Although the CEO does most of the public messaging work for a company, all founders should be able to tell the story. Here’s why.

A lot of Sterling Road founders ask me how to make the most of a conference they’re attending. Here’s the basics.

It’s easy to dump on Google these days. Despite an enormous data and resource advantage, they’re being handily beaten in the era of large language models by startups with much smaller teams

When you get a new investor and you’re still fundraising, you’ll want to ask your new investor for intros to other investors in their network

After Demo Day, there’s an investor reception with lots of investors and other founders. This is a great opportunity to generate potential investor leads. Here’s how to maximize your contacts at the reception.

When you think you’re close to getting a term sheet or you have a VC who says one is imminent, it’s very tempting to stop meeting with smaller checks and wait for the term sheet. I would not do that.

Big Tech is hungry and legacy markets are an easy target. Now the FDA has partially approved Apple’s AirPods as hearing aids, we’re going to see massive changes in the $8B global market for these devices.

t’s YC demo day in 2 weeks and fundraising around the Summer 24 batch is already at fever pitch. Many founders are experiencing a lot of demand and it’s tempting to raise a bunch of money from lots of small checks. I’m biased, but if you are lucky enough to have plenty of interest, I suggest you engage those with deep pockets.

This has been a tough year for many startups that were king of their hill just a few years ago. The fundraising and acquisition situations we are seeing are incredibly stressful for founders, to say the very least.

If you’ve built a community, it’s not always immediately clear how you will make money.

A month of mixed news for the US economy. Most of us will be excited to see inflation dip under 3%, a 12 month low, and a strong indicator of near term interest rate cuts, especially with unemployment now up to 4.1%.

Getting great references is a big part of the hiring process and whenever you need to provide a reference, make sure that person is armed with your top talking points.

Meet Tim Issenmann, Founder of Newgrain and a Sterling Road Grant winner. Tim’s passion for analog photography led him to create a platform that provides an escape from the noise of traditional social media.

Here’s another way to make job offers to candidates. In this case, you start as high as you can and remove most of the negotiation.

Many founders’ first idea is a minor user experience improvement on a popular consumer app. They often fail quickly. Maybe the next generation of food delivery or college events is your destiny, but probably not. Instead, dream bigger.

Now that you’ve decided to make a candidate an offer, what should that offer be? Should you focus on equity or salary? What about their needs? It’s almost impossible to know what will make the candidate most excited, so I suggest making 3 offers.

Don’t agree to meetings you don’t want to attend. Instead, provide a polite no and move on, without creating a negative impression on someone else.

Finding someone great for your open role is incredibly hard, so when you finally find someone that meets that high bar, get them an offer before they leave the interview.