I have a love/hate relationship with NY TechWeek. It feels busy, a distraction. But, there's something magical about having fellow VCs, Founders and Friends in one room. I'll take it- in small doses :) Some highlights and learnings:
1)Raising in 2024: A Founder, A Lawyer and A VC Panel David Silverstein Jack Sousa Kevin Siskar Reid Hamilton & yours truly. Thank you Renee Nalbandyan for coming!
-A conversation on cap tables (SAFEs ⬆️ vs Priced Rounds), investors are asking for more structure (but liq pref has calmed down from the worst)
-Recent shifts in valuations (spoiler, it's hard- graduation rates into A-Rounds are brutal)
-How to stand out: Know your numbers, consistent communication to potential investors, ABC (Always Be Closing)
2)State of AI with Andrew Chen Andreessen Horowitz & Ian Goldstein
-On AI opportunity: There will be 10-12 but core foundational models, but will hit a consolidation point. Next S-curve will be on top of it- founders will build deep verticalized products- some will question value of "GPT-wrappers" but see power of personalization, service, gtm motions
-On regulation: Folks were surprised how tech got this powerful - and felt they were behind on regulation for social, so with AI feel want to get ahead but it’s still too early. If you’re big tech, regulation can actually help because creates a moat since small tech doesn’t have the resources. We need to keep American competitive advantage
-Very hard to create your own waves, can spend billions a year to make something “a thing. AI novelty effect: AI companies now can onboard 1000s of users but then what? Stickiness is key. Enterprise motion or consumer- want to use a product because others use it
3)PEF lunch: continue to be blown away by the quality of the community of Post Exit Founder Group (PEF) Simon Chan Daniel Yuabov Barak Kaufman
4)AI Traiblazers Building AI Startups from Scratch: Vivek Vaidya and Amit Shah
-Unit cost of production has gone down significantly with AI. You can keep output the same & reduce costs/employees OR expand output and keep team. Reality is how many have fired engineers because of AI? 0
-People are moving from POC to production- from science of AI to engineering of AI. Lots of unknowns eg, no one actually knows cost of compute
-Time horizon is better in 6 months than decades- changing too fast
5)Marketing Drivers: Harnessing the Power of AI
Cheryl Guerin Jean-Paul Jansen Jonathan Halvorson, MBA Marisa Thalberg Sophie Kelly Suzanne Vranica,
-Already creating ads with AI (eg. Dog Food ads featuring dogs that are up for adoption, geo-targeted. Personalized birthday songs)
-How does enterprise pick AI partners: You have to assess will win in the long run, who do you trust and who will you work magic with?
6)A Breezin' for NYC #Tech Week Happy Hour Jenny Fielding Nihal Mehta Cat Middleton Tej Bhatia Jenny Friedman Steven Rosenblatt Shai Goldman Galina Ozgur Crystelle Desnoyer Rick Zullo Mike MacCombie Herman Goihman Red Bike Capital