Jonathan Miller, PhD

3 red flags that are killing your fundraise according to a $100M VC fund. Warning signs that Juan Carlos Pacheco and IDEA Fund Partners screen for in the first conversation: • Arrogance (kills partnership) • Weak command of numbers (signals chaos) • Saying "no competition" (shows market naivety) Here’s how to avoid them to start showing up as a credible, coachable operator that investors actually want to partner with. #1 Arrogance Juan Carlos said it plainly: "If you're a jerk, that's a very quick red flag. Because it's a partnership when you invest." This isn't about being nice for the sake of being nice. It's about what arrogance signals. If you dismiss questions, you'll dismiss your customers If you can't take feedback in a pitch, you won't take it from your board. .  If you think you know everything, you won't adapt when the market shifts. Investors are buying into years of partnership. Board meetings. Hard conversations. Pivots. Bad quarters. If you're arrogant now, you'll be impossible later. #2 Weak command of your numbers Juan Carlos said: "If you can't speak with some intelligence about revenue, burn rate, how you're gonna use the capital... that's a huge red flag." Weak grasp of numbers signal operational chaos. Vague on how you'll use capital? ↳ You'll waste it. Don't know your burn rate? ↳ You're guessing at runway. Can't explain how you arrived at your valuation? ↳ You don't understand your business model. Investors aren't expecting perfect projections. They know things will change. But they need to know you're running your business with discipline. That you're making data-driven decisions. That you can be trusted with their capital. If you're fuzzy on the numbers now, you'll be reckless with their money later. #3 "We have no competition" This one kills more deals than founders realize. Juan Carlos said: "Competition is typically a good thing. It shows there's a market there." Here's what "no competition" actually tells an investor: Either you haven't done your homework, or there's no market and customers don't care enough to pay. And if there *is* competition and you just don't see it? You're naive. You're not paying attention. You don't understand your landscape. Juan Carlos used a sports analogy: "If you're going into a tournament, you scout your opponents. You see what they're strong at. You see what you're strong at. And you adapt." Competitors aren't threats. They're validation. They prove there's a market. They show you what works and what doesn't. They force you to get sharper. If you can't articulate your competition and your edge, you're not ready. At the early-stage, there is uncertainty and risk.  Investors don’t expect flawlessness. They do expect coachability, self-awareness, and market intelligence. Know your numbers cold, stay humble, and study your competition. Do that, and you’re already ahead of most pitches.

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REEKON Tools is a bootstrapped eight figure revenue hardware company that we started 6 years ago. In retrospect, what are some of the keys that allowed us to do this? 1) Kickstarter Kickstarter is a magical platform and is the only reason we exist and were able to stay in business for 6 years without accepting outside funding. Kickstarter has an incredible alumni list and it is hard to overstate the impact its had between raising funds, forcing us to build good marketing practices, and more. 2) TikTok TikTok changed the social media landscape in 2020. We were very early on the platform and the first video we randomly posted got 1.1 million views. It really wasn't until a year later in late 2021 when an Instagram Reel (everyone copied TikToks format) that we saw the promise short format video content had and made it a priority to go all in on content for highlighting out products and use cases. 3) Formlabs Can't be overstated how impactful our time at Formlabs was in understanding more on how to develop technology, get it manufactured, and push the boundaries on speed. We take for granted how second nature product development is for us (it's not easy by any means but generally know how to navigate it) and our education on how to do this with actual shipping products is all thanks to our time at Formlabs. 4) Getting along with CoFounder Konstantinos Oikonomopoulos and I get along well and have been working together for almost 10 years at this point. We have some overlapping skills and some complementary skills and have been fortunate about how well we can deal with the multitude of challenges we face on a near daily basis. Having many friends that weren't so fortunate (different commitment levels, fighting over decisions) we see the impact this has had. 5) Starting in 2020-2022 (Luck) Every startup success story has luck involved and while some of that luck (with plenty of pain and suffering still) continues today, the early years saw a lot of anomalies that worked in our favor and helped set up a foundation for our growth. We were very fortunate to be able to hire many of our core team who shared our energy and passion and undoubtedly are the drivers of the success we have today of current and in development products. While the 5 above turned out to be the most useful ones, dont let that seem like it was only these 5 we picked. There were dozens of things we tried with less/no major impact but experimentation is always the key to figuring out what works.

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Most people do not understand AI. ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and Gemini are all elite. Just in different ways. But none of them are business specialists. They can help you monetize. They cannot think like an operator whose money and reputation are on the line. So I built JT1. Just in Time AI. The most advanced business knowledge LLM backed by powerful business system commands. Then I asked the obvious question. Why are people using 4 AI websites with 0 shared memory? That is friction. So I combined the Big 4, JT1, and your brain into 1 command center. Power 5. 1 place. 1 memory. 1 operating system that compounds decisions and builds vectors over time. Then that intelligence trains AI Employees so execution stops breaking. And instead of paying 100 dollars plus per month across tools, you can access all of it for as low as 70 cents a day. If you want to try it, link is in my profile. Thoughts?

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We’ve just released our first-ever Impact Report in Japanese (English version coming soon)! It features our impactful portfolio companies (including their Theories of Change and impact KPIs), our organization's Theory of Change and ecosystem-building activities, as well as our future outlook. We hope you find it insightful and inspiring!

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