Essays
Featured
The Compact LLM Disruption: New Horizons for the Apps Landscape
Mohamed Elseidy
·Mar 12
With the advent of Deepseek, Qwen and others, we are witnessing a fundamental transformation in what is attainable with AI applications.
How AI Has Changed Startups Forever
Qiao Wang
·Feb 20
When ChatGPT first came out three years ago, I wrote a wrapper to help myself prioritize emails and messages. My coding skills were rusty, so I used ChatGPT itself as a coding copilot. I instantly felt the magic. It took me maybe half a day to finish the project, while it would normally take me a few days in the pre-AI era.
2024 Crypto Startup Trends Report
Qiao Wang
·Oct 21, 2024
In this report, we provide trends observed in our application data and insights as to what they indicate for the broader startup ecosystem.
20 Lessons for Crypto Founders
Imran Khan
·Oct 18, 2024
I recently gave a keynote at Solana Breakpoint with the goal to pack as much actionable information for crypto founders into the time I had as possible. It was pretty well received so figured I’d take some time to elaborate a bit and give people a quick place to find each piece of advice.
Degens Are Pioneers
Qiao Wang
·Dec 12, 2023
A few months ago I came to a hilarious realization: “speculation” is the most contrarian idea among crypto VCs yet the most consensus idea among crypto users.
What Does It Take to be a Good Crypto Founder?
Qiao Wang
·Nov 14, 2023
I get this question a lot from founders and VCs: “what selection criteria do you use when screening teams for AllianceDAO?” So I decided to put my thoughts in writing.
Do Things That Don’t Scale: Crypto Edition
Qiao Wang
·Oct 27, 2023
Exactly 10 years ago Paul Graham wrote an essay titled “Do Things That Don’t Scale”. In my opinion, that was the single most important piece of content YC has put out for the startup community.
Hard Pivot from Crypto
Qiao Wang
·Oct 24, 2023
Since the beginning of the year I’ve worked closely with at least 5–10 startups that pivoted away from crypto.
The Magic behind AllianceDAO
Qiao Wang
·Oct 19, 2023
A few months ago at one of the dinners with ALL11 founders I had an epiphany. I realized why so many of our alumni raved about us. So I gave this talk during that dinner.
Four Reasons Why Crypto Startups Fail
Qiao Wang
·May 25, 2023
Two years ago I wrote about Common Pitfalls for Web3 Founders. As far as I know, this was the single most widely shared essay I’ve written for early-stage crypto founders.
Most Recent
The Compact LLM Disruption: New Horizons for the Apps Landscape
Mohamed Elseidy
·Mar 12
With the advent of Deepseek, Qwen and others, we are witnessing a fundamental transformation in what is attainable with AI applications.
How AI Has Changed Startups Forever
Qiao Wang
·Feb 20
When ChatGPT first came out three years ago, I wrote a wrapper to help myself prioritize emails and messages. My coding skills were rusty, so I used ChatGPT itself as a coding copilot. I instantly felt the magic. It took me maybe half a day to finish the project, while it would normally take me a few days in the pre-AI era.
2024 Crypto Startup Trends Report
Qiao Wang
·Oct 21, 2024
In this report, we provide trends observed in our application data and insights as to what they indicate for the broader startup ecosystem.
20 Lessons for Crypto Founders
Imran Khan
·Oct 18, 2024
I recently gave a keynote at Solana Breakpoint with the goal to pack as much actionable information for crypto founders into the time I had as possible. It was pretty well received so figured I’d take some time to elaborate a bit and give people a quick place to find each piece of advice.
Gen Z’s American Dream: 5 Leg Parlay Your Way to Basic Physiological Needs
Joe McNaney (lawl)
·Sep 5, 2024
Rising house prices, stagnant housing supply, grocery store “price gouging,” money printer going brrr, the gig economy, meme-stocks/coins, and Kevin Hart and Jamie Fox shilling you different sportsbooks to donate your paycheck to at every TV ad break - the new American Dream seems to be some version of “you too are just one five-leg parlay away from being able to consider buying a home.” What did they do to us?!