Learning about Startups

Occasionally people ask me “Where do you go to learn about cool startups?” Here are a few tips on how to get started and have fun learning more about the startup world.

Discover New Products
Product Hunt is a daily newsletter, mobile app and website of new products.  These can be anything from a new version of an existing product to a prototype to a new company. Almost every day I find value in scanning Product Hunt’s morning email.

AngelList is a platform for startups to showcase their company and post jobs. Investors use AngelList to participate in syndicates and research companies. Try browsing syndicates and investors to learn about the investments they are making, it’s a powerful way to learn about amazing companies and see trends.

Research Company Financings
Subscribe to Crunchbase or Dan Primack’s Term Sheet daily email for funding announcements. Dan goes deeper into deal analysis, PE and IPO news as well as personal stories which I find super interesting. From both of these emails you’ll be up-to-date on funding announcements and M&A in the startup world in a quick 5 min morning read.

Startups in your Network
This is another fun way to learn more about the startup world. Try looking into your extended network to see which of your friends, friends of friends and connections work at startups.

Facebook
Type “friends of my friends who are founders” into the search box. You’ll probably get a long list of people that work at startups. Click on the company name to learn more or follow.

LinkedIn
Click on “Advanced” to the right of the search box and search for 2nd Connections, Company Size: 1-10, Keyword: Co-founder, Location: San Francisco. Like Facebook’s search, you’ll find a ton of people you are loosely connected with working at interesting startups.

Attend an Event
Lastly, one of the most impactful and satisfying things you can do is get involved with your local startup community. Search meetup.com for an event and attend. Subscribe to the Startup Digest email for your city.  Connecting with your local startup community is inspiring, awesome for your personal network and helps all of the entrepreneurs trying to make a dent in the universe.-

Of course, there are tons and tons of awesome resources out there for following startup news, learning about financing, finding a co-founder and more. Hopefully this gets you started.  Enjoy!