Aaron Schaap

Legal AI startup Harvey just raised $150M at an $8B valuation.  Niche vertical SaaS is where the biggest winners are emerging. Here’s why you should pay attention👇 In Q2 2025, 46% of all SaaS M&A was vertical SaaS. And the bigger players are buying smaller, niche SaaS to dominate entire industries. Traditional verticals (healthcare, real estate, education, hospitality) are strong. Hyper-niche ones are stronger. Think: - Software just for dental clinics - Tools for boutique hotels - Platforms for small schools Hyper-specialization is creating tons of M&A action. Private equity firms lead this buying spree by acquiring niche SaaS, combining them, and creating valuable companies. > Thoma Bravo acquired NextGen Healthcare for $1.8B > Vista Equity Partners bought Mindbody for ~$1.9B > Bain Capital bought HealthEdge for $2.6B The winning formula is clear:  Deep industry integration + embedded finance + AI defensibility. The next decade belongs to founders who build the operating systems of industries. --- Our team at FE International is more bullish than ever on the rise of AI-first businesses. If you're a founder curious about your company’s true value, get a free valuation. (Link in comments) 👇

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Startup Founder Fundraising Hack Before you pitch Sequoia, pitch their digital doppelgängers. Here’s a fundraising hack I give founders: run your entire data room through multiple LLMs (ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, Claude). Ask them to role-play an investment committee made up of Sequoia, a16z, Benchmark, Index, Greylock, and Founders Fund. Make the models debate each other, red-team your claims, and issue a final “approve/decline/approve with conditions” decision—then weaponize the feedback. How to do it (fast): Feed: deck, model, cohort tables, churn, pipeline, product video, SOC2, customer quotes—everything. Prompt (paste this verbatim, swap links): “Act as the IC of Sequoia, a16z, Benchmark, Index, Greylock, Founders Fund. Read: [data room links]. Write a Partner Memo (bull/bear). List top 15 diligence questions + the metric I should show to answer each. Produce a risk matrix (market, product, team, regulatory, financing) with mitigations. Draft an internal Investment Comittee debate transcript with named ‘partners.’ Recommend a term sheet (valuation, check size, milestones) or decline with rationale.” Synthesize: turn the pushbacks into a one-page FAQ, add an Appendix that answers every objection with data, and preempt the hard questions in your deck narration. Rerun once you iterate. If your mock investment comittee still passes you, the real one will go smoother. Pro tips: redact truly sensitive secrets or use a private/local model; verify every AI claim; don’t let the model write your vision—just your counter-arguments. Neman Ventures #Fundraising #StartupAdvice #VentureCapital #DataRoom #AI #Sequoia #a16z #Benchmark #IndexVentures #Greylock #FoundersFund #NemanVentures

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Product leaders often feel pulled between craftsmanship, scale, and vision. Marty Cagan, via Shreyas Doshi’s taxonomy, offers clarity: craftsperson, operator, visionary. But the starting point is always craft—the grounded understanding of product realities. Operators scale through developing people, not enforcing process. Visionary glue holds gaps—or collides with other visionaries. Real strength lies in combining craft and coaching, then layering vision when needed. What’s your leadership balance? Original article: https://lnkd.in/gsScUf-k #ProductLeadership #CraftAndScale #CoachingCulture

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Everyone thinks they only do "AI tech bros." Wrong. YC has been building physical products for years. Boom Supersonic, Flock Safety, Astranis, Eight Sleep… nearly 100 others! I posted recently about the new industrial YC request for startups. It’s more important than ever. $500 drones destroy $100 million assets. China controls rare earth metals. The US imports critical defense components. It can be easy to put deals looking at these issues in the “too complicated bucket” How I evaluate these deals: --- The Musk Test... Is it physically impossible? If physics allows it, it's just resources and brainpower. --- The Founder Test... Have they done this before? The Readitus Space founders built reentry systems at NASA. They know how to do what they're attempting. --- The Traction Test... LOIs aren't revenue, but binding contracts with the Pentagon beat most SaaS "projected ARR." But my take is that YC actually de-risks these deals for generalist investors. Traditional hardware fails because founders optimize for building, not selling. They spend 3 years perfecting the product, then discover no one wants it. YC flips this. They force hardware founders to validate demand first, build second. Spaceium ended YC with $1 billion in LOIs - not hopes and dreams, but signed & with deadlines. YC forces the same 12-week pace on hardware that they do on software. This creates a selection effect. Only founders who can move fast AND understand complex technical domains survive the YC hardware test.

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AI in Startup GTM Strategy Report Part 1 of our 3-part report series: Benchmark your startup's AI strategy against 500 peers. See how the funding stage impacts AI investment, team structure, and GTM performance. Data-driven insights for scaling smarter. I. Executive summary: The revolution in scaling smarter with AI When Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, he forever changed not just global literacy, but how humanity distributes and shares information. Fast-forward a few centuries, and the rise of AI has ushered in a change just as transformational: The ability to scale businesses efficiently. It’s no secret that scale is hard. Whether it’s headcount, budget, or expertise, constraints are inevitable and can stop a business in its tracks. AI will change has changed that. Marketing is now personalization, at scale. AI tailors every message to every buyer, based on their behavior, intent, and timing. Sales is now reached, at scale. AI listens, writes, prioritizes, and books meetings—so reps can spend more time selling. Support is now proactivity, at scale. AI predicts issues, deflects tickets, and solves problems before they escalate. https://lnkd.in/dvkx_XgU Credit : http://www.hubspot.com Repost by : Salem Bagami

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I’ve never seen more Junior VC talent leave VC for tech startups than right now. And it makes sense. 65% of VC investments never return 1x capital. The carry math is tough: GPs don’t see a dollar of carry until LPs get their full capital back first. Then profits are split, typically 80/20. With 30 portfolio companies, where most return nothing, you need one investment to return 50x just to move the needle. Most funds never get there. Less than 30% of 2020 vintage funds have returned any capital to LPs at all (Carta). At a startup, your equity is tied directly to the company you’re building. The upside is real and it’s yours. In VC, you’re waiting on a portfolio of other people’s bets to pay out, most of which never will. So if you’re staying in VC, it shouldn’t be for the money. Stay because you want to help build companies. Because you find the work genuinely interesting. Because you want the seat at the table. The carry is a lottery ticket. The work is the reward. ♻ Repost if you know someone trying to decide between VC and a startup right now. #venturecapital #startup #founder

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Read Crossing the Chasm again this week. If you like tech and marketing, this book has been around for awhile but the fundamentals remain for bringing products to the mainstream. Going into the 3rd year of AI hype and noise, I still believe the majority of the product tools are with the early adopters https://lnkd.in/dahjsPKP

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🚨 SaaS founders know the deal but as Y Combinator funds more space startups, ambitious space founders need a primer on what the deal looks like. Here is the standard YC check for founders: - 1/2 - $125k in cash that converts to 7% equity in your company for YC - 2/2 - $375k in cash that acts a "SAFE" or a future equity agreement. The next time you raise a round, YC gets $375k/(company post-money valuation). A $500k check is small for a true hardware space company (IMO) but is still something that founders can utilize to participate in the space economy. In the most recent batch (W26), YC funded GRU Space (YC W26), founded by Skyler Chan and AxionOrbital Space (YC W26), founded by Atharva Peshkar and Dhenenjay Yadav. And YC isn't the only game in town for space. There's also Techstars and Seraphim Space. What will initial check sizes look like in the space economy, towards the end of this decade? 🤔

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Most founders hire to solve problems. The best founders build systems. AI just made it a lot easier to be the second type.

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𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝: 𝐀 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐩’𝐬 𝐆𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐕𝐂 𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬 Early-stage fundraising can feel like a black box. This classic guide from YuMe Networks’ founder breaks it down—from investor types to what actually gets you funded. 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬: 1️⃣ Understand the Players Angel investors, financial VCs, and strategic VCs each bring different priorities and check sizes. Know who fits your stage. 2️⃣ Only 6 in 1000 Get Funded VCs don’t read most decks beyond the executive summary. Nail your first impression. 3️⃣ What VCs Actually Care About Team, trust, traction. A solid product helps—but founders are often the real bet. 4️⃣ Valuation is Art, Not Science At the seed stage, valuation is driven by leadership, IP strength, and burn. There’s no formula—just conviction. 5️⃣ Series A Readiness Before raising your first big round, show clear milestones, team depth, and validated demand. 𝐁𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐨𝐦 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐞: Fundraising success comes from clarity, credibility, and founder-market fit. Use this roadmap to prepare before stepping into the room. PS. check out 🔔 for a winning pitch deck the template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel https://lnkd.in/eQFrsUnE

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You can turn $100,000 into a $50 million business through acquisitions. This is closer to capital allocation than traditional entrepreneurship. Here's the deal structure. First, the capital stack. You buy a business the same way you buy a house. Equity in, bank covers the rest. With SBA loans: 90% loan, 10% equity. A million dollar business might require $100K to $200K down. Target companies with $1 to $3 million in earnings. Go to sellers that are NOT at market. Brokered deals are competitive and sellers want cash at close. This only works off-market. Here's what you propose: Seller keeps 20% equity in a new entity. Asset sale, their company moves into newco, they keep running it at fair market salary. You write them a check for 60% via bank loan. Remaining 20% is a seller's note: 10% straight note, 10% performance earnout. From the bank's perspective, you created 40% equity. The truth? It's really only 20%, and it's the seller's. Your money in? Approaching zero. But you own 80% of Enterprise Value. Why would a seller agree? Tell them: my goal is to make your 20% as valuable as the 80% we're giving you today. What are the odds you double the value on your own in 3 to 5 years? Now stack earnings. $2 million average per company. Buy 10 just like this. $20 million combined earnings under one entity. Centralize marketing, accounting, HR, governance at HQ. You bought each at 4 to 4.5x. A $20 million earnings business sells for 7 to 7.5x or more. That's multiple expansion, just by combining them. Close the first one. Negotiate the next $100K for the next business. Then newco sells to PE for 7, 8, 9x your $20 million in earnings. That's the path from $100K to $50 million. If you're considering buying a business in the next 12 to 24 months, we built Acquisition Lab for exactly this. walkerdeibel.com

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