Bruno Rigonatti

This part of my conversation with Joao Barbosa, co-founder at the world’s leading wellness platform Gympass (now Wellhub) valued at $2.4 is a testament to the fact that nothing big actually started big 👇 It took Gympass 5 pivots and 2 near death experiences to find the business model that works and is scalable across the globe What I found really interesting is the framework that the team had around pivots - the tripod approach towards creating value. This approach could benefit many founders especially in marketplace kinda businesses Head over to our channels on Spotify, Apple and YouTube to watch / listen to the full conversation link in comment 🔗 The J Curve #thejcurvepodcast #podcastrecommendation #gympass #pivot #entrepreneurship #founder #venturecapital

55

6 Comments

It was an absolute pleasure to sit down with Joao Barbosa, co-founder at the world's leading corporate wellness platform Gympass(now rebranded to Wellhub) for the most recent episode of The J Curve. Five big ideas from our convo 👇💡 1️⃣ Startup pivot is not an event, it’s a process Base your decision on data, customer feedback and other validated learnings. Establish clear KPIs that will guide decision-making and define what should success look like. Be prepared to test and iterate and test again. Flexibility, adaptability and sensitivity to feedback is key 2️⃣ Building a MOAT, or competitive advantage is essential for a startup to compete and sustain growth In Wellhub case the moat is network effect. It’s difficult and expensive to build (CAC was huge) but at scale it represents a huge barrier to exit for corporate clients 3️⃣ Put a lot of thought into pricing model, especially if you operate in a B2B segment Early-stage founders frequently under-price their offering. Once you land 1-2-year enterprise contracts, changing the price will be problematic 4️⃣ International expansion has to be carefully planned and executed post-product market fit Ideally once you have already significantly penetrated your domestic market and gained a clear understanding of how / why every dollar you spend internationally will deliver you more money than if you were to spend it domestically 5️⃣ Standardized processes are at the core of building teams at scale When you hire 100 people a month it’s not about keeping the bar high but about creating a clear set of rules to evaluate the performance and hire and fire fast You can listen to my full conversation with Joao by searching The J Curve Podcast on Youtube, Spotify and Apple Podcast For deeper insights into this conversation + some of my favorite listens and reads of this week check out our newsletter link in comment 🔗

64

6 Comments

I'm looking forward to speaking at this conference on the confluence of law, tech, advocacy and policy and how new innovation centers like the Berkeley Space Center can reinvent the way we tackle hard problems. Berkeley Center for Law and Business, #gobears

12

Super helpful article and accompanying doc with a #Startup #Equity Calculator to determine the equity for early hires, thanks to Pear VC head of talent Matt Birnbaum! Thanks for sharing Pejman Nozad! 🙏🏼 You can read more here How to structure startup equity for early hires: https://lnkd.in/ggmpT5-Y Google Doc: https://lnkd.in/gjsvths6

30

1 Comment

Want a front-row seat to the frontier of tech? We’ve got the role (or two) for you! We’re expanding our frontier-tech team at Blackbird by hiring a Frontier Tech Investments Associate and Foundry Fellows! Got questions? We've got answers... 1️⃣ What are the roles? 🧪 Associate = a full-time VC investment gig in our Blackbird Investments team, working directly with me. We’re looking for someone with a science and/or engineering background and more curiosity than they can handle. You’ll grow your own investment brand and practice, support our portfolio founders, and will help build Foundry, our early-stage frontier-tech accelerator. ✨ Foundry Fellow = a casual/contract gig in our Blackbird Investments team, ~15h per week for 3 months. The Fellowship is ideal for PhD students and ECRs who want to learn more about startups and VC. You’ll go deep on emerging areas relevant to your expertise (or curiosity!), get a front-row seat to groundbreaking companies in those areas, build out your non-academic network, and develop a solid writing practice. 2️⃣ Why are you hiring? We love frontier tech, and we’re ready to grow our team. 3️⃣ Wow, it’s so great that you’re starting to look at deep tech! Look, we get it: we don’t make a lot of noise about our frontier tech investing. Buuuut we’ve been deep-tech investors since we backed Tim Kentley-Klay to found Zoox back in 2014—we’ve been on incredible journeys with PsiQuantum (building the world's first utility-scale quantum computer right here in Australia!), Inventia Life Science (transforming drug discovery with high-fidelity cell models), Remedy Robotics (surgical robots for remote endovascular procedures), Opto Biosystems (minimally-invasive neural implants to treat cancer), and more. We believe that frontier technologies, and great frontier-tech investing, will be part of the solutions to the greatest problems humanity faces today. 4️⃣ When do applications close? May 31st at 11:59pm AEST. 5️⃣ I have more questions! I’m sure you do! Clare Birch and I are hosting an AMA to answer any and all questions about these roles. Want to know what a week in the life of our team looks like? What’s keeping us up at night? What our ideal candidate looks like? Come along and find out - registration link in the comments 👇 Apply for these roles: Associate - https://lnkd.in/gCfj4EUJ Foundry Fellowships - https://lnkd.in/gj6ATZVZ If you know anyone that we should meet, send me their details! Cameron Elise Ben Andrew Robin Joseph Adelaide James Olivia Lucinda Raghav Jesse Christie Mohamed Tom Amee Pablo Haya Loong Hon Joshua Benjamin Megan Harry Denzil Matthew Diana Daniel Tom Deanna Justin Amar Lilly Stone Thomas

114

4 Comments

‌I recently returned from spending a week in São Paulo, where I had the pleasure of visiting friends and loved ones. In addition to reconnecting, I engaged in productive discussions with founders, fellow venture capitalists, and other asset allocators. ✈ 👨‍💻 👊 The trip was filled with great meetings, offering valuable insights and market perspectives on early-stage venture capital and the fintech ecosystem in Brazil. 🎯 🌎 💡 #VCs #earlystage #investments #networking

57

2 Comments

>>> How can SaaS companies future-proof their fundraising <<< I had the pleasure to speak with Adina Davis from BoxGroup, Nancy Chou from Asymmetric, Camila Key Saruhashi from Construct Capital and Philip Edmondson-Jones from Oxx during our panel on fundraising last Tuesday. A ton of great insights from the panelists after having been many years in the SaaS industry as investors, operators and advisors! We’ll be sharing some insights in the coming days, starting with: 🔷 Current Industry Trends 🔷 🔹In the US, SaaS companies are finally coming out of a two-year dip in funding and growth. Startups in the top quartile are still getting high valuations, but for growing companies, especially companies looking to secure series B funding, the bar is higher. Both equity and debt funding avenues look for stand-out efficiency, excellent product-market fit, and scalability. 🔹In Europe, upcoming funding rounds indicate a slightly more positive fundraising environment for growing SaaS companies. 🌏 Globally, many company metrics have taken a hit due to the macroeconomic environment, which can make it more difficult to meet the VC standards required to secure funding. 🔹That said, some of today’s most exciting and innovative startups received game-changing funding over the last couple years, and with more funding options entering the mainstream, companies have an opportunity to complement their capital stack through alternative means. #growthcapital #saasgrowth #venturecapital

48

1 Comment

Given the recent debate over fundraising success via VC analysts vs. VC partners, we thought this would be a timely post. If you follow this process, maximize your "checking" of all these boxes, and tell a clear and consistent story throughout, it shouldn't matter who you speak with first. Read on to learn more on how to do that.

50

19 Comments

[SOBRE A VISAO DE PERENIDADE] It doesn’t matter about the markups: IPO is actually just a milestone, not the end game. IPO is the beginning for public investors to come along for the ride. So if you think longer term, valuations going up or down temporarily doesn’t matter as much as generating a big outcome at the end. Whatever it takes to scale the business is what the company, the founders and board need to focus on doing to manage the business the best they can every step of the way. Founders don’t realize that this choice is not between shutting down and doing a down round. In that situation, you will choose a down-round every single time. The challenge is when you are faced with the prospect of holding on to a valuation, or raising a down round. If you don’t do it, you run the risk of shutting down later. But if you’re close to shutting down, no one’s gonna invest in you. https://lnkd.in/dc8iU5jA

9

Super helpful #Startup #Equity Calculator to determine the equity for early hires, thanks to Pear VC head of talent Matt Birnbaum! Thanks for sharing Pejman! 🙏🏼 You can read more here How to structure startup equity for early hires: https://lnkd.in/ggmpT5-Y Google Doc: https://lnkd.in/gjsvths6

13

We announced the NYU Tandon Future Labs Catalyst NYC 2024 cohort! 15 pre-seed startups will join the program after intensive 2 weeks of interviewing over 50 companies. A few things that I've learned during the interviewing process: 👉 In-person makes the difference - we conducted most of the interviews in person. Seeing the team dynamic, being able to show the space, and having those small talks that will not always happen on Zoom, really makes the difference.  👉 Is it all about money? As I don’t think that money should be the first motivation to build a startup, not caring about money is a red flag. Building a successful for-profit company that will financially benefit the founders should be a goal to be motivated by.  👉 It takes a village - I appreciate founders who know the limitations of their skills, know what help they need, and appreciate learning about help that they don’t know that they need. I can not wait to start the program and work with so many great founders!

77

4 Comments

On May 2, 2024 REFASHIOND Ventures: The Industrial Transformation Fund convened people from around the world for Supply Chain & Industrial Transformation: The Next Generation (Silicon Valley 2024) at the JP Morgan Chase Palo Alto Technology Center in Palo Alto, CA. Lisa Morales-Hellebo and I want to extend our deep gratitude and appreciation to Melanie Hilton, Michelle Covey, Jess Urriola, Amy Reiter, and Vivian Tai from GS1 US for sponsoring that event, and our other event on May 3 in San Francisco. In this clip from Thursday, May 2, Melanie, Senior Vice President, Community Engagement at GS1 US tells our guests about GS1 US and welcomes them to the gathering. Our Investment Thesis: REFASHIOND Ventures: The Industrial Transformation Fund invests in early stage startups refashioning legacy industries through Data & AI, Advanced Materials, Advanced Manufacturing, & Next Generation Supply Chains; Defensible through economic moats. About GS1 US; GS1 US® helps companies power their supply chains to deliver safe, consistent, authentic, and trusted experiences. Best known as the recognized source for UPC barcodes, GS1 is a not-for-profit, global data standards organization that creates the common language that helps companies and their trading partners identify, capture, and share trusted data that links their physical and digital supply chains. Millions of businesses around the world power commerce with GS1 Standards. More than 300,000 members across 25 industries turn to GS1 US® for help with improving operations, addressing today’s industry challenges and changing market conditions, and positioning their businesses for tomorrow by leveraging GS1 Standards. #SCITSV2024

21

1 Comment

The next great VCs in Latin America are being founded today. If this is the best time to invest in startups, it’s also the best time to launch a new VC firm. Unlike the easy money of 2020-2021, today’s climate demands grit and ingenuity. To make things harder, everyone is raising in Latin America, from established firms to emerging GPs. Back then, it was easier to raise a first fund but also, a terrible time to deploy capital. Today, if you can bring a fresh perspective, assemble a stellar team, and raise $5-10M, this is your moment. Excited to co-invest with these bold VC founders!

294

21 Comments

Here’s a question investors are often asked: When evaluating early stage companies, how much time do you spend on due diligence around future exits? It’s not surprising we hear this question a lot. Also not surprising: it’s got a wide range of answers depending on the firm. Some don’t spend much time here at all. Others make it a point to put meaningful time in as part of their process. Our current thinking: take the time to do the work on public market comps. At Alpaca VC, we spend significant time understanding how public market investors will  realistically value a business based on margin profile, product, business model & TAM. In short, we want to know: how will this company be valued at scale when we get taken out? Yes, we can acknowledge that the journey toward exit is a windy road and that there may be pivots along the way, but there are still public market companies that have a business model similar to the early stage company you're evaluating. And you can always look at gross profit multiples if you think the margin profile will change over time. So we still do the work on the comps. Quantitative metrics we look at when making the comparison to public market comps include EBITDA multiple, revenue multiple, Gross Profit multiple or all of the above. As part of this process, it’s also important to factor in the public market company’s year-over-year revenue growth as this will also significantly impact the multiple it trades at. Simple example: if you have two public market companies with similar business models and similar margin profiles, but one's growing 100% year over year, and one's growing 50% year over year, then obviously the DCF (discounted cash flow) analysis is going to spit out a very different valuation for the one that's growing faster. Why this matters: When you take all of that information into account as you evaluate an early stage business, you can begin to create a realistic picture of how this company will be valued in the public markets at exit - or how an acquirer will value the company for an acquisition. Strategic acquirers may, of course, pay a premium, but we won’t underwrite for that. This allows us, for example, to form conviction around valuation based on revenue and gross profit predictions. If we think they can do $100M of revenue five years from now, we use this diligence process to form a thesis about whether the characteristics above (product, margin, business model, etc.) will cause the company to be valued at $200M vs. $500M vs. $1B at exit. Curious how other early stage investors think about underwriting an exit and how much time they’re spending on public market comps even though these companies are in their infancy.

39

3 Comments

Red eye flights are cool, three learnings from the VC Platform Global Summit, and a special curtain call. I had the opportunity to spend the last few days with 500+ #VCPlatform professionals from around the globe. Sandwiched between my son’s basketball tournament (GO GOLD!), a red-eye to Miami, and my daughter’s 4th grade play, the VC Platform Global Community Annual Summit is an event I look forward to every single year. The growth of this community is something that is so special to have witnessed since I joined in 2017. We’ve gone from a small handful of people in a single conference room to a multi-track event touching all aspects of Platform. I walk away feeling as though I learn as much as I share. And while these lessons aren’t specifically Platform specific, they are things that I walked away with in order to be a better manager (and human being)! Here are some of the highlights: ❤️ Lesson 1: Take a moment to be empathetic: Up until this very moment, everybody has a unique journey to where they are in life. No two people see things the exact same way. This fact impacts how they perceive everything in front of them. What is logical to you could be unfathomable to someone else. Take a moment to try to understand what could be unfathomable to you, but is a valid and very real perspective for them. This is applicable in both my professional and personal lives. (A million thanks Julie for helping me remember this.) 🤫 Lesson 2: Thriving as an introvert: In what is seemingly an industry built for extroverts, finding your own way to thrive is nobody’s job but your own. Unbeknownst to me, Dominic and I have taken similar approaches to finding ways to thrive by applying data to our work. What I do with Scale Studio and Go-to-Market scaling, he does with Talent. (Introverts Unite!) 🤝 Lesson 3: Genuine relationships matter: It’s really easy to scan a QR code and connect with someone on LinkedIn, but those aren’t the relationships that truly matter. Sharing the struggle of being a parent, tips on visiting Disney, and talking about a shared passion for fitness are what makes us who we are and open up the doors to build trust and openness in a professional context. Creating these genuine relationships, and continually working on them, have helped me create the network that I come to rely on everyday. (Thanks to my dinner mates Allen, Huff, Stephen, Saydeah, Carolina, Julie, Jindra) Special thanks to the rest of the board at VC Platform (Joshua, Keji, Annie, Cory, Arabella, Brianna, Casey, Cliff, Elyse, Erica, Samantha) for putting this amazing event together. And yes, I made it back for the performance.

258

26 Comments

And just like that, Altumare Capital’s inaugural fund (FUND 1) is: CLOSED! Let's check it out >> Fund 1 was an incredible collection of (i) very close family / even closer friends, and (ii) small / medium business owners and entrepreneurs aligned with Altumare’s thesis and mission: Putting operators at the heart of everything we do, and everything we invest in. Fund 1 wasn’t raised on “up and to the right” graphs or far out revenue inflection points. It was raised on real P&Ls, stable (and downright “boring”) growth projections, and building a strong foundation for our collective future. (And!) Fund 1’s capital has already been put to work - on our first acquisition - and we’ve got plenty of deal volume in the pipeline (and now bandwidth in the bank!) to keep deploying throughout the year. I am incredibly (i) proud of the small but mighty Altumare Capital team, and (ii) grateful for the faith and belief our inaugural LPs have in not just our vision, but us as operators. Interested in what we’re doing over here at Altumare Capital? Well, now’s the time to find out! Emails and DMs are (always) open and accepting discussions around (i) our mission, (ii) alternative investments (iii) any sport that involves a board or racquet, (iv) how to properly refinish a live-edge redwood slab (currently trying to build a table) evan@altumarecapital.com

64

6 Comments

Every day is a reminder that startups are unpredictable as hell. As alums of YCombinator's Summer 12 batch, we've long taken pride in being "the batch that broke YC" - as PG calls us. So it tickles me to no end to see this in the 2024 YC Top Companies list: "The S12 batch is the best represented, with 5 companies on the list: Benchling, Coinbase, Instacart, SmartAsset and Zapier" 🤣💪 #ycombinator #ycs12 #startups https://lnkd.in/gNDewZfn

26

1 Comment

New episode drop alert 🚨👇🏻 For this week’s episode of The J Curve I sat down with Joao Barbosa, co-founder at Brazilian corporate wellness platform Gympass (now Wellhub) that has raised ~$600m from the likes of Valor Capital Group, EQT Growth and General Atlantic. We discuss 👇🏻 1️⃣ The global leap: key challenges of scaling in different markets 2️⃣ The art of the pivot: how to find a business model that fits? 3️⃣ Building a winning team: how to hire and fire at scale? 4️⃣ Pricing strategy in B2B: how to approach it? 5️⃣ Economies of scale: what are they really? Watch / listen to the episode by tuning into The J Curve podcast on 👇 Youtube 👀 ===> https://lnkd.in/eSuduE8P Spotify 🎙===> https://lnkd.in/eikKT-8p Apple Podcast 🍏 ===> https://lnkd.in/ewHaYUQm PS: Thank you to Michael Kapps for introducing me to Joao. I really appreciate that! #podcast #thejcurvepodcast #fromlatamtotheworld #entrepreneurship #founderjourney #founderstories #startupgrowth #venturecapital #startup #gympass #fromlatamtotheworld

37

4 Comments