IF YOU’RE THE UNDERDOG, DON’T PLAY THEIR GAME.

Tim Draper is probably one of the most successful venture capitalists in Silicon Valley .

Investments include Tesla, Skype, Hotmail, Baidu and Bitcoin.

i will never forget him telling me that his biggest “failure” was not investing in companies like Facebook” and others as they started when the opportunities arose . His philosophy is 50xpc of his investments do well - his funds are giving exponential returns!

He tells a great story about where his optimism comes from.

As a young football player, he joined five benchwarmers against the six best athletes on the team.

They should have lost.

So they changed the game.

They ran different routes. Lined up differently. Did what the opposition wasn’t expecting.

And they won.

That story resonates deeply with me because, in many ways, Referron is an underdog.

We’re not LinkedIn.

We’re not Salesforce.

We’re not Blinq

We don’t have billions of dollars or thousands of employees.

So why try to beat them at their game?

Change the game.

LinkedIn helps you build connections.

CRMs help you manage customers.

Referron sits in the space between them:

Turning the people you already know, like and trust into warm introductions and measurable business opportunities.

Create your digital business card.

Build your personal Rolodex.

Make a warm introduction in seconds.

Track it. Follow it up. Measure the outcome.

And most importantly — make helping other people part of your daily behaviour.

After more than 10 years working on the idea of Referron, I’ve learned something similar to Draper:

There is always another route.

Keep experimenting.

Keep removing friction.

Keep listening.

Keep showing up.

You don’t necessarily win by being bigger.

Sometimes you win because you’re prepared to play a completely different game.

We’re still the underdog.

And I love it.

#Referron #Entrepreneurship #Innovation #WarmIntroductions #Underdog #VentureCapital

Founders need to tune into Radio WIIFM for Investors

Investors are tuned into one station:

Radio WIIFM — “What’s In It For Me?”

They’re not initially asking how amazing your product is.

They’re asking:

💰 How much am I investing?

📈 What could my investment become?

⏱️ How long could it take?

🎯 What milestones increase the value?

🚪 How do I eventually exit?

That thinking has changed the way I’m approaching the Referron capital raise.

The Referron investor journey:

PRE-SEED

Raise $1M at a $3M post-money cap

Target:

→ 100,000 registered users

→ 30,000 Referron business cards

→ $500K ARR

SEED

Potential $3M raise at a $10M valuation

Target:

→ 500,000 users

→ $1.5M ARR

→ Prove the model can scale

SERIES A

Target $20M raise

Target:

→ 5,000,000 users

→ $15M ARR

→ Build a global recurring-revenue business

investor can potentially create liquidity through each round or wait for a strategic acquisition or eventual listing.

The lesson for me is simple:

Don’t start by telling investors how great your product is.

Start by showing them:

Their money → the milestones → the revenue → the value creation → the potential return.

Then show them why your product, team and distribution strategy can make it happen.

My new litmus test for an investor pitch:

“If I removed every product slide, would the investor still understand why they should give me their money?”

If not, we’re pitching a product — not an investment.

What do you think ?

#Referron #CapitalRaise #Startups #VentureCapital #Investing #Founders #ARR

How does an entrepreneur fund a venture?

The real skill is not having capital. It’s assembling capital.

The world’s best entrepreneurs, investors and dealmakers don’t fund opportunities from one source. They bring together multiple sources of capital, each with a different purpose, cost and level of risk.

They stack the funding.

Think Beyond Your Own Bank Account

When evaluating an acquisition or investment, ask:

“Where can each piece of the capital come from?”

Potential sources include:

• Seller finance
• Bank lending
• Family offices
• Venture capital or private equity
• ESIC investors and tax incentives
• Government grants
• Strategic investors
• Angel investors
• Family and friends
• Customer prepayments
• Vendor finance
• Asset-backed lending

Each source may only provide part of the solution.

Together, they can fund the entire opportunity.

A Real Example

We needed $1 million to acquire a financial services firm back in 2008.

Did we write a $1 million cheque?

No.

We assembled the capital.

• $500,000 from the bank.
• $400,000 in seller finance, repaid over three years.
• $100,000 from family and friends.

The deal happened because we structured the funding—not because we already had $1 million sitting in the bank.

The Power of Leverage

Leverage is more than borrowing money.

It’s using relationships, credibility, cash flow, assets and creativity to structure transactions that benefit everyone involved.

Every funding source has different strengths.

The art is knowing how to combine them.

The Mindset Shift

Stop asking:

“Do I have enough money?”

Start asking:

“Who could fund part of this, and how do I structure a deal that works for everyone?”

That’s how entrepreneurs think.

That’s how businesses are bought.

That’s how wealth is built.

You don’t fund a deal one way. You stack the capital.

If you are looking for money - give us a ring :)

The Power of backing Exceptional Founders

Justin Liberman and Paul Bassat founded Square Peg with a view to back exceptional founders

30 June 2026 reports to Square Peg 's Limited Partners have been stellar!!

Fourteen years in, and the heavy lifting and value creation done by its founders and their teams has paid off in spades .

• Returns: 30% over the past 12 months, aggregated across all funds.
• Duration: a 26% gross IRR across all funds in aggregate since founding in 2012.
• Consistency: seven of the eight funds across VC and Growth have delivered a net IRR of 14% or higher since their inception.

Their ninth fund has just begun investing.

• Realisations: more than US$1b returned to investors, at a 41% gross IRR on those exits.
• Generational companies: three portfolio companies are now valued at US$10b or more. They first invested in Canva and Airwallex pre-revenue, and in Supabase when it was generating less than US$1m in ARR.
• Momentum: average revenue growth across our portfolio of 69% year on year in their venture funds and 44% in their growth funds.

The numbers matter, but they are a lagging indicator. What matters more is the quality of the founders they back — and there have never been more exceptional people building companies with the help of AI right now .

Allen &Co Sun Valley Conference - “summer camp for billionaires”

Tech leaders and some of the world’s most powerful CEOs gathered this week at the exclusive Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Idaho, often called the “summer camp for billionaires.”

The invitation-only event brings together top executives, investors and influential business leaders to discuss the biggest trends shaping the global economy. This year’s conference focused heavily on artificial intelligence, technology, media and future business opportunities.

Among the attendees were Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Disney CEO Bob Iger, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Palantir CEO Alex Karp, and business leaders Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

Unlike most conferences, Sun Valley has no public agenda and very few official announcements. Instead, the private gathering is known for behind-the-scenes meetings where major partnerships, investments and billion-dollar deals are often discussed long before they become public.

For decades, the annual conference has been one of the most influential business events in the world, bringing together the people leading many of the world’s largest technology, media and investment companies. With artificial intelligence transforming nearly every industry, this year’s discussions are expected to help shape the next generation of global business and technology.

who wants to be connected to these humans ? #referron