Alex Chepovoi

How does Lovable balance a great user experience with actually paying their bills? In this TWiST highlight, Lovable CEO Anton Osika swings by the show to take me and Alex Wilhelm inside his fast-growing vibecoding startup. Obviously, founders like Anton are all about providing a great user experience… but the compute bills for providing AI tools like Lovable’s aren’t exactly cheap. Go inside Anton’s process, considering his Big Picture goals for the company, and how to balance the needs of the Lovable faithful with his duty to investors and staff to actually build a sustainable business. It’s the kind of in-depth, nuts and bolts, founder-focused discussion you can ONLY GET from “This Week in Startups.”

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Three kinds of AI startups I’m especially excited to invest in and work with these days: 1. The Surprisingly Valuable Niche Workflow — small enough for OpenAI not to care about; big enough to make $100M per year. Sooo so many opportunities out there, from logistics to finance to healthcare to construction to manufacturing and on and on. 2. The Full-Stack Software Company — founders are realizing they can move up the value chain, to not just sell software to other businesses, but use their own software to provide end solutions to customers. Our own portfolio has inspired us here, from industrial solutions to life science to agrochemical to admin services and more. 3. The Bold Consumer Bet — it’s time for a new generation of consumer mainstays that are AI-native and fit the way people use software today. We don’t often invest in consumer apps, but we have seen great examples of this in language learning, personal finance, fashion, dating, social, messaging, etc. All three are great examples of building at new frontiers of the software-addressable economy, where advances in AI have opened up new opportunities for software founders. A good litmus test for this thesis: “If I had this idea 5 years ago, could I build it?” If the answer is no or maybe, you’re on the frontier. If you’re building something cool in one of these areas — or anywhere else on frontiers of the software-addressable economy — please get in touch with us at character.vc We’d love to learn from you. And we’d love to share how we help founders bridge the gap from possible to PMF in these categories.

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🔥 A DeFi protocol with ~11 employees is now doing more volume than Robinhood, and you have never heard of it. It's called HyperLiquid and its the most important platform in finance right now. In traditional finance, scale and infrastructure usually come with headcount, compliance layers, and media attention. Hyperliquid flips that model on its head. Running a decentralized trading platform that completely changes how markets function. Built on its own purpose built Ethereum like blockchain, it facilitates high frequency derivatives trading with the efficiency of Nasdaq, but no custodial risk, corporate bottlenecks, or 'trading hours". The numbers are hard to ignore: 💰 $400 billion in montly trading. 💰 $106 million in monthly revenue (August 2025) 💰 More volume than Robinhood in July, with 90% fewer employees But what’s even more interesting is the governance. Hyperliquid runs with no venture capital and minimal marketing. It aligns directly with its users and validators through onchain incentives and decentralized governance. It's token went primarily to traders and early participants, not insiders. It’s lean. It’s efficient. and run on a new kind of exchange infrastructure which is global, real-time, and fully programmable. Why it matters: - For allocators, it represents a working model of what next gen financial rails will look like, lower cost, higher throughput, 24/7, and with full transparency. - For infrastructure investors, it’s a signal that Crypto is maturing to take over TradFi. The core question is what happens when markets no longer have gatekeepers? All of this builds up to something bigger. In my next post, I’ll unpack how Hyperliquid is the future of growth and power distribution through incentive alignment, and how WallStreet might actually be rekt.

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A Founder should prepare a Data Room like this for easy access to their documents. Always remember that an organized and well-prepared Data Room shows you are professional, transparent, and ready to scale, which eventually speeds up the due diligence process. Some Points to note while preparing a Data Room: 1. Structure it clearly: use separate folders for different sections like Company Formation Documents, Financials, CapTable, Customer Details, Patents, etc. 2. Make sure that all documents are updated and accurate 3. For Security purpose, try to use a trusted platform with access controls 4. Only include necessary documents Here is a simple structure to get you started (see attached image for reference) 1. Company Summary: Pitch Deck, One Pager 2. Company Documents: Incorporation documents, Shareholders Agreements 3. Team: Contracts & ESOP, Advisors 4. Client Details: Contracts, Pipeline, Usage Data, Market Research 5. Legal: Technology & Security Agreements, Patents/ Trademarks, Insurance, Policies, Additional Agreements 6. Investment Documents- CapTable status, Investment Documents (SAFE, Convertible Note) 7. Financials- Budget, Financial Projections Credit: yana_vc, Pretiosum Ventures ~~~~~ ♻️ Found this helpful? Repost it so your network can learn from it, too. And follow me, Fazlur Shah, for more content like this. #startups #entrepreneurship #venturecapital #investing

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The best startup ideas and the worst startup ideas have one thing in common: most investors they ask for money from will say no. Fundraising mostly sucks. It’s hard to maintain conviction when the majority of people you talk to don’t believe in your business the same way you do. But the biggest difference I’ve seen between the people who raise money and the ones who don’t is the ability to change nothing after getting a no. They might tweak their story if they realize they left out important info or said something confusing, but they don’t slow down. I recently heard a great definition of resilience: “how fast you resume normal behavior after something negative happens.” So if you’ve been getting no’s, remember each no is one no closer to a yes. And if you need a second pair of eyes on your materials, feel free to shoot me a DM with your deck attached and I'm happy to send some feedback. #startups #venture #fundraising #pitching #founders #VC #tech

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Myth #1 about Venture Studios “Studio investors are also funding the studio’s operating costs.” False. In a dual-entity model, investors don’t fund costs they build equity. Here’s how it works: suppose the Studio holds 30% of each startup. If the Fund owns 35% of the Studio, then the annual capital deployed into the Studio translates into roughly 10.5% ownership in every new venture. This isn’t an additional cost it’s an alternative cost of equity creation. The cost per equity point is actually lower than what a traditional VC pays to acquire stakes on the open market, often in startups that are not yet validated. And there’s more. Each startup built through the Studio generates learning, improving the quality of every subsequent venture. At the same time, the Studio itself accumulates assets, processes, and capabilities that create residual value making the Studio itself a valuable, sellable entity. Studio investors, therefore, are not paying for operations. They are backing an investment thesis: building equity instead of buying it.

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