I’m Ivan Landabaso, VC at JME.vc. Startup Riders is a weekly newsletter where I go down startup rabbit holes, trends & share actionable insights. I also love surfing 🤙
Summary
💵 Recent Deals in Spain: Glovo, Inbrain, Kenmei, Balio etc!
🏷️ Pricing Strategy: a big lever for startups and how to pull it.
⚡ Weekly Hack: T-shaped information diet.
💭 Thinking or Reading: No such thing as truly original?
💵 Recent Deals in Spain
You love startups and want to enjoy a Spanish lifestyle? Come join the Spanish startup ecosystem. Here’s a list of recently funded startups:
Glovo (on-demand courier services) to raise €450 M
Inbrain (Neuroelectronics) raised €14.3 M
Kenmei Technologies (Network intelligence) raised $1.5 M
Balio (personal finance) raised €276k.
Upwine (remote wine tasting) raised €150k
Livelia (marketplace) raised €150k
Vermut (social network) raised €150k
🏷️ Pricing Strategy
In case you missed it, we ran a Webinar with Simon-Kucher & Partners on:
Why pricing is a huge lever for startups
Practical tips on how to get started on pricing
These guys use data from a recent study with a bunch of startups from Bessemer Venture Partners’ portfolio.
⚡ Weekly Hack: T-Shaped Information Diet
I find that almost every thought I have is downstream from what I consume. If you have better inputs, you naturally get better outputs. - James Clear
In this insightful piece, Nick discussed how to setup your own T-shaped information diet. Here’s the TL;DR:
Map out your personal / professional responsibilities (+ hobbies)
Make a list: Find, carefully curate and subscribe to relevant information streams
Rank and edit this list: be aggressive with ranking - set a very high quality bar
Seek new quality sources: your list should always be a work in progress.
What is the point of doing this?
IMO: If you want to create anything that is original - unique to you - collect information that amazes YOU, from multiple different sources, and combine them to form your own insights.
💭 Thinking or Reading
🎨 Is Anything Truly Original?
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something - Steve Jobs
I took this tweet and built on it - getting some meta-creativity going on.
📈 The Power Of Negative Churn
Thoughtful piece on SaaS company churn and its implications for growth speed.
💭 Something I’m pondering

If you find this interesting, please consider sharing with your friends. I’d also love to get your thoughts and feedback on Twitter. Until the next one! 😃