Got a company you'd like a second opinion on? Submit a formal RFS here.

As the blog’s readership has grown, I’ve been lucky enough to start building three distinct readerships:

  1. ‘Broke Angels’ a.k.a. unaccredited investors like yours truly who send in deals and companies for me to evaluate.
  2. Venture capitalists reach out to me for promising companies that fit my investment thesis and pass my analysis.
  3. Startups that know me from my work experience and network seeking tips on funding.

As such, this Request for Startups page, shamelessly stolen from Y-Combinator, is to articulate what types of companies me and various venture colleagues are interested.

If you a) fit the bill of any of the following and are raising money, or b) have a specific company you want me to analyze, please write to mail@muhanzhang.com with “[RFS]” in the subject line.

Specific Theses:

  1. Willing/Solace for pre-nuptial agreements
  2. Robotic automation for manicures
  3. LegalTech: Along the lines of Atrium, without giving away too much in lawyer fees. What services does LegalZoom provide that are good, not great? What bundle of services can we unpack from LegalZoom, add in a care team a la Candid.co, SmileLove, and BlissDivorce, for a more peaceful, self-guided, and better UI/UX? For an example, see BlissDivorce.

Categories/Industries:

  1. Taiwanese or Taiwanese-descendant founders looking to raises Seed/Series A, doesn’t have to be located in Taiwan
  2. Labor saving tech for commercial businesses
  3. B2B sales personalization and automation software
  4. Real estate tech

Muhan’s Investment Thesis & Preferences:

  1. Software-as-a-Service Businesses (E.g. CodeCombat, Contiq, WhereBy.Us)
  2. Marketplaces (e.g. Rentberry, Event Hollow, TruckBux)
  3. Raising seed rounds of $250k-$500k on a $5-10 million dollar valuation.
  4. Has a product and revenue in the market.
  5. Boring businesses, with the beginnings of product-market fit and ideally need just operational excellence to scale.

Note: Industry wise I’m pretty agnostic, but I tend to avoid healthcare, hardware, education, AI, and any highly regulated industries. This doesn’t mean I’m a perfect investor or that everyone of my investments fits this category, but part of documenting my process as I invest is to learn patterns to my bias.

Again, if you fit the bill of any of the following and are raising money, please write to mail@muhanzhang.com with “[RFS]” in the subject line.