Reid's DukeGEN Blog

 Investor Directories Mercury  https://mercury.com/investor-db Visibile.VC  https://connect.visible.vc/investors

 Find a paid summer internship or research program for yourself or a student you know! Use the links below to search for Paid Summer Research Programs at NSF, NASA, NIH, and over 700 programs. Most programs offer both a stipend and housing and travel support. There’s something for everyone, as the programs cover nearly all STEM disciplines and are offered at institutions all over the country. Search a database of summer research opportunities for K-12, undergraduate, and graduate students: https://pathwaystoscience.org/programs.aspx?descriptorhub=SummerResearch_Summer%20Research%20Opportunity Search for internships and other programs for K-12 students: https://pathwaystoscience.org/K12.aspx Best success!

Best Practices - Monthly Updates to Investor Candidates, Investors, and Design Partners aka Beta Customers (updated 4 April 2024) Startups benefit greatly if they send monthly updates to "keep warm" their relationships with important constituencies, including Investor Candidates, Investors, and Design Partners, aka Beta Customers. There's no right way, only "doing it or not."  (I know that Yoda says that differently .) That said, I know of Dukies that do this: - Manually (its ok to start by bccing in your email client . . .you will quickly understand why you need a better solution) - Using MailChimp free tier <1000 addresses - Using Paperstreet.vc - Using Visible.vc - Using Beehiiv.com To understand what you might include in an update and to see an array of formats, check out Visible.vc Note that Visible.vc has a list of investors that's accessible to everyone as of this writing: https://connect.visible.vc/investors Let me know how you keep your friends ...

  Here’s a thoughtful blog on planning for 2023 from First Round Capital https://review.firstround.com/annual-planning-in-uncertain-times-6-tactics-for-rethinking-your-companys-end-of-year-exercise

In recent months, I've fielded several calls from Dukies on the subject of "How to Split Equity with Co-Founders". IMHO, there is no "right answer" but the discussion can reveal a lot about your co-founders and, sometimes, your investors. Each of you should start by creating a summary of what you bring to the company including cash, IP including code, prototypes, patents or other fully developed ideas, and other critical knowledge or experience, relationships with customers & markets, relationships with investors and advisors, relevant experience, long hours invested to date, demonstrated leadership skills and so on. Keep in mind that co-founding is a long term relationship and this challenging topic is just one of the first of an endless series of shared decisions you'll encounter together. You may even discover in the course of the equity conversation that one of you is incompatible with the perspectives of the others which, while a painful realization...