Startups
132 tweets
beehiiv just crossed $2M MRR but most founders are still stuck trying to generate their first $100K to celebrate the milestone I’m going to try something new… I’m sharing the exact playbook we used in the early days (10 simple tactics) hope this helps someone:
We are thrilled to announce a strategic partnership with Google! Google is also making a financial investment in Sakana AI to strengthen this collaboration. This underscores their recognition of our technical depth and our mission to advance AI in Japan. We are combining Google’s world-class products with our agile R&D to tackle complex challenges. By leveraging models like Gemini and Gemma, we will accelerate our breakthroughs in automated scientific discovery. Our work on The AI Scientist and ALE-Agent has already demonstrated the power of these models. Now we are going further. We are scaling our deployment of reliable AI in mission-critical sectors. We are working with financial institutions and government organizations to deliver solutions that meet the highest standards of security and data sovereignty. We are excited to drive the widespread adoption of reliable AI and advance Japan’s AI ecosystem together!
Neynar is acquiring Farcaster. Over the next few weeks, we’ll transfer ownership of the protocol contracts and code repositories, the Farcaster app, and Clanker to Neynar. They will run and maintain everything going forward. Some members of the Merkle team, Varun, and I will step back from day-to-day work on Farcaster and move on to something new. Rish, Manan, and the rest of the Neynar team have been building on Farcaster from the start. Neynar was one of the first Farcaster clients, and its infrastructure now powers much of the developer ecosystem. We think they are the right people to take over leadership of Farcaster and they’ll share their new builder-focused vision soon. This wasn’t an easy decision. Farcaster and the people building on it mean a lot to us. We’re proud of what our team built, and what the community built alongside us. But after five years, it’s clear Farcaster needs a new approach and leadership to reach its full potential. We’re excited to see what Farcaster becomes under Neynar, and we’re looking forward to this next chapter.
2025 was the year that "Chinese peptides" took over SF. I wrote about it in my first for the NYT: gift link here https://nytimes.com/2026/01/03/business/chinese-peptides-silicon-valley.html?unlocked_article_code=1.BlA.bSI-.5puwhP1yiF6B&smid=url-share…
Today, we're excited to launch a newly redesigned http://ycombinator.com! Our new site puts founders front and center and we want it to reflect what YC is really about: helping talented builders become great founders.
small life update! i’ve joined Andreessen Horowitz’s @a16z venture scout program! they are essentially letting me manage a little bit of money to write checks into startups. super grateful for the opportunity and excited to begin my angel investing career with the institutional backing of a firm as storied as Andreessen Horowitz (early into facebook, twitter, airbnb, lyft, slack, coinbase and many more) big thank you to @dhaber for the connection and opportunity i’ve had a little success with investing in public equities, I have no idea if any of those skills could translate to the private markets. investing at pre-seed/seed requires a different paradigm as there are no numbers, financials, track-record, and quite frankly there may not even be a product – it really is a bet on the founder and their vision. having said that, if you are building something really cool and raising money, I’d love to hear about it. please email amit@akcomms.com. you can include anything you have whether that is a deck, one pager, etc. i’ve also built out a website that anyone can read to get a sense of how i think of investing in general and the 5 startups I’ve invested in over the past year (one has 20x’ed, one has 10x’ed, the other 3 just finished their seed round last month) no clue if I will be good at this but I appreciate a16z for the opportunity and hopefully we can try to find the next uber or robinhood being built in the early days – excited to see any pitches and please don’t hesitate to reach out! angel investing philosophy below!
Paramount is launching a hostile takeover bid to buy Warner Bros. They are going directly to shareholders with a bid valued at $108.4 billion (Source: https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/paramount-hostile-takeover-bid-warner-bros-discovery-1236603175/…)
here is a list of all startup accelerators you can apply to right now: - a16z Speedrun ($750k–$1M for ~7–10%) - Y Combinator ($500k for ~7%) - Pioneer ($20k for 1%) - LAUNCH ($125k for 6–7%) - The Mint ($500k for 10%) - AngelPad ($120k for 7%) - Techstars ($220k for ~5–7%) - 500 Global ($112.5k for 6%) - Entrepreneur First ($250k for ~9%) - South Park Commons ($400k for 7% + $600k guaranteed follow-on) - HFO Residency ($1M uncapped for 5% or $500k uncapped + 3%) - NEO ($600k via uncapped SAFE with $10M floor valuation) - Sequoia Arc ($1M) - PearX ($250k–$2M) - Betaworks AI Camp ($500k) - Greylock Edge (SAFE note + $500k+ in credits) - Conviction Embed ($150k uncapped MFN SAFE) - OpenAI Converge ($1M equity investment) - Startup Wise Guys (up to €65k for equity) - APX (up to €500k, typically €50k for 5%) - Founders Fellowship ($150k for 5–10%) - Seedcamp (€100k–€200k for 7–7.5%) - Antler (€100k for 10% + stipend) - Google for Startups (up to $100k)Accel Atoms (up to $500k–$1M) - AI Grant ($250k uncapped) - AI2 Incubator ($50k–$150k)Afore Capital ($100k–$500k) - Berkeley SkyDeck ($200k) - Soma Capital ($100k) - Founder Institute (equity-based program with undisclosed funding) - Boost VC (up to $500k for 15%) - Antler ($200k–$250k for 8–9%)
last year was crazy. what started as a few lovable test builds turned into a $2.5M ARR agency.. here’s exactly how we did it. ## the core insight lovable didn’t change how we code. it changed how fast we can go from idea → revenue. most teams still treat app development like a long gamble: months of build time, bloated scopes, delayed launches. we treated it like a system. mvp → launch → iterate → retain. ## the 2-week mvp offer our main offer is simple: • 2-week mvp • $10k flat • lovable-only builds the constraint is intentional. by forcing a realistic mvp scope, we: • ship faster • avoid overbuilding • get real users early most founders don’t need “the full product.” they need the first version that works. ## the subscription layer (where mrr compounds) after launch, we stay on. we act as a fractional product team: • design • new features • scaling • refinements after 2 week sprint, clients don’t hire devs. they subscribe to momentum. lovable makes iteration cheap, if your foundation is clean. ## the cohort model once the agency system worked, we productized it and created a lower ticker offer for builders. the cohort helps founders: build and launch an app in under a month. they get: • access to our devs • access to designers • live lovable guidance • real builds, not theory ## content as distribution last year my co-founder an I combined for over 20 million impressions. we publish daily. things like: tutorials. free resources. actual builds. agency learnings. content does three things for us: • educates the market • builds trust • drives inbound most of the time people learn from us before they buy. ## our lovable build process (high level) we always build in this order: - data model first - core logic second - reusable components - screens last design and development happen together. no handoffs. no rewrites. ## why this worked fast mvps retained subscriptions cohort leverage daily content that combination earned us the first-ever lovable agency partner spot. ## the real skill you’re not competing on code. you’re competing on: • clarity • scoping • speed • communication lovable builds the software. you decide what matters. ## the opportunity window right now, this still feels early. soon, it won’t. the people starting now won’t win because they’re smarter. they’ll win because they started. ## want our internal prompt hacks? 100+ copy-paste prompts for: • mvp scoping • lovable data models • component systems • client builds • scaling apps RT + comment “PROMPTS” and i’ll share the link.
“After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google's Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users.” : )
JUST IN: Jeff Bezos advises aspiring Gen Z entrepreneurs to start at real world jobs like McDonalds or Palantir before starting a business.
We are joining Cloudflare!
The Astro Technology Company joins Cloudflare | Astro
We are incredible excited @compoundvc to launch Compound Reverie Grants today. These are micro-grants for those exploring ideas at the edges, in a world that needs more support for strange and meaningful work. Why Micro Grants? The world needs more out of distribution ideas and people need more space to explore them. Part of being a thesis-driven investment firm operating on long-term time horizons is to apply that same ethos towards helping build the world we want to live in. We find this is rarer than it should be, especially so within the echo chambers of technology and startups. As we've thought about the kind of firm we want to build over the next decade, amongst our excitement, we also kept returning to a sameness we couldn't shake. Tech has grown insular, and respect for different types of thinkers feels improperly distributed. Dollars and belief flow to the most legible people, the ones who fit an overly obvious pattern, who match what a small few have decided success should look like. The less legible get passed over. This reality means we're narrowing the dispersion of what can be built and by who, while increasing the correlation of ideas and aesthetics that get funded or even just supported. To help create a more imaginative future, we've created Compound Reverie Grants. These are micro-grants to fund people exploring ideas that otherwise would not easily get funded through traditional means, but that we think are important for the present and future. They range from as little as $500 to as much as $7,500 each, in fully non-dilutive, no-strings-attached capital. There are moments in life when a small amount of support, intellectual, emotional, and/or fiscal, matters more than anyone appreciates at the time. A month or two of runway. A few hours of debate. The cost of materials for a prototype. Enough breathing room to see if something is real. We hope these grants find people in those moments. Reverie Grants are intentionally broad but there are two specific types of grantees that we know we want to help (and many others that we will learn we want to help that we hope apply). The first are people going deep on something that touches the edges or possible fringes of areas we think about: machine learning, robotics, biology, healthcare, energy, crypto, and the places where those things blur together. These should not be ideas that obviously could be venture-backed companies. You shouldn't be starting a company (though it could lead you to one) but instead you should be working on research, building a prototype, writing, open-sourcing something, or tinkering on a strange project that resists easy explanation. The second are thoughtful people who are simply in transition. Figuring things out. You might not have a thesis-aligned project, but you have a goal, a direction, something you're trying to understand or become and you could use support, a sounding board, a broader network, or a bunch of other things that equate to having people like us in your corner who can help with the complexities of navigating life's idea mazes. We know how hard that can be and we want to meet you and help you. Our hope is that this first wave of grants are only the beginning and as we continue to expand both with other capital that is not just our own, as well as support from others in our sphere who want to be involved, we will get greater clarity and hopefully more scaled impact. More and more we feel we are only creativity constrained and we want to help people who feel that their creativity is limited, under-explored, or not believed in because of its strangeness at a time in which we think the world needs these ideas most. If you're in one of those moments, tell us about it below. If you'd like to refer someone or have any questions, feel free to email grants@compound.vc or DM us on Twitter.
From an eng responsible for AI tooling at a mid-sized company (100+ devs): "Our execs read a blog post about Claude Code and ask: 'why are we not all using it?' Me: well, none of you would approve going from $40/mo on GitHub to $65/mo on Cursor... Claude Code is $150/mo."