Warren Shaeffer

The advice I most often give to anyone building consumer products: Reduce time-to-magic. Your product can be complicated under the hood, but to the user it should feel simple, delightful, and magical — as fast as possible. Some examples: • Tik Tok allegedly boosts a user’s…

Happy life update: I’m stepping into a Partner role at @pearvc and will be focusing on pre-seed and seed consumer investing. Why consumer? Consumer spending accounts for 68% of the US economy and yet only 7% of venture funding went to consumer businesses in 2023 (down from 14%…

Lazyweb, hi. Open-sourcing some research around B2C vs. B2B outcomes. It looks like since 2010, 14 of the top 20 US, VC-backed IPOs were consumer companies, including 8 of the top 10. Am I missing any companies that would make the top 20? >$10B in market cap at IPO.

One of the best pieces of advice I've ever gotten: work with people who inspire you. Big congrats to @pejmannozad on being named as the #1 seed investor on the 2025 Midas List. Even more impressive than Pejman's track record as an investor, is the way he shows up for the team…

Veo 3 is truly mindblowing. You type an idea for a scene. A minute later: a fully rendered clip with sound, dialog, and emotion. A solo auteur may soon make your next favorite movie. No studio backing. No gatekeepers. Just good taste and a prompt.

Everyone gets writer’s block. No one gets talker’s block.* That’s why I'm bullish on voice-first agents and companions. They tap into our natural interface: conversation. *Exception: kids when you ask how school was.

Good news if you're an early-stage founder considering a pre-seed: applications for PearX are now open. PearX is a small-batch program (~15 companies per cohort) with best-in-class resources: ✅ $250K–$2M initial investment ✅ Dedicated support in GTM, hiring, fundraising,…

A lot of people are saying SF is dead for consumer startups. I disagree. Next week, I’ll be interviewing @Max, Instacart co-founder and investor in 100+ startups. We’ll dig into Instacart’s early days, hear the war stories and hard-earned lessons, and get his take on what…

Prediction: founder mode for personal health. It's wild how little most people know about their bodies. Modern medicine is incentivized to repair problems, rather than prevent them. But with AI and wearables we're entering a new age of personal empowerment, where people will…

Heyboss is expanding the market of people who can create functional apps, websites, and games. Time to build — er, have Heyboss build — that side project you've been dreaming about. Congrats on the impressive launch, @quxiaoyin !