🦠COVID-19 good news, toilet paper, VC fundable startups, and more

This is a bi-weekly newsletter offering helpful life and work updates/resources for founders, funders, family, and friends.

We have some good news: US Medicare will now cover telemedicine; doctors can now treat patients across state lines, and Nurx and Everly Well launched COVID-19 home testing kits. Also, we’ve grown our community by 33.9%! We’re at 1,443 subscribers (up from 1,077 2-weeks ago)! Oh, and bidets or this toilet paper co can take care of your TP needs.

I also have something personal to celebrate. I’m now interim sales exec for Catalyte’s remote senior tech talent brand, Surge, and will be heads down working with my awesome team of 8 (on Zoom)! This means we’ll be pausing work on the First-Time Founders School, for now, but continuing to review companies for investment on Saturdays.

Sending you an air hug and hoping you and your family are staying safe, practicing social distancing, and washing your hands.

✨Lolita Taub
lolitataub.co | twitter
Reach out with requests here.

ICYMI: Check-out Notion's work-from-home resource depot, my real-talk interview with Crunchbase and Q&A on TheBridge.

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Shoutouts

Congrats! Kristen for raising a $16M Series A round for B.well (portfolio company). Julia for raising $2.7M Seed round for Planet Fwd. Ryan for Techstars Anywhere’s new look. Roshawna for making TAG’s top 10 fintech companies list. Trish for Portfolia’s feature on FastCompany’s 10 Most Innovative Companies list. Congrats to Sam and Jasmine for winning SoGal Global Pitch Competition! Amy, Molly, Anne, and Ankiti for being recognized as trailblazers by Fortune.

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Work

Funders

COVID-19 is stressing people out and some VCs are taking note and providing group therapy to their founders.

Lolita Taub @lolitataub

💆🏽‍♀️Wonderful to hear that @PrimaryVC @CoriginVentures @sogalventures @SperoVentures @LererHippeau and @CrosscutVC will offer group therapy for founders via @AtlasQ_ ! techcrunch.com/2020/03/18/vc-…

techcrunch.comVC firms offer group therapy for founders due to the COVID-19 outbreak – TechCrunchFounders face many trials and tribulations when building their companies, from fundraising woes to visa challenges to product failures to company failures. And according to Kari Sulenes, “almost everybody who has built a company has a burnout story.” Her startup, Atlas, connects venture firms and …

Founders

Some things to keep in mind if you’re a founder raising.

Lolita Taub @lolitataub

On raising during a financial crisis: focus on what you can learn from what’s happening, adapt, keep moving forward. If you want to raise 💰, focus on: 🔼revenue 🙇🏽‍♀️closing deals 🤝only do deals with long-term partners ⛈weather the storm marker.medium.com/5-lessons-on-c…

Should you be looking for capital from VCs or VC alternatives? Below is rough criteria that can help you answer that question.

Lolita Taub @lolitataub

VC fundable startup: 🚀 The founder wants to blitzscale + build a billion-dollar business in 5-7 years 💥 Team goals: large 🤑 TAM: large 📈 Scalability capability: high 🕴🏼 Capital source: VCs 🏰ARR could be: ≥$100M 🦄 Valuation goal: ≥$1B 🙌🏽 Exit desirability: yes

Lolita Taub @lolitataub

Non-VC fundable startup: 🌱The founder wants to grow organically 🙋🏽‍♀️Team goals: small 💰 TAM: small 🚗 Scalability capability: low 👨‍👩‍👧Capital source: family/friends, personal debt, customers, etc 🏡ARR potential: $50K-$100M w/o VC $ 🙅🏽‍♀️ Exit desirability: None

If VC is not for you, or you want to complement VC money, take a look at the list below.

Lolita Taub @lolitataub

🤑Founders: below is a list of alternatives to VC funding. 💵Grants @sbirgov @StreetShares @iFundWomen @AmberGrants @Visa @USMBDA 👩🏽‍💻Crowdinvesting @joinrepublic @Wefunder @SeedInvest @startupscom

Operators

Surviving and thriving in uncertain times can be tough. Luckily, we can preempt some things.

Lolita Taub @lolitataub

Cos are starting to face challenges bc of COVID-19. Suggestions to preempt: 🛣$ Runway: extend, if possible 💸Fundraising: expect constraints 🏷Sales: plan for 🔽 ⚡️Marketing: 🔼the bar on ROI spend 👩🏽‍💼Headcount: do more w/less 👛Capital: spend sensibly medium.com/sequoia-capita…

medium.comCoronavirus: The Black Swan of 2020Here is a note that we sent to Sequoia founders and CEOs today to provide guidance on how to ensure the health of their business while…

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Friends

Funny friends are must-haves.

aileenlee @aileenlee

Husband just sent this to our kids, haha

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Reads

Addressing dysfunctions in a team is crucial to succeeding more than ever.

Lolita Taub @lolitataub

Ate waffles 🤤 for breakfast and now I’m reading my second book by Patrick Lencioni this week. First book, I 100% recommend: Death by Meeting. 🤓Aom

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Opportunities

These posts are for those of you who want to raise capital, engage in the startup-ecosystem, or just explore the world of startups-VC.

Lolita Taub @lolitataub

✨Black, Latinx, Native American, female/non-binary, veteran, refugee, LGBTQ+ founders leading seed-series A tech cos: @MoniqueWoodard just announced that @SoftBank + @WeWork is launching an equity-free 8-wk program for you. Learn more + apply by 3/27.

wework.comSoftbank Emerge - WeWork LabsGlobal community of early-stage startups to access membership benefits including workspace, mentorship and education.

Lolita Taub @lolitataub

💰Women founders: extra excited to invite you to check-out the Women Startup Challenge Program w/@WomenWhoTech bc I'll be a judge! 10 startups will be chosen to pitch for up to $75K. Learn more + apply by March 29th. womenwhotech.com

Lolita Taub @lolitataub

💸Founders: @sydneypaige10 @PrecursorVC and @peterrojas @betamore have an open call for pitches! Learn more and apply to pitch them both. Deadline 4/6 8PM PST. airtable.com/shrMT5PBksE6pi…

airtable.comOpen Call for Pitches! - AirtableFill out the “Open Call for Pitches!” form quickly and securely on Airtable.

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Resources

What’s making quarantining tolerable? Below are cos that help.

Lolita Taub @lolitataub

What’s on your 🦠 quarantine tech list? Mine includes: 👩🏽‍💻Working @zoom_us @SlackHQ @Google 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧Connecting @Facebook WhatsApp @Twitter 🛒Consuming @amazon @Costco @Instacart @netflix @amazonprimenow @disneyplus 🧘🏽‍♀️Staying sane @useMotion @ShineText @Headspace

Ever wonder how startups track their fundraising process? Here’s an airtable that can help you with that and also provides a list of 1,000 funds.

Lolita Taub @lolitataub

⚡️Founders: I found an airtable that lists 1,000 funds and doubles up as a CRM/database template to help you track your fundraising process. 👇🏽 airtable.com/universe/expdy…

airtable.comFundraising CRM & Database - Airtable UniverseThis base is a redacted version of an actual base I used to successfully raise a seed/pre-seed round for my previous startup, uQuote. It will provide you...