David Perell of North Star Media writes this week about The Fruits of Friendship. He quotes the late Irish Poet John O’Donahue:
When was the last time you had a great conversation? A conversation that wasn’t just two intersecting monologues, but when you overheard yourself saying things you never knew you knew, that you heard yourself receiving from somebody words that found places within you that you thought you had lost, and the sense of an ‘eventive’ conversation that brought the two of you into a different plane and then forthly, a conversation that continued to sing afterwards for weeks in your mind? Conversations like that are food and drink for the soul.
In this love, you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of social acquaintance fall away… When you really feel understood, you feel free to release yourself into the trust and shelter of the other person’s soul… Love is the only light that can truly read the secret signature of the other person’s individuality and soul.
The O’Donahue passages are especially meaningful for me as I remember back to celebrating my 40th birthday a year ago. About two dozen of my friends joined me to celebrate, and it was gratifying to see how quickly so many friendships where we’d been out of touch for years picked right back up where they left off. Those conversations where you dive deep into life are so fulfilling.
From the Operators
Patrick Campbell of Price Intelligently shares the Lessons Learned from 3000 SaaS Companies. The amount of real customer discovery and learning going on in the industry is troublingly shallow.
Nathan Barry of ConvertKit debunks the myths that keep startup founders from pursuing revenue through traditional sales in Direct Sales for Bootstrapped SaaS Startups: from $1,300 to $725,000 MRR
From the Investors
Morgan Housel of Collaborative Fund is on a roll with his blog and writes this week about Degrees of Confidence. It’s a useful rubric enumerating the different degrees of confidence you could have on any given issue, and a great way to calibrate how much thought you’ve put into something.
Dave Kellogg of Host Analytics breaks down Highlights from the 1Q19 Fenwick & West Venture Capital Survey. Subsequent rounds are averaging 75% valuation increase from the previous round, which is lower than I would have expected. 9% of deals had a liquidation preference multiple, which is useful to know if you’re negotiating a round.
Matt Turck of FirstMark is curious about Bootstrapping as an avenue for founders, despite being a VC. Rather than trying to mete out pros and cons, he asks some good questions and puts together a list of several bootstrapped companies I didn’t know about.