Google's email about buying Epic💰| Understand how VCs think🧠| Learnings from Doordash📈
Boost your startup growth in a 5-min read.
👋 Hey everyone and welcome to this week’s round up.
I’m Hugo Rauch, the writer of this newsletter and my goal is to help founders accelerate their growth, successfully fundraise and find inspirations from startup stories. If I can help you, hit me up by replying to this email! 💬
Summary
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Google's email about buying Epic 💰
Understand how VCs think 🧠
Learnings from Doordash 📈
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Google's email about buying Epic💰
Here is Google's email about buying stakes in Epic, and why it matters for founders.
A bit of context
In 2018, Fortnite had 200M users, and Google looked at purchasing part of the company as a way to boost growth in it's strategic business.
What was the rational?
According to Google, Fortnite could have boosted Google's growth across:
➤ YouTube (already 100M+ increase in game watch time)
➤ GCP (to shift 130M+ players from AWS)
➤ Yeti (Fortnite + Unreal Engine support for all games)
➤ Ads (similar to but smaller than Ironman)
➤ Android (Play store, security, etc)
How much Google wanted to invest?
Google considered spending around $20 billion to acquire 20% stake in Epic.
That would have valued the company at $100BN.
In 2022, Epic received investment from Sony and Lego.
The company was valued $31.5BN.📉
Big opportunity cost for Epic.
Key takeaways
Companies often take defensive action, part of the rational was to counter AWS. Consider this as part of your exit strategy.
Big Tech evaluates synergies, if your goal is to sell, you should show your vision for product integration into the company's broader strategy
Just because you can get an investment, doesn't mean that you should, Epic did very well without Google's money. But remember that valuations are not set in stone. In retrospect Epic's founder could have enjoyed the $100BN valuation.
Thank you for reading! Share this post with a friend to support my work! 📈
Understanding how VCs think will help you raise money faster.
Why?
VCs write memos for every deal.
It's the only documents presented to partners.
Without a great memo, there is no deals. ❌
Understanding what goes into a memo helps you tailor your pitch and make the job of VCs easier. In turn, the opportunity will be assessed faster.
4 memos to read
➤ 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗳𝘆'𝘀 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗼
https://lnkd.in/eNTi9mwG
➤ 𝗣𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁'𝘀 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗼
https://lnkd.in/eVb7PRdT
➤ 𝗧𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵'𝘀 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗼
https://lnkd.in/eAjqRWHH
➤ 𝗧𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗼'𝘀 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗼
https://lnkd.in/ey-Z6Suk
Learnings from Doordash📈
Here is 3 learnings from DoorDash's application to YC. 👇
1️⃣ Start with your customer’s problem
The founding team conducted 100+ interviews.
They listened closely to customers.
They understood their problems.
And they built a solution around it.
This is probably the fastest way to PMF.
2️⃣ Build the strongest team you can
2 formers engineers at Facebook.
1 former founder at Vivo.
1 product editor at Square.
They worked on real projects.
They had different jobs.
They were strong!
3️⃣ Become an expert before scaling
Starts ➤ PaloAltoDelivery.com
Scaled ➤ DoorDash worldwide
They became good at their craft.
They understood it by doing it (they were all drivers).
And then they conquered the world.
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Hugo 👋