What does Building Community in Startups: The Antler Approach say about How VCs Think?

Being surrounded by peers in the same founder phase increases persistence because seeing others endure and make progress reduces loneliness, provides social proof, and sustains motivation through hard stretches.

Being surrounded by peers in the same founder phase increases…

Paying for weekly meal‑prep can save money and improve health for busy founders because it replaces frequent costly takeout with a predictable, healthier routine that reduces overall food spend and decision friction.

@business

Deep‑tech teams can sometimes commercialize much faster than expected because a technical breakthrough lets them build working prototypes and win early customers or partnerships that accelerate revenue timelines.

@business

Fast, concise responses predict better future performance because they prevent blocking teammates and customers, showing a founder’s operational discipline and low coordination friction.

@business

Focusing on the founder over the initial idea improves odds of success because strong founders iterate and pivot rapidly, discovering better business models when the first idea fails.

@business

Founder resilience is a near‑binary predictor of eventual success because sustained persistence through repeated setbacks allows accumulation of the rare breakthroughs and traction that quitting prevents.

@business

Founders should do the early hands‑on work themselves because personally running customer conversations and experiments reveals the repeatable signals that later hires can scale, rather than forcing hires to search for product‑market fit.

@business

Frontloading fees for an inception program makes sense because charging up front funds the intensive, hands‑on support that generates most of the program’s value early on.

@business

Very high valuations and large early bank balances harm startups because perceived abundance reduces frugality and leads teams to spend in ways that undermine long‑term discipline and durability.

@business

Insight by Business

More from this video