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The cover of Founder vs Investor by Elizabeth Zalman and Jerry Neumann.
Founder vs. Investor
How many world-changing startups will fail because the founders and investors never figure out how to work together?
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Founder Elizabeth Zalman and Investor Jerry Neumann square off in this one-of-a-kind book, exposing how startups are built, broken, and fought over.  In stores now!
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Also available in E-book and Audiobook formats.
What's Inside
Fear, Trust, and Making Money
Fundraising
Terms
The Board of Directors
Growth
Exits
Red and the Wolf
...with a Foreword from Sandy Lerner, Founder of Cisco and Urban Decay
Photo of the book interior, showing the book organized into Founder View and Investor View sections.
About the Book
Every iconic tech company was once a startup. And while these companies like to paint an origin story full of surefooted confidence, the truth is usually something different: the early life of most startups is pure chaos.
This chaos comes from the vastly different motivations and incentives between those with the vision and those with the money. From fundraising paranoia to boardroom coups, Zalman and Neumann train their inimitable voices on the gulf between what founders and investors promise to do and what they end up actually doing.
Founder vs Investor is the brutal truth, from each side’s perspective, of the pitfalls of this tenuous relationship — where bad blood can turn sure things into shattered dreams. It is the only book written by insiders with the temerity to pull back the curtain on the world of high growth venture-backed startups.

“It's SUCH an obvious book that has needed to exist since the beginning of the venture industry itself. It's a guidebook on things to expect.”

Scott Sage, Crane Venture Capital
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Cover of Founder vs Investor by Elizabeth Zalman and Jerry Neumann

“I wish Founder vs Investor had been around earlier in my career; it would have been required reading before the first board meeting.”

Michele Bettencourt, Investor, Advisor, Operator
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In Stores Sept. 12, 2023.
About the Authors
Elizabeth Zalman
the founder
Icon of Little Red Riding HoodElizabeth Zalman, co-author of Founder vs Investor

Elizabeth Zalman is an infrastructure and information security expert and two-time founder / CEO of venture-backed companies, building her first startup to a successful exit and her second to a multi-hundred-million-dollar business. She has raised more than $100 million from the top VCs in the world. Liz has also never shied from a showdown with them, or anyone, really.

Jerry Neumann
the investor
Icon of The Big Bad WolfJerry Neumann, co-author of Founder vs Investor

Jerry Neumann is a twenty-five year veteran of venture capital. He was one of the first investors in some of the most successful venture-backed companies of the past three decades, including Datadog and The Trade Desk, and has worked alongside dozens of entrepreneurs as investor, board member, and advisor. He was named one of the most important VCs in New York and one of the 100 best early-stage investors by Business Insider. Jerry teaches entrepreneurship and innovation at Columbia University.

“...[Jerry] and Liz have written the definitive guide to the trickiest parts of the relationships between founders and investors. Anyone in or around startups will emerge wiser having read this book.”

Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Founder of Positive Sum & Colossus, Host of Invest Like the Best
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Copyright © 2023 Elizabeth Joy Zalman and Gerald Neumann.
Design by Marty McCall, who thinks the book is rad.
Seriously, buy a book, save your company.