Brutal data - negative IRR for recent VC funds. The world around these startups has completely changed. VC, founders, execs, employees all know if the company won't ever get there. Pull the cord early, sell the business, and move on to one that has a chance. Funding a failed

If I'm an LP in these funds, I'd want to see rationale for the marks. Won't save the investment, but will tell me a lot about the VC. There should be a bunch of $0 equity values.

10 startups shutting down PER DAY, trending to be 8x the volume of 2021! I'm taking the under on vintage '19-22 VC fund returns vs. target. "If you’ve curtailed your growth with cuts [to stay afloat] then it’s maybe not a VC business." (Peter Walker). "Not a VC-business" is

Seems like the wrong question. Tell an LLM to "implement python in native python" and BOOM. Writing tight algorithms from scratch is so last year. I used Groq for this because I didn't want to wait more than a second (including description of the code, algorithm, and examples).

Mostly agree - managed services and recurring services are also ARR ... and some of the stickiest at that.

Amen. I'd give my left arm for a good solution for LLMs to deal with arbitrary spreadsheets.

We choose to run companies for cash every single time. As a buy and hold investor, the risk-weighted trade off is easy. Note: most entrepreneurs don’t have the right muscles to run a low growth / cash flow business, nor should they. It’s a completely different world.

I run M&A for a serial acquirer (b2b software). I just wrote and deployed my first app w/cursor, in < 30 mins. Total f'in game changer. "Full stack" AI devs (cursor/LLM/v0.dev/replit) will juice investor returns more debt. We are hiring dozens; code writers need not apply.

This should never happen. These companies have real value, even if they are no-growth/no-earnings (lower left quadrant). We lean into this situation for b2b software companies (buyout, debt purchase, refinance). Ping if I can help.

Most won't pass the test comparing any "good" figure in forecast vs. history. Used to play a game w/ my kids. They'd show me the revenue graph from a CIM while hiding date. I'd pick "today". They thought it was magic, but all I was doing was picking the bottom of the J-curve.

Founders getting $0 on exits is more common than you think. Jeremy Blalock sorry this happened to you.

VC's have the power law. Employees have no such luxury. Peter Walker and Carta – pls. publish stats directly relevant to employees! Off the top of my head, by startup vintage: • % options retired worthless • % common stock retired worthless • value of common vs.

Eerily similar back-to-back banker calls: The buyer we picked couldn't get the financing they needed. Will you honor your all-cash offer from 6 mos ago and close in 30 days (client is out of cash)? Sellers: Speed/certainty is a thing, don't pick a buyer that can't perform.

Killer post @carried_no_interest. "Greater fool: theory at it's finest. Our model/platform lets us run businesses sustainably and profitably (but low growth). We are literally the best workout group on the planet and are helping senior lenders that take they keys to the car.

Here’s how I read a CIM (prefer using AI for most steps): 1: AI-generated summary from the website 2: Financials - what is broken or omitted? 3: Develop my hypothesis 4: Test rest of CIM against my POV 5: Ignore TAM and team stuff, or do it last I don’t need 90% of the pages.

Yeah, what he said. This the sandbox we play in. The number of convos we are having with over-leveraged lenders is mind boggling. DM me if we can help. Nothing is more frustrating than companies just shutting down.

I get asked this every time we buy a company for around 1x ARR. Easy answer: 1x is not a lowball, market sets the price. Longer answer requires a quick lesson in PE fundamentals (plus a pro trip). Two types of PE firms: • Buy‑to‑flip (Flippers): Enterprise value (EV) based exit

Hey Austen Allred - we’re in the process of buying a company we need to completely rebuild AI-first. Do you want to partner on this?

My take after buying ~200 companies – founders lie to themselves. $ aside, you are selling to either (a) get out or (b) stay in. There is no (c)! a: innovate again, do "it" your way b: it's a job, do "it" the buyer's way You can't want "a" and sell to a PE that expects "b".

Start With a Breakup Every Private Equity Legend started the same way: Buying carve-outs and take-privates of the mid-cap assets nobody wanted. Blackstone with Transtar. Silver Lake with Seagate. Thoma Bravo with Prophet 21. The Patterns: 1. Forced Sellers Carve-outs and