Digest #61 | Race to the Super App, The Cannonball Effect, & more

Jan 30th – Feb 5th | Insights from FT Partners, Acrew, Equal, ICONIQ, Haystack, and others

Ali Afridi

Feb 6, 2022

Welcome to our new subscribers! SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 650+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes, Theses, & Outlooks

The Race to the Super App (FT Partners)
Thesis Spotlight: Fintech & Web 3.0 (Acrew Team)
Equal’s 2022 Climate Wish List (Rick Zullo & Simran Suri, Equal Ventures)
The emergence and evolution of metadata management (Bessemer Team)
Investing in Web3 Credentialing (Mable Jiang, Partner @ Multicoin)
2022 Cybersecurity startup trends (Alex Ferrara, Amit Karp, & Craig Tarnopol, Bessemer)

Industry Developments & Analyses

The Changing Power Dynamics Defining Our Culture (Kayla Phillips, VC @ Basecamp Fund)
🌍 Giving (carbon) credit where it’s due (Sophie Purdom & Kim Zou, Climate Tech VC)
Web 3 Dictionary (Part 7 of 7) (Matt Cohen & Dom Lau, Ripple Ventures)
Fintech and Insurtech in 2022 (Rob Moffat, Partner @ Balderton)
Why “NFTs” are dull and NFT projects are magical (Joseph Flaherty, Director @ Founder Collective)
The Art of the Deal: How Money Shapes Art (Rex Woodbury, Principal @ Index)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

The Path to IPO: 2022 SaaS Enterprise Version (ICONIQ Growth)
Can a startup have two CEOs? (Christoph Janz, MP @ Point Nine)
The Durability Formula – How It Will Determine Your Startup’s Future Value (James Currier, GP @ NFX)
Cheat Codes: 5 SaaS Sales Challenges & How to Solve Them (Mike Marg, Principal @ Craft)
Go-to-Market in Web3: New Mindsets, Tactics, Success Metrics (Maggie Hsu, Partner @ A16Z)

Additional Reads

The Cannonball Effect (Peter Wagner, Partner @ Wing VC)
The Market Is The Greatest Critic (Semil Shah, GP @ Haystack)
Making Sense of Market Momentum (Meera Clark, Principal @ Obvious)
What's In a Valuation? (Kyle Harrison, former Principal @ Index)
Breaking Down Network Effects (Tanay Jaipuria, PM @ Instagram)
Everyone Wants to be an Index (Dez Fleming, VC @ FirstMark)
My Investment Heuristics When Evaluating Founders (David Paul, MP @ DWP Capital)
Deextinction of taste (Danny Crichton, Head of Editorial @ Lux)

Did we miss something?

We’re now pulling posts from over 650 Medium writers, Substack newsletters, and blogs (full list here). Let us know if you notice someone we’re missing and we'll include their content starting with our next digest! Just respond to this email with their URL if that’s the case.

Enjoying SandHill?

We’d really appreciate it if you shared it with a friend who would find it valuable.

Did someone send you this email? Subscribe below.