Archive - Aashay's Newsletter

The Story Behind Haystack's Investment in Type Five

In the late fall of 2024, our friend Kevin Mahaffey sent us some background information on a team he had backed – founders working on what was described…

May 14 •

December 2024

Full stack startups, revisited

About a decade ago, Chris Dixon and Balaji Srinivasan popularized the idea of “full stack startups.” The premise was that as software moved from an…

Dec 20, 2024 •

February 2024

The Story Behind Haystack's Investment in Bench IQ

In the late summer of 2023, our friends at Lazer Technologies (thank you Zain and Arif!) messaged us about meeting their friend Jimoh Ovbiagele. Jimoh…

Feb 29, 2024 •

September 2023

Announcing our newest fund and some team updates

Sep 10, 2023 •

August 2023

Minimum Viable Raise

I was recently with a friend who has been a seed investor for the good part of the last decade.

Aug 22, 2023 •

The Story Behind Haystack's Investment in Haus

Since 2010 or so, e-commerce companies, retailers, brands, and other consumer-facing properties had a clear understanding of how they grew their…

Aug 3, 2023 •

February 2023

Tools & Platforms in 2023

What building blocks are entrepreneurs picking up these days?

Feb 26, 2023 •

January 2023

The Story Behind Haystack’s Investment in Finley

In college, I used to get coffee with a local investor named Tom Rutledge. Tom has a rich background in capital markets and credit origination, and he…

Jan 31, 2023 •

December 2022

The liquidation preference

Why should I care?

Dec 30, 2022 •

4 questions on AI

Hopefully I can breathe some life back into this newsletter.

Dec 6, 2022 •

July 2022

Dealing with a hangover

We have unicorns. We have other various animal-themed nomenclature for high growth businesses.

Jul 14, 2022 •

There is a company in the Haystack portfolio that raised a seed round at the tail end of last year.

Jul 7, 2022 •

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