Marisa Poster

17 years of investing and working with founders has shown me that the ones who go on to achieve greatness get the small things right: Note taking: They take a lot of notes, writing everything in meetings down. They also recognise that note taking is a superpower and they not only take notes but circulate the notes to team members, they don't delegate that to a junior. Meeting Rhythm: Instead of adhoc meeting they schedule weekly meetings with various teams and leaders. That way the organisation runs on a rhythm. Being Fair: They avoid favouritism and deal with everyone objectively. Managing their own calendar: They recognise that time is their most important commodity and dont delegate calendar appointments to an assistant. Set KPIs and Frameworks for everything: They measure everything the company and look at those reports weekly and in some cases daily. They also create checklists and frameworks for everything, so that operations and projects execute to a high quality. Read a lot: The best founders read about everything, they know more about their domain than their lawyers, their accountants, heads of marketing, etc. Speak to customers: The best founders make it point to regularly speak to customers every week. They dont outsource this to surveys or reports. They also speak to their team members on the frontlines and not just their department heads. Inbox Clearing : They clear their inbox/whatsapp daily or the next day, making them highly responsive. #Startups #Founders #India

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Let’s be honest. Breaking into venture capital is hard. One of the best ways to make progress is by understanding what you're good at and where you need to improve. From what I’ve seen, and one thing that's been highlighted in the London Venture Capital Network VC Fellowships, is that most successful paths fall into three categories: 1 - Researcher: Possessing a deep understanding of markets and trends, and being able to translate that into valuable reports and memos worth sharing 2 - Community Builder: Someone with a "social bug" who loves the networking aspect and facilitates helpful connections 3 - Investor: finds great deals, secures capital through syndicates, or builds up personal angel investment portfolio to demonstrate a track record I've experimented with all three in different ways. What other paths have you seen? And which one best describes you? To watch the full video on the Nothing Ventured podcast, tune in here: https://lnkd.in/ed4iJZbk #venturecapital #vc

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New episode of The Learning Corner by Precursor Ventures is live! We’ve actually seen another surge in new subscribers and viewers over the last few weeks, and we’re always grateful whenever someone takes the time to give the pod a listen. Mia and I went a bit longer than usual this week, but we had a lot to cover with a stacked lineup of good reads and listens: 💵 The team at Screendoor (Lisa Cawley, CFA, Layne Johnson, and Jamie Rhode, CFA) joined the Superclusters podcast hosted by David Zhou for a Q&A with different GPs calling in. The episode was packed with insights for fund managers at every stage. Mia and I discussed the differences between managing a fund, building a firm, and investing in startup companies, and a few other things I feel everyone who wants to start a venture firm should consider. ⛷️ Ariana F., CEO of Halfdays (a Precursor portfolio company!), published a fantastic piece on the importance of choosing the right capital, not just the first option that comes along. While it can feel exhausting to tread water when runway is tight, jumping into a long-term investor relationship misaligned with your vision can have real consequences. 🚢🆘🛟🚨📢 Lastly, Rob Go released one of the most direct and honest takes I’ve seen on the future of seed VC. We discussed the importance of fund managers continually asking themselves why their theses should exist and recognizing when the window of opportunity may have closed. This feels like a real crucible moment for seed VC firms, and the future is unlikely to look like the past. 🎧 Link in the comments to check out the episode and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts!

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Founders do not discount investors just because their check sizes are small. “But Shuaaaaannnnnn I need $1 million for my AI garlic bread startup, not a $10k check from an angel!” Right, champ. Because obviously you are going to turn down money while building a company that currently lives in a WeWork and runs on free AWS credits. Founders often set a minimum check size. $10k. $20k. $50k. They want to “keep the cap table clean,” or “it is too time consuming to manage multiple investors,” or the classic, “it nudges people to invest more.” That’s a mistake. You can keep your cap table clean with an SPV. You can manage multiple investors with one monthly update email that you already copy-paste anyway. And no, you are not “nudging” anyone to invest more than they want to. If someone is only willing to part with $5k, no amount of your “AI garlic bread TAM analysis” is going to magically make it $50k. By keeping your minimum check size high, you are excluding most of the people in your network. Which is the exact opposite of what you should be doing. Lower your check size and you 10x the pool of people who can participate. You give more people a reason to root for you, to open doors, and to make intros. If it’s good enough for a YC startup, it’s good enough for you. Some of the scrappiest founders out there stacked their seed rounds with dozens of “tiny” checks, and then used those investors as a distribution network to raise bigger ones later. Accept small checks. Put more people in your corner. Build momentum. Use their networks to create new pathways. Because one investor can write you a check. Fifty investors can write you checks and introduce you to the next fifty. And if you are lucky, one of those $10k angels might just bring you the intro that changes everything. After all, AI garlic bread is better when you share it. #startup #founders  #venturecapital

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VC is not a quick money business. It is a decade of pain for a shot at magic. Founders often think investors make money the moment they write a cheque. The reality is the opposite. For the first 7–10 years, most funds see nothing but losses on paper. No exits. No liquidity. Just waiting. The failures show up first. Nine out of ten companies die quickly. The winners? You have to sit on them for a decade before they return anything meaningful. And even then, the “when” and “how” of an exit is never in your hands. Add to that the grind of LP pressure, fundraising cycles, endless diligence, and the sheer uncertainty of exit markets and you see why median VC returns hover around 1–2x. Only the very top funds break out. Everyone else is just surviving. So why do it? Because once in a while, that one company takes off. It creates enough value to make the waiting worth it. At Astir Ventures, we back founders with the clarity and resilience to build those rare companies that justify the entire journey.

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Paul H. Graham's influential essay 'The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups' highlights two opposite fundraising mistakes that both kill startups:   Raising too little money Raising too much money   Raise too little. You run out of runway before hitting meaningful milestones. You're forced into desperate fundraising mode or worse have to shut down just as traction starts.   Raise too much. You lose focus, hire prematurely, and get locked into a trajectory that's wrong for your market. Plus, big rounds mean big expectations and less flexibility to pivot.   The irony is that first-time founders are often the least equipped to make this decision.   What's the right amount?   Not what you think you need. Not what sounds impressive. Just enough to validate your next hypothesis and a realistic buffer.   Then there's investor management. VCs bring more than money. They have opinions, board influence, and growth expectations. Pick the wrong partners or handle them poorly, and your funding amount becomes irrelevant.   My take: Optimize for learning speed, not funding amount. Raise enough to survive your mistakes, but not so much that making them becomes expensive.   Read Paul Graham's complete essay below - it's required reading for any founder.   🔔 P.S. Follow for weekly startup and fundraising insights that save you costly mistakes.   Raising capital? 💸https://foundersuite.com/ for startups 💸https://fundingstack.com/ | Fundingstack for VCs and investors   At only $250/month: Fundingstack gets you access to 267K+ global investors. Or you can send me a direct message with "FREETRIAL," and I'll give you a secret access link.

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VC bros invest in tech bros. Making their bets on who looks like the next Mark Zuckerberg. But they’re leaving a HUGE opportunity on the table… Female founders now represent 24% of all EXITS, yet still only receive 2% of venture capital funding (per PitchBook). Forced to create capital efficient companies — female founders do more with less. Consistently burning 15% less capital than male founded companies. Christina Cacioppo, founder of Vanta, for example, just raised $150M at a $4.15B valuation and still hasn’t touched the round she raised last year. Even with the massive funding gap, female founders are building massive businesses… 💫 Canva, founded by Melanie Perkins, was most recently valued at $26B 💫 poppi, founded by Allison Ellsworth, sold to Pepsi for $1.95B  💫 Deel, founded by Shuo Wang, was most recently valued at $12B And the list goes on… Just imagine the exit numbers if more capital was deployed to female founders. To close the funding gap, we need more women in check writing positions to decide WHO gets funded. It's exciting to see the progress we've made here over the past decade... 💫 17% of decision-making roles at US-based VC firms are now held by women (up from just 6% in 2014) 💫 Women now represent nearly 50% of all angel investors! ...but there is clearly WAY more progress to be made! I founded Brydge Club to be part of that change. We're now a community of 500+ female angels claiming our seat on the cap table and deciding who gets funded. Drop your email in the comments (or send me a DM) if you want to join us! Shoutout and thank you to Female Founders Fund for highlighting many of these stats in their recent 2025 Review of Funding for Female Founders! (*Linked in the comments below)

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29% of startups fail simply because they run out of money. The real killer isn't always a lack of funding—it's a fundamental confusion between SPEND and BURN that I see in founder pitches every single week. Here's the €400 million mistake: → SPEND = cash leaving your account monthly → REVENUE = cash coming into your account monthly → BURN = SPEND minus REVENUE Sounds simple? Yet I've watched promising startups torpedo their fundraising by reporting €180k monthly SPEND as their burn rate whilst ignoring €45k in monthly revenue. That's not just bad accounting—it's hiding 25% of your financial reality from investors. The consequences are brutal: 🚧 Miscalculated runway by 2-3 months 💰30-40% valuation differences 😵 Deals killed in due diligence 🔥 Fire sale fundraising instead of strategic rounds After seeing too many founders stumble on this basic distinction, I've written a comprehensive guide covering: ✅ How VCs actually evaluate burn during diligence ✅ The exact formulas that matter for runway calculation ✅ Tools the best startups use for financial tracking ✅ Why this determines your entire strategic trajectory The European startup ecosystem deserves founders who understand their numbers. This isn't optional—it's existential. #StartupFinance #VentureCapital #Entrepreneurship #StartupMetrics #FounderEducation #EuropeanStartups

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