What's Below in Issue #52:

📰 - A look into how much founders should pay themselves

🎙️- Exclusive AMA with Our Newsletter Writer and Syndicate Expert

📊 - Data behind the drop in startups moving from Seed to Series A

🆓- Free startup resources

💵- Premium startup resources

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You Should Also Have a Newsletter

You should have a newsletter! Are you too busy? It’s worth finding time to make one.

We launched our newsletter one year ago and I want to take you through some reflections and lessons we learned over the past 52 newsletters.

Starting can quickly feel like pushing a boulder up a hill. Every week you need to think of content and format that others will want to read. The first few emails will likely only have a few subscribers and a fraction of them will even open it. The feeling is disheartening. However, just like your startup, it takes time to create a good newsletter, and even longer for it to become popular.

The main reason newsletters are a great idea is because they make your company top-of-mind for potential investors and clients. Seeing the name of your company associated with a quality newsletter every week will create an association with your firm being both an expert and well-informed on your market.

• Cheap engagement. Having a newsletter is a very cheap and easy way to engage with your startup and the developments you are creating. It is a “reason” to regularly be in touch with both clients and investors. We have seen newsletters even include surveys on their firm to see what their readers think and collect feedback.
• Promote your company developments. This should NOT be the main section of the newsletter, but it can have a section of the newsletter to share what you are developing.
• Create partnerships. Newsletters with valuable partnerships help both clients that you are serving with other services they need and show your firm as having valuable connections to potential investors.
• Create a call to action. If clients are reading the newsletter, having an easy button that will direct them to a sales page is an easy way to create a new sales channel. Well-written newsletters are often forwarded between friends, and that will include an easy link to buy from your startup.

When thinking about content, focus on what you can offer others. Your subscribers will unlikely be interested in what your startup is doing. However, every audience has a subject area that they always want to know more about. Think about who is subscribed and what they want to learn.

• Avoid your developments. It is easy to want to focus the newsletter around your startup and newest achievements. Sometimes that is ok – if it is a big breakthrough. But most of the time the readers won’t care. Focus on other topics that they do want to read. Having a large audience will draw attention to what you are building – even without writing about it.
• Look through current events and relate them to your subject area. For example, if your subscribers are interested in medical devices (the first thing that came to mind), then discussing different ways AI is changing the landscape can be an interesting read.
• Break topics down. It is easy to try and cover an entire topic in one newsletter. However, breaking it into two or three different topics will allow you to create more content and explore each issue in more depth. Often more specific articles are also more interesting.
• Don’t use ChatGPT! I'm serious. We have all done it already. It is so easy to fall into this trap of wanting to write a quick article. The problem is that everyone can tell when an AI has written it. There is usually very little content and the voice does not sound equally human. Low-quality newsletters will also have low-quality engagement.

Formatting is equally important and will probably take a few months before you find a format you like – and then it will probably still change a few times.

• Keep it simple. Complicated formats make the newsletter difficult to read. Even worse, they usually don’t convert well between desktop and mobile views. The simpler the format, the less problems you will have.
• Avoid unneeded images. If you add an image, know why it is there. This often happens because the newsletter template has a spot for an image and you have no idea what to put there. Instead of adding a stock image – try deleting the section.
• Create clear divisions. If the newsletter has multiple sections, make it easy to follow where each one starts and stops.
• Consistency. Keep the formatting the same from week to week. It is fine to rebrand or reorder sections from time to time, but make sure that you are not doing so every week. 

Relevant Articles to Writing a Newsletter

• 12 Reasons Your Business Must Start an Email Newsletter in 2023 - 👉 Goodbits
• A Guide to Writing Email Newsletters for Startups - 👉 Letterdrop
• Why Your Startup Needs An Email Newsletter - 👉 Forbes

Exclusive AMA with Our Newsletter Writer and Syndicate Expert

Toviya Slager is both an analyst and newsletter producer at Thunder. Before joining Thunder, Toviya worked at Maccabee Ventures and F50 Ventures, both early-stage funds. He graduated from Yeshiva University with a double major in mathematical economics and psychology and a minor in finance.

Alex Pattis spent nearly a decade scaling early-stage startups, focusing on growth & commercial strategy. Alex is now a General Partner @ Riverside Ventures, a venture fund & syndicate, and has invested $60M in 260+ companies. He also is behind the popular newsletter Last Money In, a newsletter focused on Venture Capital syndicates.

Join us on January 8th @ 1 PM EST for an AMA discussion about the venture market, how to start the 2024 running, and anything else you want to know. RSVP Here

Data Corner

Startups are Getting Stuck in the Seed Stage

As VCs are tightening their grip on their checkbooks, it has become harder for startups to raise their next round of funding.

Of the companies that raised a seed round in 2019, around 27.5% raised a Series A within 2 years. This is in sharp contrast to only 17.6% of companies that raised their seed in 2021 have been able to raise their next round.

This cutback has hit every sector. However, another possible reason is that the companies that raised in 2021 have had more time to adjust their runway and are waiting out the market.

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Premium Resources

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1. Access to VC firms' team tabs to see active partners of the fund & their LinkedIn
2. Navigate a VC's portfolio to see relevant portcos or competitors, quickly find their founders on LinkedIn to connect with them, and request warm intros 

   A downloadable CSV with the investor emails & LinkedIn URLs
3. Ability to filter your matches and adjust your profile
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Let's stay in touch:

Written by Jason Kirby - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonrkirby
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