Everything Aaron Stachel said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Stachel: Pre-Seed Founders Are Best Served by Local Partners
“We have a geographic thesis that you can build great companies anywhere. And that at the pre-seed sort of first check stage, you know, you're best served with a local partner.”
Stachel: Injecting large capital into early startups defeats the purpose of seed
“You get these big funds injecting large amounts of capital into these very early companies, which sort of defeats the purpose of seed. Where, you know, our whole idea is like we take a capital efficient team, give them enough money to go run their experiments,…”
Stachel: Colorado produced half a dozen multi-billion dollar startups since 2015
“There's half a dozen sort of privately held multi-billion dollar companies in Colorado that were started around that time, and we're fortunate to be in at least one of them.”
Stachel: Founders must handle sales directly to capture vital market feedback
“A founder, they may not love doing sales, but the feedback that they get by getting in front of a customer in hearing what message resonates with them. Are they going to buy if they don't buy why? You know, what is their reason for not buying and getting that …”
Stachel: Startups should invest in sales when the CEO becomes the bottleneck
“They're doing the whole thing from front to back, and it's when they can no longer handle that volume, it's like, okay, they're starting to find product market fit, and we can start to spend a little bit more on sales.”
Stachel: Hiring salespeople before establishing a playbook is usually rough
“Those people are really good at what they do, but they often don't want to build a playbook. You know, they want to come in and execute a playbook, you know, generate sales, generate commissions, you know, generate growth. That sort of nebulous stage when you'…”
Stachel: FirstMile passes on incremental 'AI-enabled X' pitches
“We're getting lots of pitch decks where it's, you know, AI-enabled X kind of Pitches, where it's sort of like, ah, the way we used to do it, but a little bit better and faster which those generally are not interesting to us.”
Stachel: AI will enable founders to drive big traction on small funding
“We think that AI is going to kind of enable sort of this next generation of capital efficient founder that can take a small amount of money, Generate lots of traction.”
Stachel: Founder Storytelling Outweighs Pure Tech in Early-Stage Startup Success
“The tech is, is, is extremely important, but all of our best investments, you know, I could understand what they were trying to do and the opportunity and, Get excited about it in that sort of first meeting because the people were so good at sort of articulati…”
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