Angel investor Jason Van Gaal discusses his age preferences when evaluating early-stage founders.
Opinion
Van Gaal: Blitzscaling applies to only 2-3% of startups, not 90%
“I mean, blitzscaling is a great book. And my biggest takeaway from that book is you want to spend as little time as possible blitzscaling. And I think a lot of people have gone away from that kind of core fundamental point of that book. There are times we need…”
Insight
Van Gaal: Startups with six months runway should spend four fixing metrics
“I think now Jason would kind of say is like, okay, you got six months left. What can you get done in the next four months that makes your company stronger that gives you highest probability of success to close in six months and focus a 150% of your energy on g…”
Insight
Van Gaal: Shareholder infighting destroys companies and justifies equal share classes
“Shareholder infighting can kill, destroy companies, and, you know, we had some of that in our second company, so I really just wanted equality across the cap table. You know, one class to share”
Insight
Van Gaal: Strategic acquirers sometimes pay premiums for customer concentration
“And there's advantages to you know, customer concentration as well, like, you can create synergies, some, sometimes an acquirer will pay a premium to have Revenue from one specific customer because they want that individual as a customer and it blends well int…”
Disclosure
Van Gaal prefers investing in founders without prior large financial exits
“So we actually, contrary to a lot of people, would prefer that they not have had a large, successful exit. Like, enough money to, you know, buy a house is okay.”
Insight
Van Gaal: Startup CEOs must match the company's core bottleneck
“And for those companies, I want to see a marketing founder lead the company because that is the most critical problem for that company to solve. And then there's tech companies, which like, There's a lot of technology risks, but if you can build this thing, it…”