Aaron Harris @harris Twitter profile

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Aaron Harris

@harris

3 months

How to Raise a Series A - a new manual for raising the hardest round.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

Turns out that running one startup is a lot harder than advising 1000 startups.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Across the ~30 unicorns I’ve funded, there’s only one common founder trait: optimism.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

3 years

If a "pre-seed" is 1.5m on 10, and a "seed" is 5-7 on 20-30, can we all just agree to hit "reset" and go back to "seed" and "Series A"?

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

After a year back at operating, I'm realizing that most of the specific operating advice I gave founders in my last few years at YC was...stale.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

7 months

Jewish friends in Brooklyn are being told to avoid going into the street on Saturday because of a "Flood Brooklyn for Gaza" protest. In 2023. In America. In Brooklyn. Here's a thought @ericadamsfornyc and @NYPDCT - stop the dangerous protest instead of telling Jews to hide in…

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

It has become terrifyingly clear to me that everyone I look up to is making it up as they go along.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

10 months

The strongest predictor of founder success may just be a willingness to look stupid.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

7 months

"From the river to the sea" is an explicit call for the murder of 6 million Jews in Israel. To chant it with friends or post it to social media is to incite genocide. Inciting genocide is a crime against humanity according to the Genocide Convention of 1948. So, no, I will not…

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

I get that investors want startups to cut burn and "survive" because of how risky the world is. But startups are risks dressed up as businesses. They live if they grow. They die if they are static. Runway isn't the end goal. Don't sacrifice your ambition just to get more of it.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

VCs can wait. Founders can't.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Great VCs say no quickly and clearly after a pitch. Good VCs say no after opening your deck 10 times over a week. Bad VCs ghost you after telling you how excited they are.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

7 months

Every Jew you know has a family member or a friend who was murdered this week. Every Jew you know has a friend or family member currently being called to the front lines of a terrible war. Every Jew you know is viscerally aware of how thin the line is between life and death.…

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Aaron Harris

@harris

11 months

Founders who think they're smart often fall into the trap of thinking that being smart is a competitive advantage.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

The most important lesson I ever learned from @paulg is that conversations are better while walking.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

I'd love to be able to claim that my best startup investments were obvious winners from the start. They weren't. I bet on people that seemed thoughtful and ambitious. And then...luck.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

Great startups happen when founders figure out how to get paid for being themselves.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

The biggest risk in VC isn't fraud, it's over-learning from past mistakes.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

There must be a german word for: "The moment in life when a founder suddenly realizes that, for the first time, he is older than the VC making the decision."

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Aaron Harris

@harris

11 months

Not sure which is a worse signal, the founder that sends: 1. No investor updates. 2. Multi-thousand word investor updates with no metrics.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

11 months

A VC who says "We want to co-lead" without giving you a term sheet does not want to lead your round. This is a soft let down that preserves optionality by making you feel good. Don't fall for it. Don't let them make intros. Don't ask them for advice on your process.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Predictions for fundraising in 2023: 1. Many startups will raise money and many will not. 2. VCs will chase some companies and ghost others.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

It's odd to watch VCs flip from excited to ghosting founders who hit a rough patch. The theory seems to be that founders won't remember...but they do.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

There's plenty of bad news in the world. But Germany building an LNG terminal in months instead of years is a demonstration of how fast humans can move, if given the right incentives and regulatory structure.

The Five-Year Engineering Feat Germany Pulled Off in Months

Europe is racing to build natural-gas facilities to keep its economy afloat. If it fails to shore up its energy grid, governments might have to ration fuel this winter. “This project is really a race...

www.wsj.com

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

The riskiest bets in startups are those on category creation. They're also the bets most worth making.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Do solo gps have their holiday parties sitting alone at omakase bars?

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Aaron Harris

@harris

11 months

"Execution is everything" is a pleasant and misleading fiction for founders. You need a good enough idea in a large enough market.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Founders can get a surprisingly large amount wrong and still succeed.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

7 months

Dear @nytimes - An editor's note seems...ludicrously insufficient. How about an A1 above the fold story titled "Islamic Jihad Responsible for Hospital Blast" along with an analysis of the number of casualties in Gaza from the 500+ Hamas rockets that fell short of their civilian…

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

VCs are the absolute best in the world at enthusiastically avoiding commitment.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

Dear founders - surround yourselves with people who are irrationally optimistic about your abilities.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

Sure is a great time to be a VC with a fresh fund to invest.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

The worst fundraising advice comes from well meaning, inexperienced investors who want to be helpful and to sound smart.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

In the next five years, seed companies that have 3+ years of runway will underperform seed companies with with less than 18 months.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Cold email remains the best, most underrated, and most widely applicable growth channel.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

Congrats to @garrytan on heading back to @ycombinator . He's the perfect choice to lead it into the future.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

The quality of startup advice is inversely correlated to the certainty with which it is delivered.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

6 months

Happy to no longer be a resident of Oakland, CA.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

VC power move - sending the term sheet even if you know the founder may "shop" the offer. It's actually the best way to get pole position in the auction and drive a better deal.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

@paulg That's fair. Guess I should have been less absolute so as not to have fallen into my own trap.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

OpenAI bills are the new AWS bills.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

Early stage founders need to build products. Mid stage founders need to build companies. Later stage founders need to make sure the company doesn't become their most time consuming product.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

In retrospect, it’s shocking I didn’t accidentally fund way more fraud while at YC.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

TIL that @Schwarzenegger invested in @google 's Series A. So now I understand why they're so cautious about releasing untested AI.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

7 months

We have the words.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

A bizarrely large amount of success in business seems to come down to not being flaky.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

Finding product market fit is a whole lot harder than advising someone else to do it.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

I know startups are over and all - but currently talking to the founders of three wildly different companies setting daily, weekly, and monthly records...day after day. Turns out you just need to find the right founders. They'll win regardless of the market.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

6 months

Hamas is holding 239 hostages. They are holding babies, the elderly, women, children, and men. #BringThemHome

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Aaron Harris

@harris

6 months

My friend Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi of @harvardchabad is being slandered by @HarvardPSC . His words stand for themselves - their twisted versions are a lie. Listen for yourself to what he says, not their interpretation of it. He and his family are being…

Harvxrd Palestine Solidarity Committee

@HarvxrdPSC

6 months

🧵 THREAD: Harvard Rabbi Zarchi preaches anti-Palestinian racism. In a speech to the community on Nov 4, he made a distinction between humans and “four-legged animals.” Apparently, calling for a #CeasefireNow and an end to the occupation makes us “below animals,” even…

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

In startups, the only games worth playing are the long ones.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

10 months

Every startup wants to be a big company. Every big company wants to be a startup.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Surest predictor of startup failure: When the founder is more famous than the product.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

There Are No (Absolute) Red Flags in Venture Capital. Essay:

There Are No (Absolute) Red Flags in Venture Capital

Let’s accept, for the purposes of this essay, that founders and venture capitalists are engaged in a simple trade. Founders sell business risk for the cash they need to take bigger risks; venture...

blog.aaronkharris.com

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Aaron Harris

@harris

7 months

🇮🇱

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Wondering how @deel got to be worth $5.5B? It's because @Bouazizalex only raises money when he doesn't need it. He chooses who can buy a piece of the company, instead of chasing investors. At the A, that was @illscience and @a16z That and more on:

Asking VCs for Money

Alex Bouaziz raised $14 million for Deel in a Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz

askingvcs.simplecast.com

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Biases of good founders: Cleverness > IQ Action > Analysis Iteration > Perfection Failure > Stasis

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

@elietoubiana Both.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

When you're building a company, irrelevance is a lot scarier than failure.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

3 years

(2008) Fractionalized home loan turned into synthetic asset = evil CDO. (2021) Fractionalized home loan turned into synthetic asset = super cool NFT. Context sure is funny sometimes.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

8 months

Startups should charge higher prices.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

10 months

The simplest way to destroy your startup is to change your primary metric every time you miss a goal.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

Every so often, my only feedback to a founder on a new product is "Yeah, this makes perfect sense." I love when that happens.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Competitive moats are a whole lot less interesting than compounding advantages.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Re: sharing your idea. No big company is going to copy your idea when you build the 1st version. Or when you get seed funded. Or at your A or your B. They'll only copy you when you've demonstrated significant scale, at which point you can't hide. So just share your idea.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Not sure what's more confusing for founders, a VC fund where everyone is a "partner" or where everyone is an "investor"

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Aaron Harris

@harris

5 months

My bubbe was born on Chanukah in Lodz, Poland. In her lifetime, lighting a menorah became an act of bravery. In her lifetime, the State of Israel was established. My daughter was born on Chanukah in New York City. In her lifetime, lighting a menorah has again become an act of…

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Great founders balance an objective view of the market with an irrational belief of their ability to change the way the world works.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

It's been a year since I left YC. Here's something I learned about choosing what to do.

A framework for choosing what to do

A year ago, I left YC and felt a bit lost about what to do next.[1] A lot of people were pretty sure they knew what I should do. But...I didn't and most of their suggestions didn’t excite me. As I...

blog.aaronkharris.com

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Aaron Harris

@harris

3 years

Some new photos.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Watching ChatGPT I'm reminded of the fact that viral products are nearly always a surprise. That makes them hard to replicate, no matter how many pitch decks and growth experts might claim otherwise.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

Great startups are so obvious in hindsight.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Turns out the future or work involves doing work.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

All the recent VC advice to startups about trimming burn is oddly one sided. Founders did not unilaterally and irrationally raise money from the ether. This is a market and ecosystem, each participant played its part and each has to adjust to a new set of circumstances.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

In startups, it is ok to be wrong most of the time so long as: 1) You are not catastrophically wrong 2) The reward for being right is big enough

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

There's never a good reason for generic stock photography on your homepage. Or in your deck.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Bad ideas make bad startups. Non-obvious ideas might look like bad ideas, but are fundamentally different. These are the source of many great startups. Most people confuse the two with predictable results.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

Chris enjoys doing extremely hard things. Last time, he built a distribution network of farmers in Africa. Excited to see what he does with Spritz.

Spritz Finance

@spritzfinance

2 years

Today we announce our $2.5m pre-seed funding round!🍹 We're incredibly proud of what we've built so far & excited to continue building a seamless way to pay your bills with #crypto . Learn more about our funding and our #web3 bill pay platform. 🧵 1/16

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Aaron Harris

@harris

10 months

Nothing excites the average VC more than someone else writing a term sheet.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

6 months

Hamas is holding 240+ hostages. They are holding babies, the elderly, women, children, and men. #BringThemHome

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

Noticing that nearly every significant round announcement these days includes the valuation. I remember when this was treated as a closely guarded secret. The convention has clearly shifted.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

VCs are stressed that they don't know how to price deals anymore as if there was ever a science to it.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

3 years

I spent a long time arguing that pro ratas are a good thing. I was wrong. Pro rata is a bad term:

Pro rata is a bad term

For a long time, I was a strong believer in investor pro ratas. As a founder, I understood the trade and was comfortable with it. As a partner at YC, I thought it made enough sense that I helped...

blog.aaronkharris.com

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Trying to build a big startup by copying the habits of a "billionaire" you saw on youtube is like trying to fly by flapping your arms.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

I find that it is much easier to be a contrarian on twitter than when actually writing a check.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

6 months

Hamas is holding 239 hostages. They are holding babies, the elderly, women, children, and men. #BringThemHome

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

Don't start a company with a cofounder to get more work done. Start a company with a cofounder so you have someone to talk to.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

7 months

We stood. Tens of thousands of Jews and our friends stood. We prayed for the living and the dead. We demanded Justice. We did not celebrate death, not even the deaths of those who murdered our children.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

If founders were better managers, I think we'd have fewer great companies.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

@ilyasu How to hire and growth channels/tactics.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

Nothing turns a day around quite like an honest conversation with a great founder.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

I miss the simpler times, when 1 successful company at a time was enough for even the most ambitious founders.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

Too much popular startup wisdom is made up of circular references. Raise money when you can. A players hire A players. Hard problems are hard.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

I'm confused by the whole "AI is the new Web3" narrative, as if one interesting technology has to die for another to work out. The foundational strength of startups is that progress is positive sum. When new products work, the possibilities keep growing.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

Explicitly list all the things that have to go right for your startup to win. Look at the list and figure out which are in your control, which are out of it, and which are just dreams. Don't rely on the dreams.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

The best natural fundraisers are generally the worst advisers on fundraising. They haven't seen enough of the ways it can all go wrong, and often recommend tactics that only work for them.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

1 year

New Year’s Resolution: Don’t count your unicorns before they hatch.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

2 years

When a company is growing and hiring, it shows the culture it wants. When a company is under stress and laying people off, it shows the culture it has.

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Aaron Harris

@harris

3 years

. @janellehmtam and I have advised ~300 companies on their Series As. We're hosting a workshop next week focused on the most common question we get asked, "When should I raise my A?!?!" 7/28 @ 10:00am PDT. Signup here:

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