Paraj Mathur

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Latest — Jun 3, 2024

Early Stage VC Incentives

Humans are addicted to short feedback loops. Make a post, and get likes. Air-ball a shot, try to adjust your shooting motion slightly on the next one. But not everything can have a desirable, super short feedback loop. Think about parenting. It's hard to measure, and the measurement

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The Mirage of Angel Investing

The exuberant funding environment resulting from ZIRP had an under-examined second order effect. A rapid rise in new angel investors. Abundant capital at nosebleed valuations created mouthwatering paper returns. Even CPG companies were getting tech multiples. It was so widespread that non-participation felt irresponsible, borderline stupid. Anyone with disposable income,

Reflections

I remember the day I signed my offer letter. A fresh faced college senior ready to move to SF and jump headfirst into the world of venture capital. It was like winning a lottery ticket. I intended to take full advantage of this opportunity and dove headfirst into building my

The AI Paradox for VC

The launch of ChatGPT has sparked a wave of excitement around AI’s potential. In just two months, it has grown to 100M users globally, making it the fastest growing consumer product in history. It’s captured the imagination of everyday consumers and businesses alike on creative ways to leverage

The Marketplace Equation

All businesses hit a plateau. Growth stalls. Revenue and usage curves start to flatten. For some businesses, this happens pre-product-market fit, some right after, and others at scale. Sometimes it’s a function of uncertain macroeconomic conditions. Sometimes it is intrinsic to the product or the business model. It’s

Post Seed Purgatory

In the past 12 months, the public markets are a sea of red. While the S&P500 is “only” down 17% this year, the Nasdaq is down 30%. Tech stocks have been the hardest hit. Even the esteemed FAANGs have not been spared. Apple, the darling of the public

Product Metrics for Early Stage Startups

Startups exist to build products to solve problems. While revenue is an oft-used yardstick to measure the effectiveness of a solution, analyzing product usage behaviors is the most important direct indicator of how much customers love your product. When I am digging into a company, I usually like to deep

Demystifying VC Diligence

Fundraising is hard. The monotony of cold outreach, the sudden rush when an investor responds, and the adrenaline of pitching your life’s passion on a 13 inch monitor, or if you are lucky, a coffee shop. Constantly pitching your idea, your baby, that you are spending every waking moment

Negative Network Effects

Airbnb, Dropbox, Fortnite, Facebook, Whatsapp all, other than being massive businesses with hundreds of millions of users, have something in common. Their success is driven by network effects. Network effects provide the biggest defensible moat in the digital world. Not only that, they also account for over 70% of the

A Day In The Life of a Junior Investor

The most common question I get from aspiring VCs — how do you spend your time on an average day? While days can vary wildly depending on deals in motion, I wanted to share what a typical day might look like. Venture is one of those industries that is “always on”