The First 100 Submissions

Since I announced last Saturday morning that I would be selecting early-stage startups to feature on my personal blog, I have received 100 email submissions (and counting). I did not expect that. The good news is that the message got out to some founders, which makes me happy. The bad news is that it made my inbox a mess, but I asked for it, so no excuses. But, the real bad news is that the overwhelming majority couldn’t be featured because I had to apply my own filter and be selective about what to highlight. To share again, I’m looking for early-stage founders and teams, who have not raised any institutional money, who have already built something I can play with.

Of the 100+ emails I received, I dug into a bunch and am going to start sharing them on my blog. These will be very short posts. I’m not going to write a sweeping analysis of the landscape. Rather, just give some raw feedback. I intend the audience to be early stage investors (individual angels, microVCs, and institutions that participate in Series A), as well as journalists, bloggers, and people who are just genuinely curious about new concepts and new founders. Also, the slant I will take on these blogs is that any company feature “could,” in my opinion, be on a path for a venture-style investment. At the same time, I’m not a professional investor (I’m just a guy with a blog), so feel free to take it all with a grain of salt.

Finally, I’ll start blogging the new companies tonight and keep the submissions coming. Thank you for reading, and I sincerely hopes this helps new founders connect with folks in the ecosystem. I know how hard it can be, but I have faith that the best ideas, somehow, tend to bubble up on their own.