Ryan Shank and co-speakers cover startup basics: their product needs international phone numbers beyond the hard-coded US ones on Twilio, pitch decks can make or break fund deals, and a new tool called VC Finder lists New York venture firms. Ryan spends most of the vlog ranting about honesty in business, arguing founders should build legitimate products instead of taking illegal shortcuts, even if they seem faster.
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be more successful and get further doing an honest thing. Like, I don't get it. And if you're watching, you know exactly what I'm talking about and you're fucked up. Everything I'm going to show you is hardcoded US numbers, but we have the international numbers. We built on top of Twilio, so we're going to be able to manually, like, put in the numbers into your account. The typical workflow is you can obviously create it yourself. We have this hard-coded with US numbers, so we're gonna have to add the numbers and create the pool.
They're trying to get LPs on board with the message of like consistency and rigor and focus, and yes, they'll have all of that, but they especially have to have that right at the beginning. So even if they're warehousing, they might not make bets, but they might sort of halfway through the fund.
The other thing that I should mention as a resource is we set up something because it's good for New York. We set up something that's a community resource, but it's called VC Finder, and it lists Miss all the VCs in New York.
I would say in general, like this is a mistake I made as a founder, and I think our first phrase is spend more time than you think in the prep process. It's like everyone wants to close their round as fast as possible. I think the best way to do that is spend a lot of time in prep. Like make, like spend a lot of time on your deck. Decks always take longer than they, than you expect them to. And you can't close the deal with the deck, but you can certainly lose an investment from the deck. It's like the triathlon analogy where you can't win the race in the swim, but you can definitely lose it.
What's up guys? Uh, some fucked up shit happened today. You guys will see it in 2 days when it comes out. It sucks. It's things that happen, I guess, when you're doing a startup. But like, it didn't even ha— no, this doesn't happen. It's not normal. Kind of like super weird and it's like stealing and, uh, dishonest and it's a waste of time and it's a waste of money, it's a waste of resources. And you could actually just accomplish the same things if you didn't do that. Actually more things legitimately if you didn't do that, which is gonna be my rant today. Not my rant, my daily advice today that you can do things like you can make money doing legitimate things and it's more sustainable than you can if you do bad things. And I remember when I was like in middle school, I was actually in trouble. So I was in my room and I was like angry and I was like, man, like what do I wanna do? Blah, blah, blah. And I was like, man, I should like sell weed, you know? And I was like totally like thinking I should sell weed, but then I was thinking in my head like no one ever makes it that does that. And it's like I could just have a different product that I sell and I could make the same amount of money. Granted, like margins aren't— might not be as big, but it's like it'll last longer. And the point is that like if you can sell one thing, you can sell another thing. And it's like if you're smart enough to figure out how to either like— not— I don't want to say scam, but it's like if you're smart enough to do something like you just figure it out and create systems around it and do like that with a product that is either illegal or not morally good, it's like you can do that with a good product. Just have a good product that you actually push instead of pushing this like bad stuff and having this bad energy into the world, and then you're gonna be able to, you know, like feel good about yourself and walk and like have better thoughts and like all this stuff. And I don't understand like why people choose to like go down that path because it like literally makes no sense rationally. But I guess that's the problem is that people are not rational, so they don't understand and they don't like think about it like that. They're like have this like one-track mind where they're like, yeah, this is a good idea, I should like do this, and they don't— they aren't able to come out of it and and see the big picture or just like see things for what they are and rationally. Granted, like, you know, arguably startups aren't rational and things like that, and you're going against the odds. Like, you should be able to do stuff that you know morally is not wrong. It's not wrong. And I know I'm being like kind of vague right now, and you guys will see it. It's fucking crazy. Why would you do that? Why? Why would you go down this path when you could just sell something? And I'm not talking about selling stuff necessarily, but it's like Don't do something that's dishonest when you can just be more successful and get further doing an honest thing. Like, I don't get it. And if you're watching, you know exactly what I'm talking about, and you're fucked up. I'll see you guys tomorrow. Bye.
