The advice I most often give to anyone building consumer products: Reduce time-to-magic. Your product can be complicated under the hood, but to the user it should feel simple, delightful, and magical — as fast as possible. Some examples: • Tik Tok allegedly boosts a user’s first post, making the user feel the magic of distribution without the pain of building a following. • Uber subsidized the supply side of the market so that a user could hail a car in minutes. • Tinder first populated the app at USC by paying Sorority members to create profiles, overcoming the empty-room problem. A good way to improve time-to-magic is to ruthlessly reduce friction in your onboarding. Try to give as much value as possible upfront.

“A unicorn is now your average Wednesday” More than ever, venture is a power law business. Good read for founders and investors👇

Was using ChatGPT and Claude on a deck design and then switched to @trymoda. Moda is SO much better. It's purpose built for the job. The time to magic is incredible. If you're working on a deck, give it a try. You're welcome.

Happy birthday, America. You don't look a day over 200! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Founders, leave these phrases out of your pitch: - Truly - Genuinely - If I'm being honest... Honesty is expected. No need to announce it.

One of the best parts of working in venture is meeting builders like @MansteinGeorg Here he is showing me the autonomous golf cart he's been building at Stanford Fun product, great execution, and very nice of him to let me sign my name next to Sam Altman and Jensen Huang's on the dashboard

Drone window washing = new HVAC rollup

Building a startup is lonely. Hosting a poker night in SF this week: • 100+ founders & builders • A few who are already iconic, many who will be • Winner gets VIP World Cup tickets (USA vs Turkey) Want to join? Link below / DM me

Once in a while, you meet a true craftsperson. Someone who takes deep pride in their work. Someone who turns function into art. It was clear from the first minute I met @anvisha, she’s one of them. Excited to share that @pearvc backed her new company, @trymoda. Moda is a beautiful product. It gives more people the ability to create design work that actually feels… crafted. In a world of increasing AI slop, craft stands out more than ever. Everyone I’ve sent Moda to has become a power user. Nearly every founder in the Pear portfolio, and every partner, has organically started using it for deck design. Grateful to @anvisha and @ravisparikh for putting something this thoughtful into the world.

82% of success is just not getting distracted by LinkedIn success advice

Exceptional pre-seed founders wanted. Low wages. Consistent doubt. Hazardous journey. Ferocious competition. Long months wandering pre-PMF. Honor and recognition in case of success. Camaraderie regardless.

3 takeaways for founders from @stanleytang (DoorDash co-founder) that stuck with me from last night's AMA: 1. Follow your curiosity The idea for DoorDash came to Stanley and Tony inside a macaroon shop. The phone rang. The owner answered it and looked disappointed after the call. Stanley asked her about it (he was curious)... it was a delivery order that she couldn't fill. Stanley spun up a simple website listing 8 restaurants and a Google Voice number. 45 minutes after launching it, someone called. Stanley and Tony made the delivery themselves. "The guy sounded really hungry for pad thai." 🍜 2. Investors often miss the best ideas In 2013, IRL delivery logistics wasn't a hot category. DoorDash struggled to raise funding. Fun insider fact: they were largely considered one of the worst companies in their YC batch. But luckily @pejmannozad and a handful of other contrarian investors bucked the doubters and wrote DoorDash an early check. 3. The best-funded companies don't always win When Uber entered the delivery market in 2016 with billions in capital, DoorDash didn’t try to outspend. They focused on execution, shaving seconds off deliveries, and improving logistics zipcode by zipcode. Constraints forced them to make better decisions. There are many categories today where it seems the winner has already been decided. History shows that consensus is often the moment of max opportunity. Also, heads up, Stanley is very good at poker.

Me when I hear your consumer product is growing organically 10% week over week

Being a founder is lonely in a very specific way. You’re often the only person in the room who sees the thing you’re trying to build. That’s why I’m a believer in small, cohort-based programs early on, and why I love spending time on PearX, Pear’s pre-seed program. PearX isn’t about flash. It’s about increasing the odds of success: help with hiring, product and distribution, and a small group (20–30) of founders going through the same painful 0-1 early phase together. I’m especially excited about B2C and B2B2C teams who ship fast, learn from users, and think seriously about defensibility (too few consumer founders think about this). If you’re building something ambitious and early, check out PearX. Apps just opened.

ChatGPT opening up ads = the biggest consumer distribution shift since TikTok. Consumer founders, get ready

The swipe era of dating is coming to an end. Congrats @Celesteamadon on today's SF launch! Single people check it out 👇

Product idea for X: a native prediction tool for how well your post will perform before you Post. @nikitabier wdyt? Asking for a friend who's frustrated because they're not getting the engagement they used to. It's not me. I'm very good at X.

Small teams can accomplish so much in 12 weeks. Congrats to the 18 pre-seed teams that just completed PearX, Pear's small-batch accelerator. From expanding access to dermatologists, to de-risking the electrical grid, to sending more people on dates, these founders are pushing society forward. 👇