Burak Buyukdemir
Entrepreneur, VC, and storyteller. I invest in early-stage startups worldwide, share candid lessons from 20+ years in tech, and spotlight founders shaping the future. Join 100,000+ readers each week.
Why most customer interviews are a waste of time
Brainwaves by Burak Büyükdemir Field notes from 26 years of investing in early-stage startups. April 03, 2026 Why most customer interviews are a waste of time · · · About the Guest: Rob Fitzpatrick is the author of The Mom Test (250K+ copies sold, taught at top universities and accelerators worldwide), a Y Combinator alumni, and founder of Useful Books. He went from a failed startup to writing the definitive guide on customer conversations. Rob Fitzpatrick built a failed startup, turned the...
Your salary is a runway decision. Most founders get it wrong.
Brainwaves by Burak Büyükdemir Field notes from 26 years of investing in early-stage startups. April 01, 2026 Salaries & Equity in Startups: The Fastest Way to Burn Your Runway · · · I keep seeing the same pattern. A founder starts a startup... and pays themselves like they were hired from a large corporation. Then they hire employees the same way: corporate salary + equity on top, as if the startup is a "small version" of a big company. This thinking quietly kills startups. Not because...
He built a fintech, lost it, wrote a book, and started again.
Brainwaves by Burak Büyükdemir Field notes from 26 years of investing in early-stage startups. March 06, 2026 Portfolio Spotlight: Boost · · · About the Guest: Mike Quinn is the founder & CEO of Boost. They help distributors and FMCG brands in Africa sell to small retailers more efficiently, using simple ordering flows like WhatsApp and the operating layer behind it. We actually invested in Boost Technology before I ever met Mike in person. I first met Mike Quinn four years ago at Web Summit,...
Angel Investing, Done Right
Brainwaves by Burak Büyükdemir Field notes from 26 years of investing in early-stage startups. March 27, 2026 Angel Investing, Done Right · · · About the Guest David S. Rose is a serial entrepreneur, longtime angel investor, founder of Gust (startup funding infrastructure used by many angel groups), and author of Angel Investing: The Gust Guide to Making Money and Having Fun Investing in Startups. A while back, I hosted David S. Rose on my podcast. He has a rare combination: he's an operator...
Please stop sending 5-year projections
Brainwaves by Burak Büyükdemir Field notes from 26 years of investing in early-stage startups. March 25, 2026 Please stop sending 5-year projections · · · Quick founder note from the investor side. Please stop sending 5-year projections. Not because you're wrong. Because everyone knows they're fiction. Markets change. Products pivot. Pricing shifts. Competition moves. So a "2030 revenue line" doesn't build trust. It does the opposite. What investors actually want instead If you want to look...
Most founders scale fast. Paavo scales right.
Brainwaves by Burak Büyükdemir Field notes from 26 years of investing in early-stage startups. March 06, 2026 Portfolio Spotlight: Teamdash · · · About the Guest: Paavo Heil is the co-founder & CEO of Teamdash (formerly RecruitLab), a recruitment marketing + applicant tracking system (ATS) with visual pipelines and video recruitment tools, built to help recruiters manage the full hiring cycle in one place. I met Paavo online through a warm intro from Tim and Akim (the FFF co-founders). And...
The Truth About Success (It's Not Just Winning)
Brainwaves by Burak Büyükdemir Field notes from 26 years of investing in early-stage startups. March 20, 2026 The Truth About Success (It's Not Just Winning) · · · About the Guest Jason Fried is the co-founder of 37signals (Basecamp, HEY) and the author of books like Rework and It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work. He's known for building calm, profitable software businesses with small teams, strong taste, and a deep respect for independence. A while back, I hosted Jason Fried on my podcast....
The meeting tax
Brainwaves by Burak Büyükdemir Field notes from 26 years of investing in early-stage startups. March 18, 2026 The meeting tax · · · I asked 20 founders to track how they spend their time for one week. Every single one was shocked. The average was 23 hours of meetings. Twenty-three. That leaves 17 hours for actual work. In a startup. Where everything needs to be built yesterday. I call this the meeting tax. Nobody celebrates it. Nobody even notices it. But it quietly kills your momentum. A...
Portfolio Spotlight: Twice Commerce
Brainwaves by Burak Büyükdemir Field notes from 26 years of investing in early-stage startups. March 16, 2026 Portfolio Spotlight: Twice Commerce · · · About the Guest: Tuomo Laine is the co-founder & CEO of Twice Commerce. They started as Rentle ("Shopify for rental commerce") and evolved into a broader circular commerce platform, helping merchants sell, rent, subscribe, buy back, and resell products ("commerce on repeat"). I had one of those "wait... I know this company" moments this...
Startups don't execute. They search.
Brainwaves by Burak Büyükdemir Field notes from 26 years of investing in early-stage startups. March 13, 2026 I Spent 54 Minutes to Learn 71 Years of Business Knowledge! · · · About the Guest Steve Blank is a serial entrepreneur (8 startups), educator at Stanford, and the creator of Customer Development - the foundation behind Lean Startup thinking. He helped bring "get out of the building" into startup vocabulary and has worked on programs like Hacking for Defense and the NSF I-Corps...
Entrepreneur, VC, and storyteller. I invest in early-stage startups worldwide, share candid lessons from 20+ years in tech, and spotlight founders shaping the future. Join 100,000+ readers each week.