Elizabeth Yin

Hi there 👋 I'm Elizabeth co-founder and General Partner at Hustle Fund. AMA

by
I co-founded Hustle Fund, a pre-seed fund for software entrepreneurs. Previously, I was a partner at 500 Startups, where I invested in seed-stage companies and ran the Mountain View accelerator. In a prior life, I co-founded and ran an ad tech company called LaunchBit (acq .2014). Let's talk about startups, founder mindset, and more. AMA 👇
46 views

Add a comment

Replies

Best
Ehsanullah Baig
Thanks for sharing about you @elizabeth_yin1 . We have launched a startup(buy/sell app) and we have crossed 80K downloads now. With growing users, we want to scale our startup but we haven't developed our business model yet. We are still bootstrapping the product but we want to pitch it to the investors. Can you please share how to develop a business model for the platform? You can search GilgitApp on Play Store for more details. Thank you.
Elizabeth Yin
@ehsanullah_baig Unfortunately, this isn't something that I can answer. This has to be founder-driven based on your own customer development and talking w/ your own customers / users. I think in most other models I've seen of marketplaces, they charge a % in between, so perhaps that's a model to explore. But you can explore all kinds of models -- SaaS model for power users. Or maybe your own token if you make this app decentralized. Regardless, I would message 20 of your customers and call them to learn why they picked your app, what they hoped to succeed with it, and learn about their willingness to pay (and in what way). Just my $0.02.
Brittany Joiner {Britt the Builder}
Thanks for being here! Since we're here on PH, I'm curious - do you encourage your companies to launch on PH? And if so, which ones do you find were most successful?
Elizabeth Yin
@britt_joiner A lot of our companies do launch on PH! (not all of them -- a lot of B2B companies selling to old-school industries probably wouldn't find much traction here). I think if you're going to launch on PH, it has to be a coordinated effort. You can't just post here and expect people to upvote. It's has to be an all-out campaign.
Brittany Joiner {Britt the Builder}
@elizabeth_yin1 makes sense! thanks for the response!
Luke
@elizabeth_yin1 What would you say drives a successful campaign here on PH?
Jim Morrison
Love the fund structure @elizabeth_yin1. Read through the guidance & FAQs (do you know you get a mention 😅) and it feels like you're taking a much more qualitative, partnership approach. Weirdly it seems very close to AmplifyChange's approach tbh (totally different kind of fund ofc)... My question: > Once you've settled in with a new startup - say 3-6 months - what's the one trait that tells your gut whether you've backed a winner?
Elizabeth Yin
@jimbomorrison I think 2 things are impt. Founding team and more importantly market pull. In 3-6 months, you can learn a lot about the founding team. Do they execute with speed? Can they hire well / attract talent / do ppl want to work for them? Can they learn new skills? Are they focused on 1-2 things? etc. But you can't always learn about whether the idea has market pull. It may require a lot more learnings and pivots along the way which could even take years. Market pull is a combination of understanding why customers buy? If the problem is really dire / urgent to warrant this solution? And if there is a seemingly repeatable channel to get more of that customer.
Jim Morrison
@elizabeth_yin1 Fascinating, thanks Elizabeth. Really appreciate you taking the time to come back to me. Best of luck with the fund! 🚀
Aleks Dahlberg
Hi there Elizabeth! One question I always ask at the end of any pitch or discussion I have with potential investors (and more often, customers) is: What do you need to see from us/me/my product in order to have conviction to buy/invest. From your/Hustle Fund's perspective, what do you look for in a company or founder to build such conviction enough to invest or start helping them?
Elizabeth Yin
@aleksdahlberg I basically take guesses on whether the idea will have market pull in the long run. More here on how I make that guess: https://twitter.com/dunkhippo33/... We invest at pre-seed, so there's rarely a situation where we will say no and re-evaluate and invest a few months later. My guess could just be completely wrong (and often is) and I won't know for years. That said, from time to time, we may change our mind a few months later if there's been strong uptake in customers, and if we were already on the fence about whether there could be market pull the first time we evaluated it.
Aleks Dahlberg
@elizabeth_yin1 Awesome thread thanks a lot!
predictiveblack
Great to meet you on here Elizabeth, will check out Hustle Fund.
Elizabeth Yin
@predictiveblack Thank you!
Vinish Garg
Hi Elizabeth, good to see you starting it here. I am following your work for many years now, just dropping in to say Hi. :)
Elizabeth Yin
@vingar thank you Vinish!
JP Montgomery
Great to connect with you Elizabeth! I will definitely check out Hustle Fund 🚀
Elizabeth Yin
@jpmontgo Thank you!
Elizabeth Yin
Thank you for having me! I think I answered everyone's questions, but if not, you can find me on Twitter @dunkhippo33 and ask there. And if you are interested in pitching Hustle Fund, please apply at hustlefund.vc
Bradley Miles
How should founders be thinking about mental health?
Elizabeth Yin
@bradley_miles_ This is a big topic and probably not one I can do justice to here! :) That said, I think it's impt to schedule time to rest + reflect to help with mental health (and burnout). I believe that founders should take (most) weekends off (obviously there will always be sprints). Cut back a LOT to focus on just 1-2 that matter. And also schedule in time to rest at least 1 week per qtr. It doesn't have to be a fancy vacation. Just time to think about other things and decompress. I think this helps a lot with mental health. When people are exhausted, they don't have the fortitude to overcome challenges. (This is also why depression is linked w/ lack of sleep). I'm no therapist, and I realize that all of what I just wrote above is tough to do, but I do think if founders add it to their calendar, it will force ppl to do it -- just like any other meeting.
🪴 Sonu Kalwar
Hey Elizabeth, happy to connect with you. And, thanks for starting this thread. I'm currently working on a cool SaaS project that can help growth marketers, startups, and business owners create and launch marketing campaigns faster and more efficiently.
Elizabeth Yin