Cloudflare's Worst VC Stories: The Sequoia Pass and the Andreessen Ambush
Cloudflare's CEO shares two of the company's worst fundraising stories: a Sequoia partner who passed because he didn't think a woman (co-founder Michelle Zatlyn) could lead a security infrastructure company, and an unprepared meet-and-greet with Marc Andreessen that turned out to be a full pitch. Posted during the June 2026 viral VC horror-story wave.
Objections & RejectionFundraising EthicsSeedThe GP Who Slept Through a $15M Series A Pitch
Isenberg describes pitching a $15M Series A at a top-3 VC firm while one of the general partners slept for 30+ minutes and everyone pretended not to notice. The post kicked off the June 2026 viral wave of founders sharing VC horror stories, drawing replies from Mark Pincus, Travis Kalanick, Matthew Prince, and others.
Investor MeetingsFundraising PsychologySeries A12 Questions Founders Should Ask VCs Before Taking Their Money
A Founder Collective GP flips the diligence table: twelve specific questions founders should ask potential investors (fund size, reserves, decision process, references) instead of only optimizing for getting to yes.
Investor ResearchInvestor MeetingsSeedPitching Zynga to a Sleeping Partner: 'Weekend at Bernie's Meets Silicon Valley'
Pincus recalls pitching Zynga in 2007, when no firm wanted to back the company, to a partner who fell asleep mid-pitch. Zynga went on to a multi-billion-dollar IPO.
Investor MeetingsObjections & RejectionSeedThe Team Slide Is Under-Theorized: Fixing the Most Generic Slide in Your Deck
Founder Collective's content lead tears down the pitch deck team slide, the slide that looks most identical across all startups, and shows concrete ways to make individual achievements legible to investors.
Pitch DeckStorytellingSeedThe Accidental Mistake of Asking for Too Much Money
Lemkin dissects a real cold email he received: an interesting startup near $2M ARR with no funding that killed its own chances by asking for an oversized round. He explains how ask size instantly reprices the deal in an investor's head.
Fundraising StrategyValuation & DilutionSeries AThe Biggest Hurdle After Your Seed Raise
A short thread on what actually gets hard after the seed closes: shifting from founder heroics to team-building, and setting up the metrics trajectory the Series A will be judged on.
Raise ReadinessFundraising StrategySeedSleeping Partner, Scowling Partner, Term Sheet Anyway
Wessel, now a First Round partner, recalls a 2015 Series A pitch where one famous partner slept and another scowled throughout, then the firm sent a term sheet two hours after IC and was shocked she declined.
Investor MeetingsTerm SheetsSeries A20 High-Status Questions to Ask in VC Meetings
Frames fundraising as a status game and provides 20 specific questions founders can ask in VC meetings to signal selectivity and flip the chase dynamic.
Investor MeetingsMomentum & SignalingSeedHow to Run Board Meetings That Don't Waste Your Investors
From years of sitting in board rooms, an investor shares how first-time founders can run board meetings well: preparation, pre-reads, and engaging members strategically instead of presenting at them.
Investor UpdatesInvestor MeetingsSeedFunding Secured: Lambda School's $14M Series A Announcement
Allred announces Lambda School's $14M GV-led Series A with a two-word nod to Elon Musk's infamous 'funding secured' tweet. An artifact of the ISA-education hype cycle whose later unraveling gives it a cautionary second reading.
Closing the RoundMomentum & SignalingSeries A