Sriram Krishnan’s Newsletter

Sriram Krishnan's Newsletter explores the intersections of technology, startups, venture capital, and business strategy. It delves into practical guidance for startup funding, risk management, market analysis, venture trends, and the impact of AI, while also addressing broader tech industry developments, valuation insights, and investment frameworks.

Startup Strategy Venture Capital Market Analysis Technology Trends Artificial Intelligence Business Financing Tech Industry Developments Investment Strategies Startup Valuations Mergers and Acquisitions

Top posts of the year

And their main takeaways

Funding Landscape

314 implied HN points • 12 Jun 23
💼 Business Funding Entrepreneurship Investing Startups Finance
  1. Different types of seed rounds have varying funding amounts and valuation ranges.
  2. Understanding your funding needs and managing expectations is crucial for securing follow-on financing.
  3. Research and identify the investors who typically participate in each seed round to target the right ones for your funding.

TAM Volume

275 implied HN points • 18 Jul 23
💼 Business Market Analysis Entrepreneurship Sales Customers Opportunities
  1. When considering a market, focus not just on the total value but also on the volume of potential customers or personas.
  2. High volume of target customers provides more opportunities for learning and growth in a business.
  3. A larger TAM (volume) allows for more chances to adjust strategies and learn from mistakes compared to low volume markets.

Customer Persona Expansion

275 implied HN points • 06 Jun 23
💼 Business Startups Investing Entrepreneurship Market Expansion
  1. In early stages, focus on winning over a narrow set of customer personas first for startup success.
  2. Startups should avoid selling to multiple personas at once to prevent failure from spreading resources too thin.
  3. As resources grow, consider expanding to multiple personas to increase Total Addressable Market (TAM) and attract later-stage investors.
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Dividends

275 implied HN points • 15 Aug 23
🏥 Health & Wellness Mindfulness Mental health Self-care
  1. Memory Dividends are the benefits you gain from re-experiencing past experiences in the future.
  2. Anticipation Dividends are the benefits you receive from looking forward to future experiences.
  3. Prioritizing experiences and memories can lead to both Memory and Anticipation Dividends.

VCs Adjusting

235 implied HN points • 29 May 23
💼 Business Venture Capital Investments Startups
  1. Venture capital funds have raised the bar for investments.
  2. Late-stage funds are shifting focus towards seed and series A companies.
  3. Some emerging funds are adjusting strategies to increase exposure to new investments.

AI as a Force Multiplier

235 implied HN points • 02 Jun 23
🕹 Technology AI Generative AI Open Source Cash Flow
  1. AI should enhance the value proposition of an existing service, not be the sole solution.
  2. Focus on profitability and cash flow over venture financing and growth.
  3. Building a sustainable cash-flow-oriented business with lean teams and low burn is more prudent.

Models

216 implied HN points • 20 Jun 23
🕹 Technology AI Data Models
  1. Large-language models are open-sourced and ranked based on benchmarks like ChatGPT and Google Bard.
  2. Model performance improves with each iteration, leading to better models rising and lesser ones fading out.
  3. Different types of data sources contribute to the creation of unique models, with more gated data leading to more variety.

5M

216 implied HN points • 01 Aug 23
💼 Business Startups Investment Frameworks Assessment Venture Capital
  1. Investors use frameworks like the 5M framework to categorize and assess startups.
  2. Having frameworks in place upstream makes it easier to make investment decisions downstream.
  3. Different Ms in the 5M framework are applied as startups progress from idea to product to traction.

Instacart

157 implied HN points • 19 Sep 23
💼 Business Startups Technology IPO Ecosystem
  1. Instacart's IPO is a positive event for the startup and tech ecosystem worldwide.
  2. This liquidity event is seen as an adrenaline boost for the industry.
  3. Encouragement for more late-stage tech startups to consider going public.

New paradigm?

137 implied HN points • 06 Feb 24
🕹 Technology AI Data Privacy Licensing
  1. Content creators may need to start monetizing bot traffic as AI bots mimic human behavior on the internet.
  2. New or gated information on the internet is gaining higher value as freely available content gets indexed and scraped.
  3. Licensing collectives for independents and the debate of privacy vs. monetization are evolving trends impacting web traffic and content consumption.