Josh Kopelman - The Past, Present, And Future Of Seed Investing

Oftentimes, you have a founder who has a very clear understanding of what they're trying to build but a less clear understanding of the need they're trying to solve in the market. So, the first question I would ask a founder in this case is, 'If I could give you the number one position on any Google search... what is that search?'

The best investors are the ones, oftentimes, who ask the best questions of founders rather than give the right answers to founders—because your job as an investor is to help bring out the best in the founder, not to replace that founder's judgment with your own.

The people that are starting companies today [amid COVID-19] or that are thinking about starting companies in the next few months are going to be the true believers, the true entrepreneurs. And the tourists and posers will have gone home.

We raise a society of navigators and map-followers, but most of the best entrepreneurs are cartographers and know how to create their own map.

Being a founder is hard. You're just dealing with massive amounts of risk, of unknown, and of uncertainty—but more importantly, you're going against the grain of everything that is taught.

The difference between a startup and a company is pretty much a startup's job is to learn, and a company's job is to grow. With a startup, what you're trying to do is maximize the learning per dollar spent—you want to learn as fast as you can and as cheaply as you can.

If you know someone who's age 7 to 13, there's a 60-70% chance they are an active Roblox player.

Oftentimes, the best products are ones that start off super lightweight and then grow when they've found that hook—when they know that they've kind of struck a chord.