COBOL and mainframes, the invisible backbone of banks, airlines, and governments. 3. Dome (YC F25) One API that connects every prediction market (Polymarket, Kalshi, etc.) into a unified trading layer. 4. Clad Labs (YC F25) A Gen-Z-native coding IDE where the coding loop blends with gaming, scrolling, and ads. 5. Nucleo (YC F25) Automated CT scan analysis for oncologists, already trusted by top hospitals. 👉 YC’s most innovative companies are often the ones that end up defining new categories. - - - - - - - 💬 Which one of these would you invest in purely because the idea is so wild?

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Our team at Hustle Fund just published the most comprehensive guide on angel investing to help first-time angels. And it’s 100% free. We cover: -A clear picture of whether angel investing makes sense for you -How to navigate risk and diversify like a pro -How early-stage investments can multiply your capital -Real stories and examples from founders and angel investors This is book 1 of our angel investing series. Think of it as your foundation. Throughout the year, we'll be dropping more focused guides diving deep into specific topics (deal flow, due diligence, portfolio strategy, and more). So if you've been curious about angel investing but didn't know where to start, check it out. The link to download the book is in the comments!

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Many YC founders go to Demo Day expecting to fill their round and get back to work. But then reality hits: Lots of them don't raise a dollar. You just don't hear about these stories. You only hear about the successes. YC partners are clear about this: "Don't think that just because you're YC, you'll lift a finger and raise your round." The badge gets you in the room. But you're still competing against 50-100 other startups for maybe 5-10 investment spots per fund. If I were to do YC again, here’s how I’d approach it: Use the $500K to create a 3-year runway and build something people want with a team of 2 in total. I won’t show up to demo day. Just focus on building. I’d forget about: Growth targets. Fundraising decks. Creating a one-liner. 100% focus on profitability. That's how you become default alive and don’t need to beg for money.

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