The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 31 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Cohen: Nearly 98% of startup bridge rounds are bridges to nowhere
“Yeah, my stats are only a 98%, so I'm not sure if I get it right, but it's somewhere in that zone. No, they often are bridges to nowhere”
David Cohen: Seed and angel investing are not venture capital
“I believe that angel investing, seed investing is a completely different thing than venture capital. I don't think it's part of venture capital. I think that it's a different type of asset, which has different needs and requirements and has a different perform…”
Cohen: Hot startup deals often turn out to fail
“But you know, it turns out that the hot deal, something I've learned is, is often the one that doesn't work. And when you see Uber for the first time, or you see, you know, a company that ultimately didn't do well, you're just as excited about both of them.”
Cohen: Techstars returns would be 5x lower if using uncapped notes
“Had all the investments we've done been uncapped notes, it's something like a five X, you know, lower return.”
David Cohen: Having too many optimists can kill entire companies
“And I've literally seen it kill entire companies by just being too many optimists, hanging out, spending each other up.”
Cohen: Startups should form a board of directors at the seed stage
“Yesterday. I think that companies need to put it in as soon as possible. And, you know, I think entrepreneurs have this tendency to think of the board as this Overlord controlling things and they can fire me and all that, but that's not necessarily the case, r…”
80% of Techstars accelerator companies raise follow-on funding
“80% of our accelerator companies are going to raise around from somewhere.”
Cohen: Consistency in investment strategy matters more than the strategy itself
“It's about having a consistent strategy and just sticking to it. You know, it almost doesn't matter so much what the strategy is as that you're consistent about it and stick to it.”
Cohen: First Bullet Time fund had an average pre-money valuation of $2.8M
“So the average pre-money valuation of an investment in my first fund is 2.8 million dollars, which is quite sane.”
Cohen: Concentrated angel portfolios statistically fail
“You have to have enough portfolio diversification to where, you know, if you're concentrated in just a few companies as an angel, I mean, the stats are pretty clear. You're going to lose.”
David Cohen: Best investments come from instantaneous 5-to-10-minute instincts
“Most of the best investments I've ever Had have been that five, 10 minute instantaneous, you know, like I'm in reaction, right?”
David Cohen vows to never invest via uncapped convertible notes again
“I've done one in my life, and I plan to do no more.”
Cohen: Traditional VCs frequently fail at seed-stage investing
“The VC is trying to do seed. You know, you see so much failure there, right? You see, it's just a different game.”
David Cohen: Tech industry rewards loudness over performance
“I'm very concerned about the health of the long-term dynamic where entrepreneurs and investors value fame and boisterousness over shut the hell up and do a great job and help the company, right? I think most industries evolve towards rewarding performance and,…”
Cohen: A founder's reaction when confronted reveals their true character
“What they say in that moment of integrity is how you can really tell how a person will behave and their value.”
Cohen: Trust between founders and investors is rebuildable if openly discussed
“So again, we all do things wrong, but if I can trust that we're going to be able to talk about that openly, especially in a board or investor context, or this works in personal life as well, Then I think it's easy to rebuild almost no matter what the transgres…”
Cohen: High Confidence with Low Accuracy Makes the Worst Board Member
“And so the worst form of board member is someone with confidently held misinformation, right? Where they believe this is the case and this is how this works, but actually it's high confidence, but low accuracy.”
Cohen: Structure investment terms to test and hedge founder predictions
“So when you're getting a story from the entrepreneurs about what's going to happen, try to find ways to make the terms match that story and the eventuality that that story may not happen.”
Cohen: Early-stage startups should raise 18 to 24 months of runway
“The company has, but I think at the seed stage, I would look for a minimum of 18 months. Today, I prefer two years, actually. So, sort of seed and series A investing.”
David Cohen: Twilio and Uber were Fund 1's first and fourth investments
“The first investment I made was in a company called Twilio. Fourth investment I made was in a company called Uber.”
Techstars requires approval from only one partner for seed investments
“We've maintained, even though we have four partners now working on the larger investments, we've maintained this idea that if somebody gets excited, that's all you need. Go make the seed investment.”
David Cohen invested $50k in Uber after asking for a $100k allocation
“And I said, I was in sitting on that bar stool. I think I asked for a 100,000 dollars. And, you know, cause at the time I think that was the sort of up leveling that we were trying to do in that fund. And I got 50. It's fine. I took 50.”
Techstars invests in roughly 500 startups per year
“We're investing in about 500 companies a year at this point across these 50 accelerators that you mentioned.”
Techstars maintains a 1:1 reserve ratio for larger follow-on investments
“When we do make a larger investment, we actually reserve one-to-one. So for every dollar we put in, we keep a dollar in reserve, and then we, you know, over time sort of reallocate that as needed and think about our reserves as a strategic part of what we do.”
Techstars deploys $50M-$75M annually into accelerator investments alone
“We're investing 50, seventy-five million dollars a year just in the accelerator level plus the fall on capital.”
Three of Techstars' first ten companies were acquired within a year
“Within a year of the first program in 2007, there were three acquisitions, and they were all relatively small. So out of the first 10 companies, you know, social thing was picked up around ten million dollars and a couple other companies had been bought in tha…”
Cohen: Five or six companies from Techstars' 2007 cohort reached exits
“In fact, there's still one company today, you know, from that original class in 2007, that's operating, you know, some have failed. I think there've been five or six exits out of that first 10 companies.”
David Cohen raised $2.5M for Bullet Time Ventures Fund 1 in weeks
“I raised two and a half million almost instantaneously a couple of weeks.”
Cohen targeted 50 fund investments with $50k initial check sizes
“I had a certain size fund, right? I, it was 50 K per check with a double down. So that's 50 investments, right? That's what I wanted in terms of diversification.”