Free Agency

This Friday morning in NYC! Join me for a fireside chat with Innocent C., where we'll talk all about building in healthtech and the nuances for founders within the industry. Innocent's done it before with Kaia Health and doing it again now with Ciba Health -- and with a background as a physician and clinical researcher, he has more context than most to bring to the table. Excited for this one! RSVP below. https://lu.ma/ekgfbjie

Common failure pattern among struggling founders and job seekers: answering the question directly. Seriously. Let's use a hypothetical marketplace founder. An investor might ask something like "it seems like you're going to struggle with supply side acquisition, how are you going to deal with that?" They answer with "today, we've built a community of 200 of the best on the supply side, and we have an email list of the another 800 in all of our key initial markets prepared for our beta launch this year." Okay, sure, everything starts somewhere -- but that's not the real question at play. There's a question behind the question. And no, it's not a game, get over yourself -- as a founder or a job seeker, you need to be good enough to fundamentally understand that a question can be an invitation to tell a story. The answer above supposes that the investor cares about the initial go-to-market. But if that was what they cared about, they'd be clear about it. They're asking about an approach, a framework, a theory of the world. They want to understand the problem as well as you do, or at least gain confidence in your understanding of it. And so an alternative answer would be... "The biggest challenge with the supply side of the equation is that there just aren't enough of these people in each city to fulfill requests. In the early days, we're already in those communities and have the email lists of existing supply. In the longer term, just like Uber turned anyone with a car into a potential driver, we think anyone [who can do X] can be a supplier on our platform after just a day of training through our app. In other words, we'll increase the existence of supply ourselves -- and help individuals [monetize this skill/thing] for the first time." So, remember: a question is often an invitation. Caveat that it's sometimes just a question. It's not hard to tell the difference if you just take a beat and think about the context you're in and why that question was asked.

Excited for the next session of The Feedback Loop. Joining me as guest cohost for the evening will be Virginie Raphael! We'll be hearing a batch of founders pitch their startup — then, we'll give them unfiltered feedback about both their storytelling and their concept. Virginie is Founder & Managing Partner at FullCircle, where she invests in pre-seed startups across future of work, healthtech + caregiving, and SMB SaaS. Beyond that, she is on the Board of La French Tech New York, was an MD at Tusk Ventures for >8 years, and prev. founded Kronos Archives. Early stage founders! Ready to give your best minute-pitch and get feedback that could change your trajectory? There's an application link in the Luma event page calling your name. And for those who want to be in the live audience, be sure to RSVP! https://lu.ma/8n0trolt

Episode 006 of The Feedback Loop is online! My guest cohost for the episode: tech marketer-turned-VC, Mike Ma of Sidecut Ventures and Sway Ventures. He's been a CMO, a venture operating partner, an accelerator MD, and now runs his own pre-seed fund – in other words, he knows startup storytelling. Beyond that, he joined me in giving incredibly thoughtful feedback to a great group of pitches for the evening. We got to hear from founders like Muhammad Hunain building new materials for space travel, Caroline Strzalka building a platform to instantly turn videos into games, and Katie Joseff building an AI device to combat cognitive decline + loneliness, to name just a few! It's live on your favorite podcast platforms, and on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/ebQePhQ7

The Feedback Loop is hosting a special #NYTechWeek AI edition on Monday and I'm thrilled to be back in the hot seat🔥with my friend Sherveen Mashayekhi. Want to join the fun ➡ https://lu.ma/2dxw3318 Want to Pitch ➡ https://lnkd.in/e8we_zKx See you there!

Tomorrow on The Feedback Loop, Ep. 006 – super excited to welcome Mike Ma as my guest cohost! Mike is a tech CMO turned venture investor and advisor, and recently founded Sidecut Ventures to back mission-driven, pre-seed founders. He's an Operating Partner at multi-stage fund Sway Ventures and previously MD at Nex Cubed, a pre-seed accelerator for underrepresented founders. In other words, he knows startup storytelling! And if you haven't heard – every week, we host a batch of incredible founders in front of a small audience in NYC. They deliver a 1 minute pitch and then receive 5 minutes of unfiltered feedback -- purpose-built to help them iterate on and tell their best story. Whether you want to attend in person, watch online, or apply to pitch as a founder, all of the details: https://lu.ma/1vl4l9bu

Episode 003 ft. Jenny Fielding was dense with incredible founders tackling tough, multi-factor, "physical" problems in the world. Among the batch — Min jung Kathy Chae, MD, MSc, an ER doctor solving ER efficacy problems, Manu Stephen building R&D SaaS for medical device companies, Tyce Herrman automating construction permitting, and Jeff McSpadden using sound science to solve sleep issues, to name just a few! That's one of my favorite parts of doing this every week -- getting the boost of entrepreneurial energy from fellow founders who are in the messy middle of trying to change the way the world works.

My favorite part of Bastien Berthon's pitch? When the crowd all incredulously laughs after he asks them if they share in the pain he's trying to solve.

Episode 002 of The Feedback Loop just landed on YouTube! 10 founders give their 1 minute pitch, then receive 5+ minutes of unfiltered, honest pitch feedback from me and Jenny Fielding. Whether you're a founder, a tinkerer, or a careerist, you're going to want to tune in. Storytelling is a bigger part of our lives than we give it credit for, and we could all use a little more feedback. One notable theme -- among the batch of 10, there were 3 student-focused startups: Maurice Landers III building banking for international students, Navdeep Singh building an AI-powered edtech platform for international students, and two current Yale undergrads, Nathaneo Johnson & Sean Hargrow, building AI for student entrepreneurs. Beyond that, some incredible pitches in social media, wellness, DTC data automation, & more. Check it out!

Early stage founders! Here's a can't miss: on Monday's session of The Feedback Loop, giving essential and unfiltered feedback to 10 early stage founders will be two of tech's most prominent storytellers and investors: Polina Marinova Pompliano and Anthony Pompliano! Polina: covered tech and venture capital for years while writing Term Sheet for Fortune, now writes The Profile (in-depth profiles + deep-dive interviews), recently published Hidden Genius (book exploring what separates the greats from the truly exceptional). Anthony: you know him as Pomp, has been pushing the boundaries of tech, business, + finance for a decade as an entrepreneur and startup investor, and reaches millions across frequent CNBC appearances, Twitter/X, The Pomp Letter, The Pomp Podcast, and on YouTube. In other words -- fewer pairs compare when it comes to recognizing patterns, telling stories, and crafting narratives in tech. Monday, 6:30pm ET in NYC, and livestreamed. Want to pitch? Want to attend in-person? Want to watch online? Check out the link in the comments below.