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Alströmer: Founders should stash half their funding in a secondary account

Gustaf Alströmer · The Right (And Wrong) Way To Spend Money At Your Startup · Y Combinator · Feb 12, 2025 · at 6:01

Gustaf Alströmer, Y Combinator Group Partner, outlines psychological tactics for early-stage founders to curb burn rates.

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“And the second thing is to have two bank accounts and you put half of the money in the other one, pretend like you don't have it. And then like you look at your bank account and be like, oh, I actually only have half the money that I raised.”

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