#222 | Reimagining Learning, Consumer AI Opportunities, & more
March 9th | The latest from Maveron, NextView, Altimeter, Emergence, Bessemer, and others
SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.
This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.
Investment Themes, Theses, & 2025 Outlooks
The Big Opportunity in Reimagining Childcare and Learning (Maveron Team)
The Untapped Potential of AI in Consumer Markets (Melody Koh, GP @ NextView)
Brain-Computer Interfaces: Exploring the Last Frontier (Matias Salonen & Martin Krag, byFounders)
Industry Developments & Analyses
Economic Growth Slowing? (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter Capital)
"Palantir for X" is inevitable, but not enough (Marissa Moore, Principal @ OMERS)
What More Data Portability Means for Fintech (Kyle Murphy, VC @ Emergence)
AI for Creation and Maintenance (Nandu Anilal, VP @ Canaan)
AI-Powered, Human-Driven: The Convergence of Digital and Physical Commerce (Sophia Dodd & Chelsea Zhang, Equal)
The AI Agent Infrastructure Stack — Three Defining Layers: Tools, Data, and Orchestration (Jon Turow, Partner @ Madrona)
Globalization, Tariffs, AI... Good Luck to Us All (Santosh Sankar, GP @ Dynamo)
The Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps (A16Z Team)
Consumer AI's tipping point (Jeremy Levine, Alexandra Sukin, & Rayouf Alhumedhi, Bessemer)
Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating
Strategy Blocks: An operator’s guide to product strategy (Lenny Rachitsky)
The Case for Bootstrapping (to a point) (Morgan Livermore, GP @ Supercruise)
How to generate more top-of-funnel leads in B2B SaaS (Bessemer Team)
Our View of the Duties of a SaaS CEO (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street VC)
A Founder's Guide: Essential Management Advice for Startups (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)
There is no transition "out of sales" as a founder (Kyle Poyar, Partner @ Tremont)
Beyond Quota: How Founders and GTM Leaders Can Build a Predictable Revenue Machine (Anna Baird & Loren Alhadeff, Madrona Ventures)
Expanding Horizons: Growth Strategies for Vertical SaaS Companies (TX Zhuo & Patrick McClanahan, Fika)
Additional Reads
Early-Stage VC in the Age of Vertical AI (Euclid Ventures Team)
Legibility and Liquidity (Yoni Rechtman, Principal @ Slow)
Revisiting Competitive Moats (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)
Decision-making in early-stage investing (Pascal Unger, MP @ Focal)
Why Specialists Will Win the Next Decade of Venture (James Heath, Principal @ dara5)
Signal Hunters (Brett Bivens, Head of Research at July Fund)
The Chesterton's Fence AI Investing Strategy (Rob May, GP @ Half Court Ventures)
Continued Vertical AI Integration, Diffusion LLMs and Application AI Moats (Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird)
Notes:
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