Hey, there, my name is Alex Iskold. I am technology entrepreneur, Founder and Managing Partner at 2048 Ventures, and a first-check investor in over 150 early stage companies including GlossGenius, Gorgias, Vitally, Narmi, BentoBox, Mantl, DataCamp, Stream, Healthie, Skopenow, soona, AirspaceLink, nomic.bio.

I lead pre-seed rounds and back visionary founders who are creating technologies of the future. I specifically focus on biotech, deep tech, platform and API companies.

You can pitch your startup to me by filling out this quick form.

Startup Hacks is a collection of the blog posts that I've written over the years for the founders. I write 2-6 new blog posts a month, and you can subscribe here.

This page is organized as a simple index by topic so that you can scroll through and find a topic you are looking for. If you are looking for the blog archive instead, visit Recent Posts.

🔖 STARTING UP

• 12 Questions Before You Launch a Startup

• Why Founder-Market-Fit is so Important

• Why Strong Vision is so Important

• 7 Things That Define Great Founding Teams

• 8 Tips for Dealing with Competitors

• Your MVP is Minimal, but is it Viable?

• Why Product Demo is Your Secret Weapon

• Intro to Startup Metrics

• Self-care: 8 Tips for Founders to take care of themselves

• The Culture of Writing Things Down

• 18 Mistakes Founders Make When Pitching Pre-Seed VCs

💵 RAISING PRE-SEED and SEED

• 30 Questions Investors Will Ask Founders

• 11 Questions Founders Need to Ask Investors

• The Perfect Investor Deck for Raising a Seed Round

• How to Get Seed Funding Every Single Time

• A Fair Pricing Model for Pre-seed Rounds

• 9 Seed Funding Gotchas

• Why and How to Prepare for Investor Meetings

• How to Run and Awesome 1st Investor Meeting

• How to Target The Right Investors

• How to Setup Your Investor Funnel

• 7 Sources of Seed Capital

• 8 Things you Need to Know about Venture Capital

• 9 Personal and Painful Reasons why Founders don't get Investment

• How Much Capital Should Your Raise?

• Founders, Beware of Happy Ears

• Why NO is the Next Best Thing After YES

• How to Actually Commit Investors to your Round

• 7 Tips for Founders When Negotiating Term Sheets with VCs

🚀 RAISING SERIES A, B, etc

• The Perfect Investor Deck for Raising Series A

• How to run a Series A Fundraising Process

• 6 Things Founders Should Expect During Venture Due Diligence

• Founders Guide to the Secondary Stock Sale

• The Complete List of Series B Investors

• The Fast Route to a Partner Meeting is a Route to a NO

• Do not worry about the price, worry about leverage

💰 MORE ON FUNDRAISING

• Complete Guide to Raising Capital in Emerging Cities

• Understanding Startup Board Control

• 7 Tips for Raising Capital in a Slower Market

• 4 Tips for Raising Capital During Holidays

• What to do When Fundraising is not going well

• Raise More Capital When you can

• Everything You Need to Know About Market Sizing

• A Complete Guide to Business Moats

• WHY NOW is a trick question

• 25 Epic, Must-Read Posts About Fundraising

🧳 MANAGING INVESTORS

• How to Run a Simple and Effective Board Meeting

• How to use Mailing List to Update Mentors & Investors

• How and Why to Send Investor Updates

🤝 VC & BUSINESS INTRODUCTIONS

• How to Write a Forwardable Email Introduction

• How to Introduce your Startup in an Email

• Bridge: 10x your introductions, and build a better professional network

• How to Ask Me and Others for an Introduction

• The WHY in the Investor Ask

• How to Ask (and NOT to ask) for VC introduction

• Don't Take Intros from Investors Who aren't Investing

📈 METRICS & KPIs

• Intro to Startup Metrics

• How to Setup KPI Dashboard for your Seed Stage Startup

• Funnels for Startups: A primer

• Your Startup as a Funnel

• What is the Magic Moment for Your Startup?

💡PRODUCT, MARKETING AND SALES

• Your MVP is Minimal, but is it Viable?

• 5 Building Blocks for YOUR Customer Acquisition Machine

• What is the API for Your Startup?

• Why Product Demo is Your Secret Weapon

• Dude, You Need a Marketing Plan

• Understanding Network Effects

• Why Customer Network is the next big thing every startup needs to master

• What is the Customer Elevator Pitch for Your Startup

• 5 Tips for Startup Engineering Teams

• A Spiral Approach to Early Stage Startup Sales

✅ PRODUCTIVITY & SELF-CARE

• Self-care: 8 Tips for Founders to take care of themselves

• 3 Daily Walks for Self-Care and Productivity

• Inbox 0

• 7 Calendar Tips for Startups

• Re-Calendaring

• Action and Idea Lists for Startups

• 7 Biz Dev Tips for Startups

• The Culture of Writing Things Down

• What is your GMT - the Next Goal Milestone or Task

• 6 Ways Startup Founders can Deal with Stress

• 3 Basic Principles Founders can Apply to Achieve Quality

• 12 Ways to Give Time Back to Others and to Yourself

• 51 basic Productivity and Biz Dev Tips for Startups

👊 FOUNDERS & TEAM

• 12 Questions Before You Launch a Startup

• Why Strong Vision is so Important

• Why Founder-Market-Fit is so Important

• 7 Things That Define Great Founding Teams

• How to Pick a Co-Founder

• The Myth of Equal Co-Founders

• 11 Worst Founder Traits That Lead to Failure

• Are You a Resilient Founder?

• Understanding Founder Roles and Types of Stock

• 15 Tips for Scaling Your Startup’s Recruiting Process

• How to create a Hiring Plan for your startup

• What is the Core of Your Startup?

🛫 ACCELERATOR

• Top 10 Reason to Join or NOT to Join Accelerator

• 7 Things to Make Your Accelerator Application Standout

• How to Get the Most out of anAccelerator

• 12 Tips to get the most out of Mentor Meetings

• 7 Tips for Crashing it at Demo Day

🤔 FOR INVESTORS

• What it’s Really Like to Run a Pre-Seed Firm

• Complete Guide to Angel Investing

• Why I Love investing in Pre-seed Startups

• 8 Myths of the Pre-Seed Venture Investing

• 7 Truth Across Venture Investing Stages

• Moneyball in later stage Venture

📺 WATCH & LISTEN

A few years ago I gave a talk at NYU startup school - a crash course on fundraising and all things VC. We cover sources of capital, angel investors, how VCs make money and much much more !

In my interview with Justin Gordon we covered a wide range of topics - from my startups, to Techstars, The $1k Project, the origin and strategy of 2048 Ventures, portfolio construction, how we source, how do we evaluate deals, and much more. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Google Podcasts or click play button below.