This document discusses common traits of successful startups and provides examples of real startups from the author's portfolio to analyze their successes and failures. It notes that the most important factor for a startup's success is the quality of its founding team. The examples show that startups can succeed despite obstacles if they have a great product, low costs, and a team that is highly focused and takes feedback well. Conversely, startups can fail quickly due to an unfocused team, bad management, lack of product-market fit, or defensive founders who don't accept feedback.

2. Who am I?
Super Angel,
Serial Entrepreneur,
I build things that
taste like magic

3. Also, we are not doing the
“33 things” because it is boring.

4. The life cycle of a Startup

6. The most successful Startups have
these things in common:
(thus making it super easy to find the best
Startups)

7. 1. Lot’s of funding from at least one
big VC
2. Headquarters in San Fran*
3. A billion dollar market
4. A founding team that uses actual
unicorns for transportation. Or
Bird
5. One article in Techcrunch (minimum)
*that’s how all the cool guys call San Francisco

8. Now that you know how to pick the
winners, let’s play a game.

9. The game is called
“Spot the crap”

10. Disclosure:
The following examples are real and
are or were part of my portfolio or
#StartupLife.
Or are just interesting stories.

11. Startup One:
“Building a Game
Platform on Facebook”

12. 1. Got funding from Facebook
2. Headquarters in San Fran
3. Founder is a Stanford graduate
4. $1M daily active users
5. Competition is crashed
6. Raised a lot of money SUPER fast

13. What do you think that
happened next?

15. whyyyy?

16. 1. The team lost focus
2. The founder was a really bad manager
3. No monetization plan
Yes, it is that easy sinking the ship
#Startuplife

17. Startup Two:
“Crowdsourcing
Real-estate”

18. 1. Founder has tons of experience in
the space
2. The company raised funds super fast
3. Not a lot of traction and the
product is buggy but the space is
hot

19. What do you think that
happened next?

20. 3x return to the investors

21. hooooow?

22. 1. The product is terrible
2. The founder cannot take ANY feedback
(he is really defensive about
everything)
3. The team is really bad and very
small

23. Startup Three:
“Find bugs in software”

24. 1. Founders are Geeks but they don’t
live in the US
2. The company struggled to raise
money
3. The product is good
4. The team is very small and they are
not in the US

25. What do you think that
happened next?

27. The Company returned a
17x to the investors

28. hooooow?

29. 1. Their operating costs were low
2. They had incredible technology
3. Customers loved the product
4. The team was kicking ass

30. Startup Four:
“Renting apartments”

31. 1. Founders have no engineering skills
2. The founders got rejected by many
(all?) VCs and Angels
3. The founders decided to sell cereal
(to survive)
4. Regulations are very strict and
insurance is crazy

32. “Whenever someone tells me that they can't figure out how to raise the first
$25,000 they need to get their company started I stand up, walk over to the cereal
box, and tell this story”

33. That Company is AirBnb by the way

34. whyyyyyyy?

35. 1. Founders were extremely focused
2. They tested the market and had
positive results
3. Customers loved the product

36. Epilogue

37. You will lose money. Many times

38. It takes a very long time to “feel” if a
Startup has an edge.
Startups can crush and burn for reasons that
you won’t understand and cannot predict.
But there is one factor that gives you the
most chances:

39. But… there is ONE common factor for
successful Startups:

40. Always bet on the Team.
Thanks
Jon V (the magnificent)