💸 Want More VC Meetings? Try Building in Public

Happy Friday Kernalers,

The sun is shining, the VC market's still on fire, and according to our Twitter ~~fleets~~ feeds, y'all been dishing out some juicy startup ideas this week.

Quick reminder: if you're booking a summer vacay this month, don't just choose the Airbnbs with the best wifi to stay on top of the freshest ideas. Focus on soaking up quality time with the kids first, then if you have time, poke around ideas later. 😏

Today's round-up will show you a few moves to score a piece of that hot VC deal flow we've been reading about. So fill up your Aeropress, cc the summer interns and let's dive in. ☕️

👏 Warm Welcomes:

Virtual red carpet welcome to some new faces joining the fold:

Hailing from a Canadian unicorn company as their Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Thinkific is Matt Smith. In 2020 alone, his team has helped course creators earn $275 million USD in revenue and over 21 million students took those classes.
Leading the charge as Executive Director at League of Innovators is Joanna Buczkowska-McCumber. She's also an Executive In Residence Women Entrepreneurship Programs @ UVIC and has an impressive background teaching young entrepreneurs.

Thinkific's IPO earlier this year

Standing at 6'2” (total guess by his LinkedIn pic) is Joseph Levque: VP of Growth at Storefront, a marketplace for rental space used by Google, L'Oreal and Playstation.
Coming in with a heavy startup resume is Michael Thaney: Startup Grind Director, angel investor, Wefunder Venture partner and Laconia Venture Cooperative.

🛠 Stop Waiting, Start Buildin'

We all know there are angel investors out there looking for great ideas. The trouble is booking a meeting. Well, what if instead of sliding into their DMs, you flipped the script? Take a listen:

If you've got great ideas, why not let them shine? You've got over 5,000 founders and investors reading today's newsletter that are just waiting for their next 100x investment. Why not focus on building ideas in public vs chasing meetings with suits that don't care about the merit of a good startup idea?

To help you out, here are some strategies we'd recommend:

🌱 Keyword Search for Reputable Investors

Need to find smart investors to pitch your idea to? No sweat. Stop digging through 100+ AngelList profiles that have never updated their projects and try browsing the posters or commenters behind the top ideas on Kernal.

Their engagement will show what they care about, how they thank and what sort of ideas spark their interest. When you have that information sorted, go and swing for the fences.

Bonus: If you have a niche you want to narrow down on like "podcasts, SaaS or marketing" the same rules apply. Type 'er in the search and presto: you'll find an investor match quicker than tinder.

🌱 Review Users' Latest Projects

By checking out someone's profile, you can find their ideas, follower count and profile link to look more thoroughly into their background.

By clicking on Tiffany Zhong's background, you can find the startup she's building, Islands.xyz, but also their whole list of ideas, comments and up-votes, if you wanna stand out when you leave your first comment or send a message.

🌱 Help Others with Recent Startup Ideas

Need to find someone that's a natural storyteller, clever product builder or well versed in the no-code industry? Don't let them tell you in an interview, just read over their latest engagement on the platform.

Take Alexis Grant for example. By checking out her profile, you're able to see how she thinks and approaches problem-solving. You can tell that she's:

well-positioned in the media space
has a thread of social good baked into her ideas
and inspires quite a few comments from the Kernal audience

Better than Indeed? We think so. Easier to build a value-aligned relationship with your next investor or co-founder? You better believe it. 🔑

TL;DR:

Reverse-engineer who you wanna meet
Sort people and projects by keywords to save time
Track past ideas, comments and history to stay relevant
Genuinely care about helping others and they'll care about helping you

Startup Zingers

✋ Nothing's Free: Google Meet is feeling the pressure and rolling out a 60-minute limit on meetings for free users.

🔔 Somebody's getting a raise: TikTok just hit 3 billion downloads, a power milestone only Facebook has reached.

💰 DM Slide Unlocked: Clubhouse finally listened and launched its DM feature Backchannel.

🤝 Back to the Drawing Board: Twitter killed Fleets since people just weren't digging it. Props to them for giving it a test.

💎 23 Rules: shared by Hiten Shah that'll help you turn your stories into a fundraising machine.

Member Shoutouts

📺 Corey Nicholson mentioned us in his latest Youtube video sharing his 5 top business ideas of the year.
Ella Reizevoort wrote a heartwarming review of how Kernal helped launch her startup idea into a powerful 2-month build in public test. She digs into the full playbook on her Indiehackers blog.

⚡️ Vic Kalchev is offering users a free trial in his Kernal concept as he builds a prototype to help founders validate their ideas in public.
🔦 Erik Huberman teamed up with 2 Gen Z marketing wizards to launch HawkeZ