[Week 1/52] Recapping VC advice from 2025, and looking ahead to 2026 (a year of AI and adventure)!
We built an incredible group of top founders and VCs over the decade, and now we're going to continue bettering ourselves by learning a multitude of disciples related to entrepreneurship
Dec 22, 2025
[Today’s Preview]
Expect more invites to private VC conversations in 2026… and, expect a ton of deep dives on AI tools, travel adventures, founder mindsets, and more!
I decided to experiment with bootstrapping over the last few years. With just little old me, I launched an awesome CEO group and hosted 50+ virtual events with some of the world’s best VCs. In today’s blog, we’ll cover 4 of those conversations. And then preview what’s to come in 2026, I think you’ll like what we are cooking! 👨🍳
If you’ve not yet been invited, then consider this a preview of what is to come in your future. And if you’ve been invited to all of them, I hope you continue to attend! We hosted funds like General Catalyst, Recursive Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures, SignalFire, Xfund, Boost VC, and plenty of founders who raised from YC. All of whom were generous enough with their time to chat at an invite-only group event on Zoom.
In fact, we had over 50 special guests join us in 2025 (list below):
And now, we’re adding a whole new weekly blog! My goal is to continue helping founders, VCs, and people in general. But at the same time figure out my next business - will we bootstrap, build tech, acquire a startup, create a healthcare AI startup, pivot to real estate, or raise venture again?
All of that is in today’s edition! But first..
A word from our author in a Harry Potter style talking-painting
“Hey! Welcome to my blog, Don’s Daily!”
Hey, I’m Don! I’ve been building career memories for a decade. Over the last three years I’ve been reinvesting my own capital and time back it into my business. All the while learning and growing my net worth via public markets and crypto.
Over that same period, I also hosted 50+ virtual events with some of the world’s best VC investors and founders for our CEO group. Prior to all that, aside from my first job at Meta, I was lucky enough to raise $10 million in my twenties; doing my best to learn business, investor relations, and the startup mindset all at the same time. Maybe some of you can relate.
All that’s to say, I love business, I love money, I love to try and leverage my time.
This year, I set the goal to publish a thoughtful blog every Monday.. 52 of them! Don’ Daily is a recap of the entrepreneurship adventures I collect, as well as the new lessons I’m constantly learning from doing. My hope is that this entertains, inspires, and influences new creative ideas for you. Every Monday. If you enjoy the blog, please share!
With 100+ startups, and 12 exits, Recursive Ventures provides you an hour of invaluable fundraising advice
Recursive Ventures, Founder, Itamar Novick
Itamar Novick
We were fortunate enough to have Itamar Novick join us for a Shark Tank styled VC pitch event. Founder of Recurive Ventures, he’s a top investor and founder. His last startup (Life360) scaled to a $5 Billion valuation, sits on the public markets today, and it’s where he had the fortune of both being an early investor and a member of the founding team.
Not to mention his long list of brand name exits as an early investor:
Credible (IPO) 💰
Tile (Acquired by Life360) 💰
MileIQ (Acquired by Microsoft) 💰
Automatic (Acquired by SiriusXM) 💰
Flow Security (Acquired by CrowdStrike) 💰
Zendrive (Acquired by Intuit/Credit Karma) 💰
Just to name a few! Itamar is one of the world’s best VCs, and his numbers prove it! $2 Billion raised by his portfolio.
If you want to catch up on his hour long Shark Tank style pitch event with us, you can watch the video above. Next up, my former investor and one of my favorite people in the world of VC, Niko!
[VC Guest 2]
With $40B+ AUM, and 500+ investments, we learned so much from General Catalyst about Seed and Series A startup metrics!
General Catalyst, Managing Director, Niko Bonatsos
Niko Bonatsos
I’m always saying how great he is, and he is. Niko is one of my favorite people ever. It’s rare to meet a top tier VC who is so kind, calm and compassionate towards the founder. But Niko nails it. It’s no wonder why he’s Managing Director of General Catalyst, and responsible for some of GC’s notable multi-billion dollar investments; Snap, Discord, and the now infamous Mercor.
General Catalyst has $43 Billion under management, with a portfolio of nearly 1000 companies. Every time we get the opportunity to speak with Niko we are honored. And, we always walk away having learned something.
The General Catalyst numbers speak for themselves. They are undoubtedly one of the top VC funds in the entire world. In classic soft-spoken Niko fashion, he delivers an hour of founder lessons in an interview he was nice enough to join me for last year.
Niko breaks down which metrics seed stage and Series A founders should be aiming for. He goes into specifics of churn rates, retention metrics, and more. This is one that is dense, and you should study it with a pencil and paper.
Next up, a VC who helped me get my start within Silicon Valley back in 2015, Brandon!
[VC Guest 3]
Investor of iconic startups (Robinhood, SpaceX), Brandon Farwell gave us a masterclass on why mission-driven founders return the most profits
Xfund, General Partner, Brandon Farwell
Brandon Farwell
Brandon helped give me my start in VC over a decade ago, and I remember him mentioning this one small financial trading company back in the day. Robinhood… who would have known he’d fund Vlad and they’d grow into $100B of market cap.
Not only did he hit a homerun with Robinhood, but Brandon also funded SpaceX ($1T+), Matterport ($1B+), Anduril ($30B+). Just those three alone have over a trillion of market cap.
He’s now partners with Patrick Chung at Xfund. A magical VC partnership because besides all the winners Brandon hit…. Patrick also happens to be THE first investor in OpenAI. Incredible.
Their list of winners goes on and one. And, I could as well. But if you want to learn more about how Brandon analyzes startup deals, you can watch our hour long interview as a recap.
Enough of the incredible investor lessons, what about Founders who joined in 2025!? 📈
[Founder Guest]
Tripp raised $30M+ of capital from the likes of Amazon, Qualcomm, and even Celebrities like Keanu Reeves
Tripp, CEO/Founder, Nanea Reeves
Nanea Reeves
There’s nothing quite like having a founder share an origin story. Each story is a unique twist on rags-to-riches. And each story has the founder DNA inherently integrated.
Some of you were lucky enough to join us for two conversations with Nanea. She didn’t just join us once in 2025, but twice! She brought a vast knowledge of fundraising, gaming industry, AI, VR mindfulness, and consumer app architecture.
Plus, she shared insights into her funding journey, and how everyone can learn to raise from VCs. It just takes a great product, team, company, timing, luck, and a trillion other ingredients :).
Nanea brings the best founder attitude.
As did our other incredible CEO’s like Shan Padda (3 exits, founded a public company), Esteban Castano ($100M+ raised, leading Crypto compliance startup), Richard White ($20M+, founder of Fathom AI), and plenty more who I’ll be mentioning in the near future!
Every one of these incredible founders who joined us in 2025 helped a room full of hungry entrepreneurs become better, and build better lives. And it enabled me to live my fully autonomous dream one more year, while also doing things I love. So, we thank you from deep down for being so generous with your time and your life-lessons.
More invite-only events to come in 2026, please make sure you’re subscribed to receive the invite to come meet these incredible VCs and founders! I’ve already begun lining up special guests, and to those who are subscribed to this blog you’ll get all the invites.
What’s new to come in 2026?
[My Thoughts]
Thank you for 2025, let’s do it even bigger in 2026!
[Week 2 Preview]
What ideas can we cross pollinate across key learning disciplines 🐝?
Startups x Investing x AI x Music x Travel x Life
In the first few blogs I’ll be breaking down my travel adventures in 2025, as well as my favorite AI startup tools I’m using to enhance my life:
Enabling me to create an entire album on Spotify (Meloflow AI)
Tools I’m using for AI GIF generation (Magic Hour AI) (YC backed)
AI form builder that I set up the below form with (Tally.so)
Next week: We’ll be covering one of my 2025 adventures involving some of my best friends, two grizzly bears, a wild moose, and scenic mountain views in Yellowstone National Park!
Want to suggest a cool topic we can learn on behalf of everyone and share with the group? AI Products? Investor intro’s? Pitch deck help? Startup idea? Co-Founder? Music? Want me to fund something? Something else?
