Semil Shah
Investor at Haystack Fund and tech writer
Discussion
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Semil
@semil · Product, Swell
Hi Everyone, Semil here. I am an investor and writer based out of Silicon Valley. I created and invest out of a small fund called Haystack, which is proud to be an early investor in over 70 companies, including Instacart, DoorDash, Hired, and Managed By Q (see full portfolio here). I am also Venture Advisor to GGV Capital, and am proud to serve on the Advisory Boards of StrictlyVC and The Alpha Network. Ask me anything!
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Natalya Matyushenko
@ambercamel · Co-founder/COO at Spycob
Hello Semil, Please, share with us your vision of ideal startup for investment. I mean not "$1M revenue per minute, Mark Zuckerberg as a CEO, Werner Vogels as CTO.."))) What should a startup have as a minimum to get an absolute "yes" from you as an investor? Thanks)
@ambercamel Boiled down, I want to be thinking about the potential of the investment after the meeting, as I socialize the idea with friends, when I'm on a walk, in the shower...the idea has to catch. And, then I want to understand what the founders have done in their past that informs this next move. There has to be some connection. And, I look for drive. What drives someone? Is it fear? Is it mania? It has to be something deep, and that takes time to figure out. More clinically, I like big or new markets. I am a market-driven investor at the end of the day. The people have to fit into the market, or make it on their own.
Erik Torenberg
@eriktorenberg · Former Product Hunt
@semil i'm curious: is fear or mania something you avoid? or look for? can you define what "something deep" means?
Agent 009co
@agent009co · agent 009
@semil one of the best answers I've read to this line of questioning. I suspect investors diverge at clinical matters. But this is great foundation for startups to pitch at, varying clinically by investor.
Ryan Hoover
@rrhoover · Founder, Product Hunt
Hey, Semil! A while ago you shared your honest, transparent story of how you moved to SF and built your career. What advice do you have for someone trying to break into the startup scene?
@rrhoover It depends what one's goal is. If you're cracking in and not sure (like I was), just follow your interests and help every good person you meet. And I don't just mean follow-up and help, I mean go above and beyond what they would have expected. That requires diligence, listening, doing what you're saying you're going to do, etc. It also takes time. A lot of people come up to me at events and ask "how," and I usually retort with "Put your head down for 5 years and then look up." Five years.
Eric Willis
@erictwillis · Working on something new
@semil Hey Semil. Thanks for doing this AMA.
I have a question in relation to something you tweeted late Wednesday evening. You expressed deep concern about Twitter's plight and it's ability to recover. What do you think is broken with Twitter that the team likely can't fix? @sacca takes a more optimistic approach and seems to think the product is fundamentally fine and the new app strategy, focusing on the "live" experience, and new leadership like Jack returning to the helm can fix things (obvious oversimplification of his manifesto). However, I just finished reading the transcript of your interview with Chamath Palihapitiya and he talks a lot about N of 1 vs. 1 of N. Considering the timing of your tweet, did that discussion play any role in your most recent assessment of Twitter? It seems that Twitter won't be able to get itself out of the 1 of N category based on Chamath's summation of it. Thoughts?
For those interested:
Tweet: https://twitter.com/semil/status...
Sacca: http://lowercasecapital.com/2015...
Chamath: http://blog.semilshah.com/2015/0...
@erictwillis I love Twitter. I view the web through Twitter, and I wouldn't be here without Twitter. So, I want to be proven wrong, but my sense driving home in the car the other night was that it's getting noisier, spammier, etc. and that when advertisers have so many options where they can measure the efficacy of their spend, and combined with the decay in the product (overall, last few years), those advertisers may flee, and that flight may be quick. I do hope I am wrong.
Paul Robert Cary
@prcary · CEO, Findie | www.findie.me
@semil Thanks for doing this. Which is a bigger threat to premium video content: Ad blockers or Popcorn Time?
@paulrobertcary I need to catch up on this Ad Blocker stuff, you'll have to tell me!
Paul Robert Cary
@prcary · CEO, Findie | www.findie.me
@semil Ad blockers essentially remove pre-roll, interstitial and display ads (even The Deck is getting blocked) that allow content creators to monetize, and do that in-app as well. AdBlock Plus has 50M users globally.
Popcorn Time has over 1M downloads on non jailbroken iPhones in the US alone (a culture that is supposedly in favor of paying for stuff).
rachel
@serial_milk · co-founder, Kip
@semil It's that content publishers will have problems generating revenue since most of their income comes from advertising:
http://www.theawl.com/2015/09/we...
http://www.theguardian.com/techn...
@paulrobertcary I think it's great and I'm glad Apple is using a heavy hand to force publishers to invest in modern systems and be thoughtful about how they interrupt users.
Erik Torenberg
@eriktorenberg · Former Product Hunt
What's the most significant thing you've changed your mind about in the past 6 months?
@eriktorenberg Trading off being short with people but giving a response vs ignoring requests. Initially I thought I would ignore (as many do), but I decided that it would be better to be short and reply (even though that may rub some people the wrong way). It's not a big decision overall, but for me and how I've operated for many years, that was a big decision.
Brent Summers
@brentsum · Founder, Code-Free Startup
@semil Thanks for coming by! How do you see SV transforming over the next five years?
Jesse Suarez
@savvy_suarez
Hi, Semil! Thanks for chatting with us. You've written a bit on the messaging platform wars, particularly the big players like Line, Tencent, and Facebook. What are your thoughts on startups jumping into the fray? Think there's still an opportunity in US markets?
@savvy_suarez I want to believe there's some new communication hook (like ephemeral pictures) that can ignite a new behavior, and I'm sure 1,000's of people right now are trying to will that into existence, so statistically I'm sure it's possible but I don't know how to find it. That's why many pros wait for social or comms apps to break out and then pay up when distribution risk has been sort of mitigated.
Ryan Hoover
@rrhoover · Founder, Product Hunt
You've been a fan of Quora since the beginning. What do you think of their execution over the past few years and what does it look like in 10?
@rrhoover I recently visited the site, as I wanted to try to find questions to answer. I found it hard to navigate, but the numbers overall show otherwise, as I believe their traffic is steadily growing. I'm not sure what to think of it. I went to living on the site to not being able to understand how to navigate it. Still confused.