The Curious Engineer

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Coding VC

codingvc.com

VC from an engineer's perspective. Click to read Coding VC, by Leo Polovets, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.

Tech news / industrySoftware / engineering practiceEngineering management / careers

’15’20’25
Posts
106 from 1 Jan 2012 to 22 May 2026
Posting
now and then (2 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://www.codingvc.com/feed

2026 1

  1. Deep Tech Companies Are Built Different

2025 3

  1. Humba Ventures Deep Tech Office Hours (Dec 2025)
  2. Humba Ventures' Deep Tech Fellowship
  3. The Explore/Exploit Framework for Startups

2024 2

  1. Humba II: Doubling Down on Deep Tech
  2. The Golden Age of Deep Tech

2023 2

  1. Betting on Deep Tech
  2. Cash Management for Early Stage Startups

2022 1

  1. Spell. It. Out.

2017 8

  1. Becoming Your Future Self
  2. Notes from Priceonomics' 2017 Content Marketing Conference
  3. When is a Dollar not a Dollar?
  4. Behind the Scenes at a VC Fund, Part 3: Fund Structure, Fundraising, Investor Relations, and FAQs
  5. Behind the Scenes at a VC Fund, Part 2: Helping Founders and Time Allocation
  6. Behind the Scenes at a VC Fund, Part 1: Deals, Deals, Deals
  7. De-Risking Your Startup (SaaStr 2017 Talk)
  8. Three Mathematical Models for Building a More Valuable Company

2016 12

  1. Tit-For-Tat Office Hours with a Seed-Stage VC
  2. How to Use Thought Experiments to De-Risk Your Startup
  3. How to De-Risk a Startup
  4. Startup Cargo Cults: What They Are and How to Avoid Them
  5. Common Startup Timing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
  6. How to Make Better Decisions with Data
  7. Why Startup Technical Diligence is a Waste of Time
  8. 15 Short Stories About LinkedIn's Early Days
  9. Why This? Why Now? Why You?
  10. Startups are Risk Bundles
  11. Avoid Piecemeal Seed Rounds
  12. Investor Relations for Post-Seed Startups

2015 30

  1. The Fight Against Overconfidence
  2. The 100-Hour Rule
  3. Tackle the Hard Stuff First
  4. Respect the Other Players
  5. Startups and Stoicism
  6. The Effect of Location on a Startup's Likelihood of Success
  7. 5 Tips for SaaS Roadmap Planning
  8. The Road to Success is Paved with Discomfort
  9. Show, Don't Tell
  10. Using Investors to Find the Ideal Startup Job
  11. The Goldilocks Principle of Seed Stage Valuations
  12. Bubbles and Unicorns
  13. Assembling the Right Team
  14. What Shape is Your Competitive Advantage?
  15. Valuing Employee Options
  16. Fundraising Roadmap Algorithm
  17. The Bubble that Matters
  18. Turning Habits Into Business Ideas
  19. Advice on Advice
  20. An Open Letter to Demo Day Startups
  21. The Value of Data, Part 3: Data Business Models
  22. The Value of Data, Part 2: Building Valuable Datasets
  23. The Value of Data, Part 1: Using Data as a Competitive Advantage
  24. Fundraising Logistics Talk
  25. Website Update!
  26. The Internet is a Meritocracy
  27. Do Founders Get Value from Investor Updates?
  28. Ten Tips for Raising Money from VCs
  29. What Movies Can Teach You about Pitching to Investors
  30. Fighting Bad Practices with Successes

2014 36

  1. Taking Time Off
  2. Fatal Pinches, Seed Follow-On Rates, and Estimated Marginal Dilution
  3. A Learning Technique Inspired by Computer Hackers
  4. Extracting More Value from Investors
  5. Analyzing AngelList Job Postings, Part 2: Salary and Equity Benchmarks
  6. Extensive Notes from SalesConf
  7. Analyzing AngelList Job Postings, Part 1: Basic Stats
  8. The Art of Profitability
  9. Which Technologies Do Startups Use? An Exploration of AngelList Data
  10. Beneficiary/User/Purchaser Alignment
  11. Buzzwords That Backfire
  12. Benefit Providers for Startups
  13. How Much Runway Should You Raise?
  14. Pitches by Analogy (Tips and Gotchas)
  15. 3 Reliable Techniques for Generating Ideas
  16. Analyzing Product Hunt Data
  17. An Algorithm for Seed Round Valuations
  18. Demo Day Pitching, Part 2: Telling a Story
  19. Demo Day Pitching, Part 1: Common Problems
  20. A Survey of Survey Design
  21. 33
  22. Killer Features
  23. Pitch Logistics
  24. Investor Update Email Template
  25. Sharing Knowledge for Fun and Profit
  26. In Defense of Candidness
  27. The Challenges of Being a VC
  28. What Wedding Guests and Startups Have in Common
  29. Early-stage Startup Mistakes
  30. Common Demo Day Pitch Mistakes and How To Fix Them
  31. Super Bowl Lessons for Startups
  32. Embrace Laziness
  33. Talk Summary: Building Great Data Products
  34. How Do Investors Value Pre-revenue Companies?
  35. Recent Startup Trends
  36. Metrics Are Unit Tests for Your Business

2013 9

  1. Inefficiency Yields Opportunity
  2. Activation Energy
  3. Startup Valuations
  4. Table Stakes
  5. Minimum Viable Everything
  6. Admission > Omission > Deception
  7. What Do Angel Investors Actually Do? (Part 2)
  8. What Do Angel Investors Actually Do? (Part 1)
  9. First Post!

2012 2

  1. Best Of
  2. Ways I Can Help