During the pandemic, trends that previously fueled business growth suddenly reversed, leading to a dilemma about how to engage potential investors.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we had to pivot quickly. Instead of laying off our team as advised, we chose to be transparent and asked everyone to take pay cuts to weather the storm together, which ultimately helped us find our product-market fit.

During the pandemic, we learned that some features didn't resonate with users, prompting us to refocus on our core gaming audience.

During the pandemic, we received unexpected calls from companies like A&D Networks and Viacom CBS, who needed our help with remote collaboration. This led us to redefine our service from a general file access platform to a creative content collaboration tool, significantly increasing our annual recurring revenue.

During the pandemic, we faced significant challenges, but we emerged stronger. We learned to focus on efficiency and maintain a startup mentality, which helped us navigate the crisis successfully.

In the latest batch, 80% of companies had no revenue at the start, but by demo day, their collective annual recurring revenue (ARR) had tripled, showcasing rapid growth and potential.

We weren't prepared for rapid growth when a key opinion leader shared our program, leading to 2,000 sign-ups overnight, which we struggled to manage in a timely manner.

In hindsight, we didn't track revenue effectively; we focused on usage metrics, which made it unclear how many monthly active users we needed for fundraising.

Despite challenges, Robinhood has set new revenue records in 2024, demonstrating that the decisions made during the downturn were crucial for long-term success.