Brian Li ๐ŸŠ๐Ÿ‘พ pfp
Brian Li ๐ŸŠ๐Ÿ‘พ
@bli.eth
Iโ€™ve reviewed around 30 @a16z CSS applications across the last few days and wanted to share some key mistakes Iโ€™m seeing. ๐Ÿงต๐Ÿ‘‡
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Brian Li ๐ŸŠ๐Ÿ‘พ pfp
Brian Li ๐ŸŠ๐Ÿ‘พ
@bli.eth
You only get one shot to really help reviewers understand what youโ€™re building, why it matters, and why youโ€™re the right team. This means the most important question is โ€œDescribe your project. How will it capture value?โ€
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Brian Li ๐ŸŠ๐Ÿ‘พ pfp
Brian Li ๐ŸŠ๐Ÿ‘พ
@bli.eth
1 ) Unclear 1-liners ๐Ÿ’ก If a reviewer cannot understand what youโ€™re building in the first 1-2 sentence of your answer, they wonโ€™t have the right context for everything else. This is where the โ€œUber for Xโ€ or โ€œStripe for Xโ€ model can come in handy.
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Brian Li ๐ŸŠ๐Ÿ‘พ pfp
Brian Li ๐ŸŠ๐Ÿ‘พ
@bli.eth
2 ) Lack of unique insights ๐Ÿง  How do you know people need what youโ€™re building? Why are you the right team to build it? Investors get pitched the same idea over and over again, so the founder market fit and unique insights are critical to showing you will win.
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Brian Li ๐ŸŠ๐Ÿ‘พ pfp
Brian Li ๐ŸŠ๐Ÿ‘พ
@bli.eth
3 ) Not addressing market size ๐Ÿค‘ โ€œHow will you capture value?โ€ is a fancy way of saying how big is this market and how do you think about making money. A lot of protocols and products are not making money so itโ€™s crucial you have a legitimate business model.
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Brian Li ๐ŸŠ๐Ÿ‘พ pfp
Brian Li ๐ŸŠ๐Ÿ‘พ
@bli.eth
These same principles apply to applications for @orangedao Fellowship, @alliance Accelerator, YC, and more!
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