#gosh. i have so many thoughts but don’t know how to organize or articulate them

[bikananjarrus]

ok but that little about the episode thing at the end got me fucked up. them saying how when joel kills that infected lady in the beginning, sarah shuts down, she cries. but when ellie sees joel beat that guy to death at the end, it doesn’t scare her, it brings her to life or however they phrased it, because she likes seeing someone defend her like that (after all, she’s scared of being alone, because everyone she knows and loves has died) like. how am i supposed to continue. they’re so alike and they were meant to find each other and i’m losing my mind

[pynkhues]

what are your top 5 fights??

Oh, gosh! This is such a hard one, because this show really does fights so wel! Even when they don’t entirely land writing-wise, they’re always steeped conceptually in real conflicts that feel genuine to who these characters are (and the performances often go a long way in carrying the weaker points of the writing). It means that almost every (although not every) fight in this show is built off of real friction which lets it throw weight around in a way that’s really emotionally and narratively satisfying.

So basically, I could’ve listed a lot here! But I’ve somehow managed to narrow it down to just five, so that’s exciting, haha.

5. “Just because you want something doesn’t give you the right to take it.” Mary Pat and Boomer. 1.10

This is probably a controversial opinion, but man, this fight just lands for me. Not only does it come after Mary Pat has – on her own and organically – discovered that Boomer’s spying on her, but after she’s gone to Beth seeking answers. As a result, when Boomer comes to vent, he gets a Mary Pat who knows everything.

Allison Tolman and David Hornsby are at their best in this scene, and they perfectly balance the comedy (Mary Pat’s faux ignorance of crime and her darting eyes never fail to make me cackle), to the absolutely devastating (”You know what button I’m talking about.”) in a way that shouldn’t work, but does. In a single scene, the show not only calls Boomer out on his entitlement via Mary Pat calling him on his attempted rape of Annie, but it unpacks Mary Pat’s strength of character amidst her ruthless survivalism and seeming scatter-brained tendencies. Boomer reveals his true character at the same time Mary Pat does, and only one of them is surprising.

It’s also, in hindsight, made only all the more tragic, given we know that Mary Pat not letting Boomer off the hook for his attempted rape of Annie only ends later with her own assault. It’s a fight that succeeded in the moment, but only becomes stronger as the series continues.

4. “I’m that bitch.” Ruby and Stan. 2.02.

I mean!! What can I say about this scene that I haven’t said a million times over? I. Love. It. It’s probably the singularly most cathartic moment this show has ever had, and Retta and Reno know it, both doing their part in a way that lets Ruby shine. Ruby’s always had the most complicated relationship with crime on this show after all, and this is the first moment she really owned it. She’s never liked it, and probably never will, but she knows exactly why she did it, and that much at least she won’t ever regret. It’s extremely satisfying on every level - character, story and thematic.

3. “She had no choice.” Ruby and Annie. 2.10

2.10 is probably one of the messiest episodes of the entire series. The pacing is scattered at best, and the tension often feels mis-weighted. That said, one of the reasons it just feels messy as opposed to frustrating is that amidst some of the awkwardness, it’s also an episode that has some really awesome heavy-hitter scenes, and Annie and Ruby’s fight on the bus is one of them.

On paper, the girls fight a lot, but they’ve actually had very few emotional take-out fights like this one, which is not only as much about the past as it is about the present, but as much about the person who isn’t there as the person who is. Beth’s not in this scene, but she’s felt in more ways than one as Annie tries to throw how Ruby defers to Beth as a friend back at her, while Ruby tries to throw all Beth’s done for Annie as her sister back at her in return. It makes for a gruelling, ruthless fight that nobody comes out of unscathed, and it elevates Annie’s insecurity and Ruby moral dilemma in a way that deepens the context of all three of the women’s dynamic.

2. “I’m so stupid he shot me in my own living room / You’re a drug dealer.” Beth and Dean. Beth and Rio. 2.07.

This is totally a cheat, haha, because they’re technically two fights, but I choose to view them just as extensions of each other as opposed to separate fights, but yes! The 2.07 fights after Jane goes missing!

So many of the fights on this show are about characters revealing hands – in fact, every fight on this list is – but I don’t think any episode embodies that as much as 2.07 does.

This episode elevates and escalates tensions in a way that functions as an emotional reveal and a narrative trust in ways it’s never done as fully before. Every part of this fight builds not only off the fact that Beth inherently trusts Rio when it comes to her children – something that proves deserved at the end when he brings her back the dubby – but that she inherently doubts Dean with her children – something that, again, is proved deserved by the end of the episode when it turns out Jane’s still in the house, despite Dean’s frantic pleas to the contrary, and later in 2.08 when he takes them.

Those fundamental truths are only doubled down on in this episode with both Dean and Rio calling Beth out on exactly who she is – Dean via her association with Rio, and Rio by telling her that she’s a drug dealer – and the episode ending on the hook of Ruby coming clean to Beth. Season 2 might’ve been a lot of smoke, but 2.07 was all mirrors, and all of them were faced at Beth – making pivotal demands that would, of course, come to a head across the last few episodes of the season.

1. “Why?” Ruby and Stan. 3.08

One of the best bits of writing advice I ever got was that the most narratively satisfying conflicts come when both people are right, and nobody’s wrong, and that’s entirely what this argument is steeped in. I have a lot of thoughts on the fact that season 3 was devoted to Ruby and Stan’s moral realignment (a pivotal thing that needed to happen for them to regain their balance as a couple), and in a lot of ways, that’s what this fight is about.

They both feel the injustice of their lives as much as they feel their recent moral slip. They feel the ways they’ve suffered as much as they feel their love, and their luck in having found that love. Ruby’s determination to steer them back on some sort of path while Stan just wants to finally bring his family what he’s always worked too hard to offer them is a really steep, deep narrative conflict and one there’s no easy answer for. It’s a perfect stalemate, and it’s one articulated perfectly with Ruby’s refusal to wear the ring Stan’s bought her and Stan’s refusal to return it.

It’s a frustrating, wrenching scene, and one drummed home by Retta and Reno’s performances, but if they worked together to make Ruby shine in 2.02, they work together here to give a voice to Stan’s pain. Reno’s delivery of ‘why’, and his face afterwards, aches in a way that tells of years of sucking it up, and you feel it when he can’t quite hide it anymore, and when Ruby’s left to grapple with it too. 

The fight is painful, because, like  I said at the start of this point, neither of them are wrong, and watching them renegotiate this fight after the fact is just another reason why Stan and Ruby are one of the best couples on TV.

So! That’s me, haha, but you’ve made me so curious now! I’d love to know what other people’s favourite fights are! There are so many to choose from, haha.

[kazbrekkerrs-remade]

ekrjhak i lov eu and to further enable you: ur thoughts on blue, gansey, ronan and adam and henry? and their group dynamic????? 👀👀👀

Wow this took me ages sorry dfjfhd. Claire... u enable me too much these are my onions <3. Under a cut because I went. overboard :3. I’m probably going to have to shorten this I don’t know if tumblr will even let me post something this long dkshjfhg. (Also I wrote half of this in word so if there’s proper capitalization in places that’s why, don’t let it cloud my image as a cool, laid-back bitch that doesn’t care for grammar.)

i’m starting individually then moving onto group dynamics heh

blue i like blue but it did take a bit of growing on me djjdjhjss. i like her a lot bc i relate to her a lot, but i do think there was a lot of room for improvement. she said she wanted to see the world and make it better but how exactly.. is that a roadtrip? i mean i guess it’s a start in a way, but i think it would’ve been much better if we saw her join an activist organization.. volunteer for a non-profit or something. Also her misguided feminism ah! But I can be a bit more lenient with that bc she was still very young when the series ended so. Also she was revealed to be part tree and then like. Nothing substantial came of it? idk

Ganseyboy! I have to be honest my.. fave uwu. There is a Lot of room for improvement  but I just. Optimist!! insecurities :( also he KNEW he was gonna d*e I’m. sad. Anyway like I said a lot of room for improvement as in like.. not everything is about you king <3 also he needs more… idk I don’t wanna say empathy bc i think that’s something different but like. He needs to realise that what he thinks is best isn’t gonna be the way everyone deals with something, if that makes sense? Like basically the “how do you know what’s good for me?” “THAT’S MY OPINIOOONNNNN!!” vine. THAT SAID I love him so much.. he held up the mouse to his face! And smiled!! mon dieu.. when he made bird jokes to make adam laugh… “am I in your dreams?” AH! In a way, blue and gansey are sons of the same gun: I love them both but there could be more done with them tbh. But I have a lot of fun with Fansey, a.k.a: fatima gansey. Kind of like fanon gansey except no one’s opinion matters besides mine <3 (basically it’s  the *aggressively kicks off shoes* “yee haw”, parts of gansey, and then me giving him the arc he deserves) maybe we could sum it up to “ma’am that’s my emotional support projection character” but like. That’s my business.

ADAM! Previous endorsements include: “might fuck around and become an adam parrish stan account.” “I’ve only had adam for a day and a half but if anything happened to him I would kill everyone in this room and then myself.” “I go :D whenever I see it’s an adam chapter” (these are more or less verbatim from my previous posts.) that said, I don’t have many fully formed thoughts because I uhhh don’t remember the books that well and also I repress the adam chapters bc they hit too close oops :). tbh I don’t have many complaints at all heh. That’s not to say he doesn’t have flaws but a) I will excuse them because he’s justified, adam does anything problematique and I’m like he can have a little murder. As a treat. and b) I genuinely loved his arc so. No complaints for real!! Also.. adam realising he is capable of loving and being loved…. *kermit meme* I have nearly teared up while writing this. :( one more half baked thought: trc having being “known” as a mark of being loved but then adam being like “i am unknowable” and then there was a moment of him with ronan like “how foolish of him to think he was unknowable”.... *kermit hearts meme intensifies*

RONAN O CLOCK to be honest. I. don’t have any meta or complaints I just love him. I love him a LOT okay.. very much. Big love. Sharp edges tough guy but he names his dream animals chainsaw and gasoline and has a pooping blanket for chainsaw… I can’t remember the quote but that but in cdth where he was like the point is dreamer or not if people are going to get hurt I’m going to stop it… Much to think about. HIS GROWTH. IN THE DREAM THIEVES wow can you believe I read him in TRB and was like ‘I don’t care for him’ ddhfjdhf and then in the dream thieves I’m like.. I have rescinded all previous callouts of ronan lynch. Oops. HE LOVES HIS FRIENDS SO MUCH oh my gosh. Ronan just… he has so much range for feeling!! he feels so much!!! I love that about him so much omg

Henry. Ah. This is where we get kind of controversial jdhjdfh I’m sorry but. I’m going to be honest I like him well enough as a character but I don’t care for him much I’m sorry I just. It’s because he was introduced so late. And only became an important character towards like.. the last half of TRK? I mean, I’d have loved him if he was introduced earlier, hell at least have him come into play in BLLB. The issues I have with him isn’t because of anything about him as a character though, I think it’s all about the way he was handled. I think because he came in so late, there just wasn’t enough time to do justice to the depth that he had, or give him an arc or anything, or enough time to connect with him. Also a part of me feels like he was in there just to kind of tie up Blue and Gansey’s stories and give them something to do after the end of TRK (which sucks because like… making your only canon POC being primarily to develop/give your white characters storylines… (blue isn’t white in my mind but like she was written “colorblind” and when that happens it usually means the author viewed them as white at least in the beginning jhfhgfj. but i don’t remember it too well so if i’m wrong lmk please!)). But probably my biggest problem is: I couldn’t help get the vibe that MS was facing criticism for the lack of diversity and so decided to bring in an asian character. Like, I feel that way bc he came in so late, and because of that he was so half-baked I’m.. gah. GAH. That’s unfair maybe henry is a cool dude hdhfg but I just can’t warm up to him because of this :/

Group dynamics!! With the gangsey I have to *sobs* I love them so much I’m.. what a strange constellation they all were <3

blue and ronan!! BROnan amirite… omg. That moment when blue nearly slips and ronan immediately catches n holds on to her… she would have to remember that :( sons of the same gun. Best friends!

Blue and adam.. gah. As friends it really goes hard. Get you someone who will stab you if you fall too deep into the nether-realm <3 but uhh. As dates. YIKES. Blue really just. Kissed noah while dating him. And didn’t even think for a second “I have a bf” :( not very cool of her to tell gansey about the kiss curse but not telling adam which I mean, I know that happened to show that they weren’t a good match but. Still yikes. Blue was lowkey cheating on adam the whole time during tdt huh :( also bro I am number one stan of the “I wish you could be kissed jane” scene but it happened literally RIGHT AFTER she broke up with adam I’m. relax <3. I wish that was kind of addressed but meh, overall it doesn’t bother me too much. I think they’re great friends :)

Ronan and adam… I can’t talk about it too much. I really can’t!! I really really can’t! the fact that adam goes to gansey like what is love and gansey is like she makes me quiet… and then adam is like “he was so still inside”.. :( omg the bit during trb when ronan is going on a swearing tirade and adam is like “they didn’t start making the civic until ‘73 <3” what a JACKASS I love him. Second secret!! --okay! Wait I have to say: while this one is not really a big deal compared to all their other moments, my favourite quote is “ and he realised that while he’d been looking at ronan, ronan had been looking at him” :uwu face:

Blue and gansey: :3 :33333 maybe it’s the muslim but I really like the tragedy of not being able to kiss :( I would beg just one off you! Under all this! Maybe I’m crying because of the inherent romantic-ness of the night sky with all its stars and late night drives :( wow I love them. Also i know most people find it annoying but I personally love the “I’m never gonna fall for this person” *fast forward to getting to know each other* “ahahah. :) I have rescinded all callouts of ____. she is now my girlfriend (long story)” (not to be confused with enemies to lovers <3 (not to be confused with enemies to friends to lovers <3)) also they can kiss now thank you very much.

Okay I will just preface this with: gansey’s relationships with both ronan and adam have the “how do you know what’s good for me” element to them so I don’t have to address it later hdfgjlfj but bro they love each other so much I’m… “dream me the world… something new for ever night” you’re leaving for TWO DAYS.. gansey gave up monmouth omg what became of that I really forgot khffhk did he get it back. I don’t even need to elaborate on ronan, “ronan would do anything for gansey” :(

ADAM AND GANSEY I been WAITNG for this one! Turn it up! Bro if you saw the whole face I made when I realised it was time for this kdhfhfkhu this is so loaded despite the fact that I cant articulate it <3 the.. idk what to call them. Parallels? Foils? I didn’t take lit sorry but he RANGE we could have had there… remember when gansey was shocked in trk bc :0 you guys came with me and also “they had run for him”. bro their whole relationship had so much. Tension because of their different backgrounds and fundamentally different outlooks because of their backgrounds, and I think if we had seen them properly connect then both of them could have grown from that. I know we see adam understanding gansey a bit better I don’t remember when that happened but I know it did at some point hhdsf but gansey.. never does! Huff and puff. It’s really so FRUSTRATING to me bc that could have key development for gansey but also for adam and gansey’s relationship. And also I feel like we didn’t.. see them try either? Which is so frustrating like idk if it’s a fault on stiefvater’s part or just with YA lit in general that platonic relationships are kind of ignored. Or maybe it’s because idk I remember ms saying she had a lot of issues while writing trk.. but still. We could have really had it all but instead I have to live with “don’t break him adam” I’m (: ok but now I must lighten the mood hjsdhf so might I add: when one of them sees the principal in his crazy funky junky hat and goes “yee haw”… when gansey is like :DDD hey ADAM guess WHAT and adam is like ? and gansey is like oh it was a fully casual problem with the ALTERNATOR of my car of COURSE it was the alternator, it was really simple and I fixed it with much ease :D and adam is like :’D felt like the had hatched a baby bird.. my uwus. ADAM! give me an idea! ALSO if anyone will allow me to venture into adansey territory…. the fact that adam is cabeswater’s magician and gansey now.. is cabeswater in a way. MUCH to think about. I still spend a lot of time thinking about the dryad au the problem is I have never been to progress past the “vague concept” stage of stories and this is why I don’t write dhfjhfdhf. But yes. I think about it often :3

i also like the henry with the gang, i think it could work really well but once again it wasn’t given the time for me to really see it :( also. ronan being racist. and adam laughing along with that. why was that included, ms turn on your location i just wanna talk

okay once again thank you for enabling me claire and i’m so sorry for this monster dsjkhfjkdhg

[prioritizingpurples]

there's this green blogger I follow, limmuda, and they've just posted something about purples being allies to greens and I don't feel like we're obligated to being their allies, but the points they make sound convincing and i'm having trouble articulating why i disagree. if you have time/energy could you have a look at their post and share your thoughts? i understand if you can't, I just really look up to you as a purple role-model

You've hit on it in your ask, really--purples are not morally obligated to be the "allies" of greens to the same extent that greens are to purples. I had trouble articulating my disagreement, at first, too, and I think that's because we give similar practical advice: listen to people no matter their speaking style, genuinely follow through on what you hear, assume that people are experts on their own lives, said and don't overgeneralize about a whole caste based on knowing a couple. This is good advice when thinking about how to approach people from ANY caste as individuals (and I think that's an important thing to note--that doing this to other castes is good advice, but if you do it to purples you're an ally. the bar is low to be an ally, i promise!) But, while the advice is the same, the situations are not--greens are privileged over purples. like, if I were writing a guide on how poor people can be an ally to rich people, I would include stuff like "listen to people no matter their speaking style and don't assume they're all the same". but yknow what? i don't really care about how to be an ally to rich people! i do care to some degree how to be an ally to greens, but it's not my first priority, and it doesn't have to be. expecting purples to be allies to greens can conflict with expecting greens to be allies to purples--for example, if a purple squashes their own natural speaking style and emotional reactions in order to be an ally to greens. not only that, purples are already expected to be "allies" to greens. in day to day life, people see their style of speaking as "smart", many of us adopt it in order to be taken more seriously, and people assume their opinions are more valid and grounded than ours (even if the green is, say, an art green!), etc. while there may be places that are purple-dominated, and where green styles of speaking are seen as condescending or out-of-touch, these are mostly (a) online, where it probably will not affect your life, and (b) in purple areas that are almost entirely purple and which will almost certainly not have any greens unless the greens really want to be there--essentially, greens can avoid messages from purple culture, while purples cannot avoid messages from green culture. i think it's telling that their answer focused mostly on cultural misunderstandings and miscommunications, while mine focused more on treating purples fairly and calling out people who don't. now, if a purple WANTS to go out of their way to be extra understanding and kind to greens due to cultural differences, that's fine! it's a-ok for purples to identify as green allies! but it's also fine for purples to say "i have been pretending all day that you sound smart when the only thing i can think of is how much i feel condescended to and i'm going to vent about that on my personal blog". doing so is not violating caste solidarity or failing to be understanding of cultural differences--on the other hand, expecting nobody to feel that way is. it is /absolutely fine/ to say "yknow what, i don't want to be a green ally, i want to focus on what i can do for my fellow purples".which, like, not that greens don't have problems, or don't face casteism--they do. but generally not because of purples. i will still call out anti-green casteism when i see it, because casteism is wrong and we're all oppressed under blues, but these are fundamentally different situations and can't be treated interchangeably. and as a purple, i am going to prioritize purples. i have no problem if a green decides that they are going to prioritize other greens and problems that greens face, as long as they don't endorse anti-purple casteism--that's the basis of my separatism. as separate castes, we have different concerns and priorities, and since each caste knows themselves and their needs best, each caste should focus within themselves to fix their problems and meet their needs instead of relying on other castes. (for this reason, i'd be more comfortable declaring myself an ally to e.g. a green separatist cause, organization, or movement than just "an ally to greens".)also, when greens face casteism from purples, it is almost (almost! not 100%, but usually. do not bombard me with messages about edge cases) always in a low-stakes situation in which the purple has little or no power, social or material, over the green. when purples face casteism from greens, it is much more likely to be a higher-stakes situation in which the green has power over the purple. ("is stupid a worse insult when said to greens or purples?" vs "are purple artists real artists who deserve to be seen as such and compensated for their work?") we do not have the same moral obligation to not get in flame wars or be mildly rude to random strangers as we do to not demean and attempt to damage people's livelihoods--and purples do not have the same moral obligation to be a green ally as greens do to be a purple ally. greens have power, both individually and as a caste, that purples simply do not, and the more power you have the more careful you have to be to not hurt people with less power. (yes, yes, I know, starving artist vs purple billionaire, generalizations are bad. generalizations are also necessary, because we don't have time to talk about every single green and purple on the planet.) not all casteism is created equal. the average purple cannot effect the lives of blues except maybe by sending anon hate. the average blue can effect the lives of purples in so many ways, whether through land or law or money. not all power differentials are that severe! but even when they're subtler--maybe even especially when they're subtler--it's important to pay attention to them. (another thing that greens can do: when we upset you, avoid it--walk away, block us, whatever. because you have that luxury. anti-green casteism is generally not as widespread or as vicious "irl" as anti-purple casteism is, because greens have that privilege. take advantage of it.)....gosh, this got very long and rambly, whoops! thank you so much for the compliment by the way nonny, i really am honored by it. i'm not a role model, haha, i'm just a 4-year-old with internet access and too much time on her hands. but it means a lot to me! hearing stuff like that is why i keep running this blog. it's so incredible to know that i inspire other purples like this!

[raystart]

Perfecting Your Sales Pitch to Get Your Ideas the Green Light

Artists and designers, for the most part, strive to create beautiful products and solve an array of visual, aural, and tactile challenges. They don’t often pursue their careers with the hope of becoming professional number crunchers. And yet, as more designers strive to build businesses and brands of their own, many find they need to be fluent in more than Photoshop to spark the interest of the investment community.

Veteran investor Tige Savage, who co-founded venture capital firm Revolution and co-leads the firm’s early state investment fund, Revolution Ventures, knows a thing or two about what it takes to successfully grow a business. And he’s willing to look anywhere for a good idea. One of his most recent investments is the design-focused start-up Framebridge, a direct-to-consumer custom framing company that just announced a $30 million Series C funding led by T. Rowe Price.

In the interview below, Savage offers keen insight to creatives on how they can perfect their sales pitch.

When somebody is coming to you with an investment proposal, what do you look for?

The key things that you really want to articulate to your investors are your background, your team, and the elements of the team. There is a tendency to get into great detail. Take it to the high level. Say, this is what our thing does, this is how we monetize it, and here is what the competition look like. An investor will ask who your competitors are. Many people will say “our product is so new and different we have no competitors.” This is not right. VCs want to understand your awareness of the competitive environment. They want to know why you think you have strengths that carve out a reasonable niche versus the rest. 

Then you need to explain how you expect to deploy capital. How, ultimately, you expect for the investors to get their money back? Know your numbers; investors will want to see objective evidence of success. Ask yourself: What’s my customer acquisition cost? How is that trending over time? How did those customers acquired at different points in time behave vis-a-vis each other?

“An investor will ask who your competitors are. Many people will say “our product is so new and different we have no competitors.” This is not right.”

What are some of the most common mistakes you see?

One of the greatest mistakes first-time founders make is thinking they need to know the answers to everything, and that VCs are just out to fire them if they don’t. Neither of those things is true.

Nobody expects you to know the answer to everything. What they are expecting is that you hire the best people. Often, founders feel that hiring super qualified people somehow undermines them. They think, “maybe this person knows more than I do and the VCs are going to want these guys to run the company and I’m gonna end up with some political fight.” The truth is, nobody ever gets fired because they have a great team. It’s the opposite.

“One of the greatest mistakes first-time founders make is thinking they need to know the answers to everything, and that VCs are just out to fire them if they don’t. Neither of those things is true.”

It’s also important for founders to remember that when companies mature, the needs of the senior team change. Often, you can hire a better person when you’re a bigger, more established, better capitalized, higher growth company. But what happens is that founders who have a very small team of two or three people early on feel too great a sense of allegiance to these people. They think: “Gosh, they got me from A to B. I need to give them a shot to get to C. If they fail, then they fail.”

In reality, once you get to B, you can hire a person with the necessary skills set and find a new role within the organization for the other. Put them underneath a highly qualified person to learn a new skills set, empower them, but don’t let there be room for ego. There’s no room for the attitude “I was the chief product officer at a three-person company and now we’re a 100-person company and I’m not giving up that title.”

One of Tige Savage’s more recent investments, framing start-up Framebridge, just received a $30 million Series C funding led by T. Rowe Price. Image courtesy of Revolution Ventures.

How do you go about figuring out how much money to raise?

Raise enough capital to achieve an important business milestone that is an inflection point in the business. Plus, enough capital for a little variability around achieving on the timeframe that you think. Plus, enough runway to raise your next round of capital.

Hypothetically, if you’re an entrepreneur you might think: “Hey, what I need is 10 customers, each of whom is at least $100,000 in sales, and I need to populate my database with these people and I need to find a business development deal with this important partner.” Now you have to think, what’s the sequencing for me to be able to achieve these things?

So, I’m going to get my first customer, then second, then eventually five. That’s going to be enough leverage for me to start my negotiations for this important business partnership. I’m going to hire somebody to populate that database and, by the time they bring us up to our tenth customer, I should have that business partnership done and that’s going to allow me to hire this many people. And I’m going to have to make some investments in order to do it. It’s going to take me 15 months.

Again, all hypothetical. You add it up and say “Oh, that 15 months is going to cost me $450,000, or $30,000 a month.” How certain am I that I’m going to get that? Let’s say I’m pretty certain; I have a list of 20 customers and we already have a conversation going. I’ll give myself 18 months to give just a little room.

“Raise enough capital to achieve an important business milestone that is an inflection point in the business. Plus, enough capital for a little variability around achieving on the timeframe that you think. Plus, enough runway to raise your next round of capital.”

It typically takes six months to raise capital. You say 15 months, I’m gonna make it 18 to give myself a little bit of room, plus another six is 24 months total. If I estimate $30,000 a month, that’s $360,000 a year, or $720,000 for two years, so I want to raise $720,000. What that all does is it gives me certainty that I hit these inflection points.

It can feel like creatives and VCs speak two different languages—right brain, left brain. Do you have any recommendations on how creators can best communicate ideas to investors?

VCs aren’t looking for a business plan; they’re looking for a pitch that’s crisp, tells the story well, is well presented and is substantiated by data. Stress test your pitch with everybody you know. Put it in front of as many people as you can. Ask them to ask hard questions. Come up with answers to the hard questions. Practice and be ready.

Two, consider a co-founder. If there’s a real vacancy in the skillset—if you just have the right side of the brain and you need both—go find the left side of the brain to fill that in. Incubators and accelerators are good places to go looking for a co-founder. They’re also good ways to be put through the paces to refine an idea into more concrete set of business opportunities.

What was your fastest ‘yes’ to an entrepreneur that pitched you?

The company is called Framebridge—they do custom framing of either physical or digital goods at great price points and with incredibly good customer service. It’s a very design-oriented business. The founder is Susan Tynan, who I’ve known from a few prior lives. She had worked with us, then left to go to the White House, then ran business development at LivingSocial. We met for breakfast to talk about other opportunities and part of the way through she said, “I have this idea. It’s this custom framing business.”

As I listened to her, I realized it’s exactly the kind of thing I like. Custom framing is a big category, $5 billion in the United States a year. There’s only one scale player, which is Michaels, the crafts store, and prices are extremely high. The customer experience is downright terrible. You have to go in, you make all these choices, you wait three weeks, you have to go back and pick the thing up, you find out it costs $400 and you’re like “Gosh.”

So Susan was describing this terrible experience and I could see how technology could make it better. And it was coming from a person whom I knew, who had learned the demand for this kind of thing exists from her experience with LivingSocial. I like disruptive consumer-oriented products, so it was right in my sweet spot, I told her, “I think it’s a great idea and I want to invest.”

You told her you’d invest before she even asked for an investment?

Yeah. I thought it was a great idea. I told her she ought to do it. I wanted her to go back and do a little bit of homework but I said, “I love it. We’ll find a way to make it happen.”

Interview edited for length and clarity.