Foundraisr

Campaign Manager

Spanish-speaking Indian living in Norway

Book a call: https://www.foundraisr.com/book-a-demo

Thinking of quitting your job?

To be a solopreneur or startup founder?

Talk to me first. For free.

I am pissed off by too many people quitting perfectly well-paying jobs for terrible business idea choices.

I will give you all the research you need to see if it is a good or bad idea.

Then do what you want.

Prateek Sanjay

Pre-seed angel investment is driven by:

1. Large-scale investor bias towards the market
2. Pre-existing network of the founder

It is mentally brutal to raise money without these.

Daniel Kahnemann passed away on 27th March.

My finance training was based heavily on Kahnemann.

Kahnemann's thinking inspires 90% of my posts.

My list of Kahnemann-inspired thinking:

We overvalue what we own.

We hate to lose things.

Letting go of things quickly produces the best life. (how I moved from Gurgaon to New York to Madrid to Barcelona to Oslo to Goa)

Take the sting of losing something now, and enjoy your decision after.

First info influences decisions. (NEVER send pitch decks)

Never use shortcut thinking. Write down how you think. (this is why I post on LinkedIn)

You will overestimate how correct you were all the time so just chill when everything comes crashing down (inevitable part of human life)

Slow down and work less to work better.

Anyway...

Mankind averted disaster from this man's thinking.

Most financial institutions embedded his thinking deeply in training their hires.

Mankind will grow the fastest when it lets go of its fear of losing things.

We might lose this planet, by the way....

You are being manipulated on LinkedIn.

How not to let your LinkedIn feed manipulate you.

Follow these with discipline:

1. Never browse your feed while drinking coffee in the morning. Wait until after lunchtime.

2. Mute posts with emotionally compelling images and videos.

3. Mute posts mentioning desirable quantifiable outcomes for your business.

4. Mute posts that are written with extreme excitement and optimism.

5. Unfollow people who offer low-stakes CTA such as "free webinar sign-ups" or "comment to get free X".

6. Mute posts that tag a happy customer or show a video of a happy customer - ESPECIALLY if that person is a close friend of yours (you are being targetted)

7. Mute posts that mention how someone faced a catastrophe or lost something by not following XYZ advice. They use fear.

8. Be suspicious about posts about the poster's own life: their past experiences, their current needs, and their future aspirations. If they are educated, well-read, and with money, they are trying to look "relatable". (They are not.)

9. "Old game, new game" - manipulation, manipulation, manipulation. They are trying to catch you with "This is the latest in markets". DO NOT FALL FOR IT!

10. "Shortcuts to, hacks to, easy ways" - BLOCK, BLOCK, BLOCK! Most dangerous!

11. MUTE posts and BLOCK posters whose posts consistently confirm all your existing beliefs from several of your posts. - these are NEVER coincidental. You are TARGETTED! I mean it. Someone does it INTENTIONALLY! This is so ALL THE TIME!

12. Use your feed mainly to consume bland text-only factual information from people whose views are the opposite of yours.

I previously used these manipulation techniques during 2021-2022. I had studied deeply these manipulation techniques from certain people. I paid those people money to study these manipulation techniques. I muted my feed to prevent manipulation by people I do not know. My top-performing posts had 5,000 to 15,000 likes.

I stopped in early 2023 and my engagement crashed.

It destroyed me economically and I lost my apartment. I am glad.

You must have a healthy motivation for appreciating me.
Or a healthy motivation for not appreciating me at all.
But please, only healthy motivations in life. Always.

I am poorer but happier now.

Are you under the "spell" of a LinkedIn influencer?

1. Shout out to your friends for help.
2. Tell your situation to them.
3. Get an additional opinion.

Hallucinations are a real thing.
Illusions are a real thing.

Dear founders,

Put the motivational book down.

It will not help.

A "great resilient and innovative mindset" will not build a great business.

Here is why:

1. Market Conditions and External Forces Overwhelm Individual Influence

Sometimes, it's like being in a tiny boat during a storm.

No matter how good you are at rowing, the waves are just too big.

Your drive or confidence can't change the game.

2. Highly Structured and Regulated Industries

Imagine you want to start something new in a field where there's a ton of rules and you need big money just to start, like opening a bank.

Even if you're the most innovative thinker, you can't just change how things work because the industry is locked down tight.

3. Businesses Depend on Outside Factors

Say you're selling something that depends on stuff you can't control.

Like weather for your crops.

It doesn't matter how much you believe in your product if a drought hits and you've got nothing to sell.

4. Mature and Saturated Markets

If you're trying to break into a market where customers already have loads of options and aren't looking for anything new, like selling refurbished iPhones...

...it's tough to stand out just by being passionate or creative.

5. Little Headroom for Innovation

Sometimes, success is more about just doing things by the book.

Like running a fast-food franchise. Or doing enterprise cybersecurity audits.

They give you the recipe; you just need to follow it.

Being overly creative or trying to reinvent the wheel might not help.

....

That was all.

I made this mistake in 2023.

I thought I could rapidly evolve into someone I am not. Become the hardcore, resilient, 24/7/365 machine. Did not work.

Today, I instead think about how I can win while being myself.

So I study new markets, new segments, and new opportunities.

And I study how to think about them.

I can tell you now...
...I am more relaxed.

Investors bet on the waves.

Investors do not bet on the surfboard.

Investors do not bet on the surfer.

Wave = markets
Surfboard = technology and team
Surfer = founder

Credit: Stéphane Nasser

HARD WORK DOES NOT BUILD A BUSINESS.

HARD WORK DOES NOT BUILD A BUSINESS.

HARD WORK DOES NOT BUILD A BUSINESS.

I respect entrepreneurs doing whatever it takes to succeed.

However, entrepreneurs must know scientifically what it takes to succeed.

It is impossible that your business in the next 18 months:
1. will not face changes in market dynamics
2. will not face technological disruptions
3. will not face economic fluctuations
4. will not face unpredictable global events
5. will not face changes in consumer behavior
6. will not face regulatory changes
7. will not face scaling challenges
8. will not face new competition

A PLAN FOR SUCCESS BUILDS A BUSINESS.

A PLAN FOR SUCCESS BUILDS A BUSINESS.

A PLAN FOR SUCCESS BUILDS A BUSINESS.

A plan for success requires:

1. 5-10 minutes of basic market research
2. 5-10 minutes of thinking about what else you can sell to make money on the side
3. 5-10 minutes of thinking about how to put aside cash for when SHTF.
4. 5-10 of asking others, especially your team and your customers, why you are full of **** and do not see it
5. 5-10 minutes of Googling what new tools you can use
6. 5-10 minutes of checking your old contacts and seeing what they are up to
7. 5-10 minutes of calling a random customer and seeing if they are really happy
8. 5-10 minutes of checking what regulations might have changed
9. 5-10 minutes of checking global events that affect your business

Not a silly 100-hour work week doing the same thing over and over and over again for no reason.

You do not need to remember that checklist, by the way.

Block out 2 hours of "curious and creative thinking time" every week.

Save yourself hundreds of wasted hours across the year.

We do not research because it is scary. Who wants to find out everything they did for months was completely pointless? It is mentally tough and painful every time.

Accept that discomfort now.
Prevent future discomfort.

More followers = more people talking to you.

More people talking to you = more market knowledge.

More market knowledge = free valuable research.

When you play LinkedIn as a knowledge game, every insight is money.

Thanks to Matthias Voigt, a follower who often sent me scientific papers on Big Five traits in entrepreneurs, I recently found this insane insight.

There are 370,000+ impact or sustainability business angels or investors worldwide. At least.

Why?

A search for "impact investor" or "sustainability investor" on LinkedIn shows that a large number of people fit this profile.

And via Phil Diamond, I stumbled on the idea of "mental accounting" among investors.

High net worths have a $2,000 budget for investing but $10,000 to $100,000 for sustainability or impact.

Via Aleksander Meidell-Hagewick, I learned that winning in startup investments is simply about a much larger portfolio with the same level of due diligence.

Via Greg Hodgin, I learned about the massive budgets for impact and sustainability in Africa from the African American community.

Via James Kellett, I learned how dramatically a portfolio manager and an angel investor with a comfortable life would give up all that upon the sight of melting glaciers.

Via Marco Jean Aboav, I learned there is about to be a massive revolution in asset management via causal factor investing, allowing money to be managed smarter and faster than ever.

Do the math.

The first person to build The People's Impact Fund - a mega-syndicate of $1,000 cheques from ordinary people for super early bets in impact and sustainability - could end up building a $1 billion AUM entity. In 30 years, it could be a $100 billion AUM monster. By 2050, it would be driven by causal factor investing indexing infrastructure to assess deal flow and conduct due diligence for 10,000+ early-stage investments a year.

Democratized private equity to protect the planet.

AND IT WILL ABSOLUTELY NOT BE BUILT ON BLOCKCHAIN!

It has a small chance eventually to rival the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, and the International Monetary Fund for the capacity to solve planetary challenges.

But even if it does, the People's Impact Fund could do huge good without needing to be powerful.

Only one thing.

The person to build the People's Impact Fund has to have zero regard for self-preservation. He or she needs to be a beast with no filters, sacrificing all happiness for a mad goal.

That is why I did not touch the idea back in January.

For 3 months, I believed such a person did not exist.

What extreme superhuman would build the world's first People's Impact Fund?

Then I met James Ward...

"Prateek, you are full of crap..."

"Why should I talk about who I am?..."

"Does the business not matter?..."

For the last twelve months, founders who did cold outreach campaigns with me or inquired about it were sometimes fuming and angry with me.

I suggested some of them remove every detail about their business in their outreach emails because it would not help them in their case.

One Russian founder in Barcelona got rightly upset with me about it.

"I build my business. I like my business. I want to talk about my business. I am not anyone's friend to have a champagne with!"

I said, "Your market is too small..."

"That is just your opinion!", she snapped back, and deservedly so.

I chose the wrong words. (Should have said, "it is seen as too small")

Anyway....

Investors have 2 powerful biases:

1. Status quo bias
2. Shared values bias

Status quo bias is real; 70% of US startup funding goes to teams with Harvard and Stanford grads. Elite people like other elite people.

Shared values bias is real; I have never seen a Lebanese American who invested in an Israeli American. Israelis and Arabs in the US or UK rarely do business with each other.

Without overcoming these biases, you have near zero chances.

After overcoming these biases, it is still hard work.

If you are a 21-year-old Arab nontech founder in an industry dominated by 55-year-old Israeli senior cybersecurity background investors, what do you do?

You talk about your love of Led Zeppelin and Malcolm Gladwell. And how you worked your ass off in past jobs.

An middle aged Israeli man who also loves Led Zeppelin and Malcolm Gladwell will immediately soften their heart for this Arab kid.

"That will never work."

You think?

Well - that is how a South Asian client in South East Asia got money from a Chinese investor last week from cold outreach...

I know what I am doing...

"Lone geniuses" fail.

20-30 people give me free advice weekly.

I spend most of my week learning.

Entrepreneurship isn't a solo flight.

The myth of the 'lone genius' conquering the market single-handedly overlooks the essence of business success: collaboration.

Networking isn't just about exchanging business cards; it's about building ecosystems where ideas flourish, feedback is continual, and support is mutual.

I try to give back 1 good idea for each 1 good idea I receive. (Note: "try". Too many are more experienced than me.)

1. Check the people who like your comments and posts.

2. Dive deep into your online tribe and community.

3. Ask hard questions about what you do wrong.

The next insight driving you another $50,000 will come from your online peers.

Simple as.

OFFERING FREE INVESTOR OUTREACH

The global tech scene has too much dominance of:
1. Americans
2. Chinese
3. Europeans
4. MENA
5. Indians

What about Africa?

What about Latin America?

What about South East Asia?

What about the whole Global South?

Even worse, these regions and their VCs have a huge bias towards:

1. Fintech 
2. SaaS 
3. Marketplaces 
4. E-commerce and consumer brands 
5. Mobile apps 

None of the above are making the Global South a technologically more advanced and futuristic society that offers a quality of life comparable to the US and Europe.

Nothing in those 5 categories will the Americans or Chinese seriously worried.

If you are an African, Latin American, or South East Asian scientist or engineer with your own PATENTED technology in:

Nanoscale Fabrication Tools For Semiconductor Manufacturing
Automation and Robotics For Enhanced Precision in Production Lines
Additive Manufacturing f.e. 3D printing technologies for complex parts
Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) Devices for real-time monitoring
Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) Devices for optimization of manufacturing
AI for predictive maintenance, quality control, and operational efficiency
Cloud Computing and Edge Computing
Renewable Energy Systems 
Energy Storage Solution
Carbon Capture and Storage
Inventory Management Systems
Augmented Reality (AR) for On-the-Job Assistance

(and ONLY in the above cases)

You will get a FREE INVESTOR OUTREACH.

No upfront cash, no success fee after work, no equity, no favors, NOTHING.

Global South Deep Tech - make it rule the world.

Reach out at prateek@foundraisr.com.

NEVER invest in AI-driven marketing.

NEVER start an AI-driven marketing startup.

AI marketing = Taylor Swift covers.

1. The New Hit Tech Drops: Mega LLMs
What Happened: Think of OpenAI dropping a new album, but it's a super advanced AI, GPT-3, in June 2020.
Everyone's Reaction: Companies rush to use it because it's like the hottest new game everyone wants to play first.
Why It's Cool (Science Stuff): It's about wanting to be the hippest (like getting Swift concert tickets) and attending her gigs because everyone else is.
The Scientists Behind: Abraham Maslow (a guy who talked about our needs and wants) and Tversky & Kahneman (two smart folks who explained why we go for what's right in front of us).
What It Means: GPT-3's release is like the drop of a new, game-changing smartphone.
When It Happened: June 2020.

2. Everyone Wants In: The Rush to Use Mega LLMs
What Happened Next: Companies see the hype and don't want to miss out, kind of like how you don't want to be only non Swiftie in your friend group
Everyone's Reaction: Everyone's trying to use this AI because they saw others doing it.
Why It's Cool (Science Stuff): It's about following the crowd because there's comfort in doing what others do.
The Scientists Behind: Robert Cialdini, who explained why we copy others, and the whole field of social psychology.
What It Means: Microsoft snagging an exclusive deal with GPT-3 is like getting VIP access to a concert.
When It Happened: September 2020.

3. The Boom: Everyone's Got It
What Happened Next: With all this rush, suddenly there are a ton of new apps and tools popping up using this AI. Like buying Taylor Swift tickets.
Everyone's Reaction: It gets a bit overwhelming, like when there are too many choices of what game to play next.
Why It's Cool (Science Stuff): Too many options can make it hard to choose.
The Scientists Behind: Barry Schwartz talks about how too many options can stress us out.
Real-World Example: All these AI tools coming out in 2021 are like when your unemployed guitarist and singer-songwriter friend forces you to listen to their shitty Swift cover.
When It Happened: Throughout 2021.

4. Too Much of a Good Thing: The Market Gets Flooded
What Happened Next: Now, there are so many similar tools and apps out there; it's hard for any to stand out.
Everyone's Reaction: Companies try to find their "special thing" that makes them different, like a YouTube Taylor Swift cover "only" they have.
Why It's Cool (Science Stuff): It's about being unique to get noticed. But NO ONE cares how unique you are.
The Scientist Behind: Michael Porter talked about how being different can give you an edge. Schwartz talked about no one gives a damn about your difference.
Real-World Example: By mid-2021, there's a flood of startups all trying to be the next big thing with AI.
When It Happened: Mid-2021.

OpenAI = Taylor Swift
AI startups = Taylor Swift fans

AI haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate
OpenAI just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake

I am not a contrarian.

My views are super mainstream.

Look at what I believe.

I believe people must fulfill basic needs first. (Maslow)

I believe people need secure attachments to feel safe (Bowlby)

I believe people want to enjoy what they do. (Deci & Ryan)

I believe the above three things make people do irrational things in business and work. (Thaler)

I believe people use broken shortcut thinking to make up for the above. (Kahneman & Tversky)

I believe that people ask for other opinions or approvals of everyone else because of their mistakes and shortcut thinking. (Cialdini)

I believe you must imagine the opposite scenario to check if one thing causes the other. (Judea Pearl)

Let's break it down.

1. Global elites have all their physical, emotional, and sexual needs met in their mansioned enclaves. They genuinely do not give a **** about you and me. (Maslow)
2. But they still need a functioning planet with functioning countries to feel safe inside it. (Bowlby)
3. And they do enjoy playing with our lives as a power flex. (Deci & Ryan)
4. So they do go crazy when they realize the planet is in danger and start throwing their money at broken short-term and irrational solutions such as ESG compliance and carbon credits. (Thaler)
5. Then they lose a lot of money on these things and want a trustworthy pal to be a custodian and prevent them from losing money but still "save the planet". (Kahneman & Tversky)
6. The custodian does not want to do too much thinking so she just says, "Put the money in something all other crazy rich people put their money in". (Cialdini)

...and

7. No rich person with money thinks ANY of this will work but their counterfactual thought is, "What if it works out?" Plus, they have their mansion if it fails. (Judea Pearl)

TL;DR: Don't want a job? Want to have a business?

Do rich people's favorite bandwagon sustainability crap.
And be their little pet and friend to have champagne with.

You will ALWAYS have money.

I will just say it.

I miss India of the late 90s.

It was beautiful.

MTV and Cyrus Barucha.

Dil Se and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.

Suzuki Esteem, Mitsubishi Lancer, and Daewoo Matiz.

Hill stations without tourists.

Everybody thinking the future (now) would be blue and white.

Kylie Minogue and George Michael playing in every mall and store.

Kids hanging out after school.

No kids parents obsessed with a high paying career.

What did we lose?

We need tech startup regulators.

They need to certify company quality.

You need it to get funded faster.

We were all idiots.

We thought our business skills mattered.

Markets > us.

What we call "markets" has a genuine scientific name.

"Collective brain stress response". It is just neuroscience.

Buyers stampede to buy from us when:
- their brain's stress response impedes decision-making
- they are faced with a shock that makes them search for something new
- their amygdala produces strong aversions to repeated negative stimuli
- their mirror neuron system tells them, "Don't think; just copy what others do"
- their brain's reward system tells them, "Your current situation has high cost and litle benefit"

Buyers run away from us and other competing vendors when:
- their amygdala and prefrontal cortex make them see you and think "threat, threat, threat"
- their mirror neuron system tells them, "Don't think; just copy what others do" when they see everyone abandoning you
- their nucleus accumbens and ventromedial prefrontal cortex tells them "Maintain status quo, change nothing"
- their orbitofrontal cortex makes them think, "Let's play long-term, avoid buying"
- the "reasoned action" bias suddenly makes them "calculate" their reasons for not buying (it is just panic)

Product, sales, and marketing are just voodoo and alchemy.
The nervous system laughs at your "differentiation".

Stress + threat = mirron neuron = demand and supply changes

Do NOT quit your job.
Do NOT leave it for a startup.
LEARN this crap first.

Investors can never eliminate cognitive biases.

Investors can never eliminate imperfect information.

Investors can never guarantee investment success.

Investors can never eliminate herding and FOMO behavior.

Investors can never predict market conditions.

Investors can never be completely rational.

Investors can never be isolated from group sentiment.

What can investors do?

1. They can be aware of these biases and choose not to invest.
2. They can do terrible due diligence influenced by their biases, invest badly, and lose a lot of money (causing extreme anguish)

As I said before:

We need tech startup regulators.

They need to certify company quality.

You need it to get funded faster.

Anything else?
Impossible.

"But Prateek, Amazon did it."

"But Prateek, Uber did it."

"But Prateek, AirBnB did it."

Oh. My. God.

We all need to fix how we understand the world.

Have you heard about a famous startup's success?
Please ask hard questions that go beyond the obvious.

Do you guess as to why they succeeded?
Write down your chain of thought clearly.

"ERISA 1974 > More US tax info processing > More information volume by 1980s > More PC purchases + more sending of tax info > Straining telecom infrastructure > Telecom deregulalation in 1990s > 2,300% growth in the web > Bezos launches Amazon"

Something like that.

Do you feel you discovered a pattern?
Write down why customers or investors noticed or failed to notice.

Did you find a societal trigger that blows up demand for a startup?
Call 10-20 friends and ask if they think you are right or wrong.

Do most of your friends think you are wrong?
Call 10-20 experts or read their articles.

Falsify, falsify, falsify...

Found a rare juicy nugget of insight?
Now talk about it publicly.

Do people online think you are crazy?
Now you have shaken their world.

Do this always, everywhere.
Never parrot narratives.

36x ROI in 22 days.

That is what a UK friend achieved.

E-commerce GenAI SaaS.

His solution multiplies retention for e-commerce brands with genAI.

And it measures the ROI for all spending on his product.

I introduced this UK founder to my Finnish investor friend.

He only saw the customer ROI dashboard, no pitch deck, no pitch, nothing.

This is what the investor said:

"Having served on 100+ VC-backed boards in 10 countries and being a lead investor in e-commerce for the first time in 97' yes, that's it!  Understanding and managing churn is even more crucial than growth."

Money shot.

The customer ROI dashboard could be more powerful than any pitch deck or verbal pitch for raising money.

The founder is using it for his bridge round?

Anybody want to see that dashboard?
And talk to the founder?

Taplio

Prateek Sanjay's Linkedin Analytics

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