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Come join our team! We have an open Associate Director of Admissions position (#71017). Help shape our next incoming class of MBAs and future…
Come join our team! We have an open Associate Director of Admissions position (#71017). Help shape our next incoming class of MBAs and future…
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Black Hat 2024 is only a few weeks away! Visit us in Booth #2923 to see Cribl Copilot, our next-gen, AI-augmented workforce empowerment for IT and…
Black Hat 2024 is only a few weeks away! Visit us in Booth #2923 to see Cribl Copilot, our next-gen, AI-augmented workforce empowerment for IT and…
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Nicole Clay
💜 Hue. has been awarded a $150K equity-free grant from the Google for Startups Founders Fund! 🎉 Funding Black founders is crucial, here’s why ⬇ I recently spoke with a founder—let’s call him David—who needed fundraising advice. David’s startup is gaining traction, and he’s been advised to raise a #friendsandfamilyround to boost product development. Sadly, he feels discouraged. David is the first in his family to graduate college, and at 21, he earned more than anyone else in his family in his entry-level job. Now in their late twenties, him and his friends are still in their growth era and don’t have extra cash to invest. David feels stuck. 🚫 His network can’t fund his venture, and he has too little traction to raise a formal round. This is a common experience for many underrepresented founders—Black, Latino, low-income, women, and more. ✨ Grant programs like the Google for Startups Founders Fund provide essential capital to level the playing field. ✨ The Hue team is incredibly grateful for Google’s support for underrepresented founders and its commitment to uplifting startups pushing boundaries in AI. ❓ Does David’s experience resonate with you? Have you raised a friends and family round? What advice would you give other founders? ❓ Comment below ⬇ Check out to the other Black & Latino founders in my Google for Founders cohort! Sherisse Hawkins Nana Wilberforce Ph.D Seke Ballard Megan Nunes Manny S. Kene Anoliefo Tiffany Ricks George Holmes, PhD Rocio Frej Vitalle Rocio Frej Vitalle Florian Pestoni Darren Riley Eitan Winer Darryl Keeton Constanza Gomez Sergio Suarez Jr. Gerald Kierce Iturrioz #GoogleForStartups #FoundersFund #poweredbyhue #beautymarketing #huecommunity #hiring #fundraising
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Lenny Rachitsky
Kayvon Beykpour was the long-time head of product at Twitter, and GM of Twitter’s consumer business up until the day the platform was acquired by Elon Musk. He originally joined Twitter in 2015 through the acquisition of his company, Periscope, which became the world's largest live video streaming platform and inspired every other social network to expand into video streaming. In our conversation, we discuss: 🔸 The story of being let go from Twitter after Elon’s acquisition 🔸 How he turned Twitter’s stagnant culture around 🔸 Advice for building consumer products 🔸 Why Periscope failed 🔸 Kayvon’s thoughts on the limitations of frameworks like Jobs to be Done 🔸 When to copy, when to innovate 🔸 So much more Listen now 👇 - YouTube: https://lnkd.in/g2Zs56kh - Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gUrVCPGX - Apple: https://lnkd.in/gh2zR7tG Some key takeaways: 1. Kayvon drove change at Twitter by questioning the “sacred cows,” or deeply ingrained assumptions about what must not change in a product. At Twitter, these were things like sticking to text-based content and limiting tweets to 140 characters. Kayvon treated sacred cows like a “built-in roadmap” of innovations worth testing. 2. Twitter accelerated cultural change and innovation through many small acquihires. Founders of acquihired companies led the teams behind Community Notes, Spaces, Super Follows, Fleets, Communities, Tipping, and more. Twitter acquihired entrepreneur types who were ambitious and then gave them responsibility and autonomy to develop new products. 3. To change Twitter’s product culture, Kayvon also focused on building alignment at the leadership level, telling a compelling vision and strategy story repeatedly, hiring entrepreneurial founders through acquihires to take big bets, and identifying who was “on the wagon” or “off the wagon.” But he admits they weren’t swift enough at making organizational changes. 4. Twitter made the mistake of internally competing with its own video platforms, such as Vine and Periscope, instead of integrating them seamlessly into the main product. 5. When deciding to copy a product, the North Star should be doing what’s right for the customer. Copying can be done in good taste or poor taste. With Spaces, Twitter sought inspiration from Clubhouse’s user experience but put their own spin on it and prioritized it as the #1 company initiative, having learned from their failure to move quickly enough with Periscope/Vine. 6. To get better at building consumer products, be a voracious user of products. Try new things, feel what works, what doesn’t, and what you like and don’t like. Hone your taste by consuming and learning from others’ creations. There’s no replacement for curiosity and having practice and muscle memory.
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Wes Hather
As a YC and TechStars alum, here’s 4 common mistakes I’ve seen start-ups make (including myself) that spell disaster: 1. Focusing too much on the solution, losing sight of the problem. This is incredibly common for technical co-founders. You spend all your time building a beautiful, sexy app that doesn’t actually solve a real problem. In the early days, you should spend as much time understanding your customers’ pain as you do building the solution. Building the solution is the fun part, but make sure you “eat your veggies” before going all in. 2. Forgetting to KISS. That is, forgetting to Keep It Simple Stupid. It’s so easy (again, especially for technical co-founders) to go overboard on features, building everything that comes to mind. But really you should be building as little as you can and get to an MVP as fast as possible. And don’t “build in the dark” for too long, because you’re probably going to completely rebuild it in a few months as you get feedback from customers. 3. Obsessing over your competitors. I see this all the time, where start-ups founders are too reactive to what their competitors are doing. Your competitor launches a new feature and out of fear of getting left behind, you immediately change course and build a copy-cat feature. Instead, you should listen to your customers, figure out your own product roadmap, and execute. Execution is the name of the game. 4. Shiny Object Syndrome. Another common mistake I see founders make is switching directions too often when a brand new shiny idea comes their way. It’s easy to do in the early days because you don’t have deep roots with anything you’re doing. You finish an MVP, launch it, and expect customers to come banging on your door to get access. When this doesn’t happen (of course), you get bored and immediately pivot your product in a new direction. Growth takes time - make sure you’ve gone deep enough on your current path before chasing that shiny new object. What other common mistakes have you seen founders make?
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Maryleen Emeric Leal
🌟 “Unlocking Potential: A Journey of Mentorship” 🌟 As a Chief of Staff, I’ve had the incredible privilege of #coaching and #mentoring other talented professionals. 🤝 Whether it’s a late-night brainstorming session or a coffee chat, these interactions light up my workdays like a constellation of stars. ✨ Here’s the scoop: I learn as much as I teach. 📚 Yep, you heard that right! Every conversation with a fellow Chief of Staff is like a treasure hunt for wisdom nuggets. 🕵️♂️ We dive into strategy, leadership, and the art of juggling a million tasks (because let’s face it, we’re basically professional plate-spinners). 🎪 But it’s not just about me—I’m all about paying it forward! 💡 Sharing the hard-earned insights and battle scars from my role is my way of giving back. 🙌 Whether it’s navigating office politics, mastering the art of diplomacy, or decoding cryptic emails from the leadership team (seriously, sometimes it feels like deciphering ancient hieroglyphs), I’m here for it. 🗂️ And guess what? The joy of seeing someone else succeed? It’s like sipping a perfectly brewed cup of coffee on a Seattle rainy (every)day. ☕ Pure bliss! 🌧️ So, if you’re a Chief of Staff, an aspiring one, or just someone who enjoys a good chat about organizational acrobatics, hit me up! Let’s swap stories, laugh at our shared struggles, and maybe—just maybe—plot world domination (or at least conquer that overflowing inbox). AND if you are looking for a community of like-minded CoS, look no further than The Chief of Staff Association! 🌎📥 Remember, my fellow mentors and mentees: We’re all in this together. 🤗 Let’s keep the knowledge flowing, the laughter echoing, and the virtual high-fives going! 🙏 #ChiefOfStaffLife #MentorshipMagic #PayItForward #Microsoft Disclaimer: No Chiefs of Staff were harmed in the making of this post. 😄
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Fazlur Shah
“I work from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. And I work seven days a week.”- That's what Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said when asked about his work-life balance in a recent interaction with Stripe CEO Patrick Collison. “ When I’m not working, I’m thinking about working. And when I’m working, I’m working, and so. I sit through movies, but I don’t remember them because I’m thinking about work. There’s this problem, and you’re trying to solve this problem. You’re thinking about what the company can be and are there things that we could do even better. Or sometimes, it’s just trying to solve a problem. But sometimes you’re imagining the future and boy, if we did this and that. And it’s working. You’re fantasizing, you’re dreaming. I mean, that’s incredible.” Video Credit: Stripe ~~~~~ ♻️ Found this helpful? Repost it so your network can learn from it, too. And follow me, Fazlur Shah for more content like this. #startups #entrepreneurship #venturecapital #investing
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Nacho Gonzalez Nappa
Today, we had a precious opportunity at Berklee College of Music. Laszlo Bock joined us over zoom to talk about team building. Laszlo is the Co-Founder of Humu, and former SVP People Operations at Google. He worked closely with Google founders and the last 2 CEO's, building some of the most successful teams in corporate America. The class I teach at Berklee focuses on Project Management in Games, and we use Laszlo's book #WorkRules as the foundation for one of the modules. Working in games is an extremely collaborative endeavor. Laszlo's experience was invaluable. Here you've some key points that Laszlo shared with us. 🎸Psychological Safety: Laszlo emphasized creating a safe environment where team members can share ideas without fear, similar to a jam session in music. 🎸Role Clarity and Dependability: Clear roles and trust among team members are crucial for cohesion and efficiency. 🎸Mission and Impact: A meaningful mission and a sense of impact boost team engagement and performance. 🎸Manager's Role: At Google, managers focus on coaching and development rather than hiring and promotions, fostering collaboration and growth. 🎸Nudging: Small environmental changes can significantly influence decisions, without limiting choice. 🎸Data-Driven Operations: Using data to improve team performance and managerial effectiveness. 🎸Embracing Failure: Normalizing discussions about failures to promote innovation and improvement. 🎸Mission-Driven Recruitment: Attracting passionate employees with a clear and noble mission. 🎸 Reducing Managerial Power: Limiting managers' control over key decisions to ensure equity and performance-driven culture. 🎸Employee Empowerment: Giving autonomy and resources to employees enhances satisfaction and productivity. Thanks again Laszlo for stopping by at Berklee, you rock!
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Warren Parker-Mills
✨ I'm LOET ready! 💪 - Any excuse to recreate a chiselled chin and an abdominal 8 pack! The "League of Extraordinary talent" (LOET) is preparing to pitch for Deep Funding with SingularityNET. Here's a few words from fellow Co-founder Kenneth Mayfield. "On at least three occasions, indirect and direct disclosure of my autistic condition, led to losing my employment. On two occasions, colleagues appeared to take advantage of my autistic ‘blind spots’ with theatrics (and shouting at me) in front of other coworkers to push me out of good work. On one occasion, an employer with whom I shared my condition in confidence, ‘outed’ me in front of others at a company dinner. Loss of income under these circumstances also has knock-on effects of reduced opportunities to invest, purchasing a home, and other paths neurotypical employees might be fortunate to take for granted. Only 24% of us are fully employed and our life spans are reduced to 39-54 years compared to mainstream adults who average at 74 years". The LOET team are looking to make significant change to these statistics, by developing an intuitive job-matching A.I. which aggregates data around characteristics and career development, to formulate a personally tailored resume, in the form of an interactive Comic book... To find out more about the project and the calibre of the team involved, take a moment to visit our proposal on the Deep Funding website. *Link in the comments, below. Please review, comment and send us multiple ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ stars, if you resonate with the cause and see fit to do so.... David W. Sime Dr. Martha Boeckenfeld Tapan Aslot techSPARK uk John Turner MCIM CMKtr PGDip AI (Oxon) AI Alumni John O’Brien MBE ‘The Anthropist’ Richard Burgess Josyanne Clarke Liz Williams MBE Casey Jensen Imran Hassan Berthold Glass Anthony Day 🕛 Eric Redmond Melissa McBride 🚀 Carrie Hall Dan Harbison Nick Dean Talon MacTavish Nadiyah Rajabally Avani Patel Sharad Agarwal Dorothy Di Stefano
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Alex Malebranche
I'm honestly sick. For way too long, I've been saying that black founders are getting less than 2% of VC dollars, which is crazy enough...it's actually less than .5%....If you're an investor of any kind that should make you sick. Technology/Companies/Products are built with the values of their creator embedded into the fabric of them, and it's obvious we're only valuing one set of values. This shouldn't be left to specific 'diversity funds'. Do better. #blackbuilders #blackentrepreneurs #venturecapital https://lnkd.in/gevtp6sT
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Jacob Fortinsky
Meet Kelechi Ukah, my brilliant co-founder and CTO at Novig. Kelechi and I have been close friends since our days at Harvard. Even back then, his passion for physics and math was contagious. Now, he's bringing that same level of rigor to the sports betting world. He came on the podcast this week and broke down the concept of sportsbooks setting their odds. Sportsbooks have to constantly adjust odds in response to the bets they take. This is done to prevent clever bettors from outsmarting them. When they first post odds for a game, they can’t be totally sure what the "right" odds are. They watch closely to see who bets on which team and how much they're betting. This tells them if their odds might be off. If a lot of money comes in on one side, the odds probably favored that team too much → Big bets often come from expert bettors who spotted an edge over the book → The sportsbook likely mispriced that matchup and the pros pounced on it For popular sports and markets, their main goal is avoiding putting out bad lines. They need to quickly identify and react when the smartest bettors are exploiting their odds. It's a 24/7 tug-of-war between oddsmakers and professional gamblers. Each side is trying to outwit the other and find an advantage. The sharpest sportsbooks have become experts at this game of cat-and-mouse. — What do you think is the hardest part for sportsbooks in keeping their odds sharp? Get the inside scoop on this subject from Kelechi Ukah, Novig's Co-Founder & CTO, on the latest episode of Linecraft releasing this Wednesday!
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🎗️Nili Sztern Tsarfin
From Corporate Suits to Startup Flip-Flops 🌈🩴 Making the leap from the corporate world to the vibrant world of startups has been nothing short of an adventure. One of the most surprising changes has been my wardrobe. It seems like I've gone from 50 shades of black to turning up the saturation into colorful exploration. Standing in front of my closet on the morning of my first day deciding what to wear was actually me trying to understand what type of product manager I would need to be at this startup. Product management scarcely looks the same from one company to another, you never really know what to expect. Being agile and flexible professionally is just the same as being open to try new food, new clothes and embrace transformation. So there I was, in my carefully picked outfit, feeling the rush of excitement color my cheeks pink, doing some deep breaths before I opened the door to my new adventure. While interviewing for the startup position, the CEO told me that flip-flops were not part of the dress code. Although I thought it was a strange thing to say, I took it as it was, I never wear flip flops to work anyway. However, part of my fitting in strategy involves making people feel comfortable enough around me to come wearing flip-flops. I guess we were just gonna have to put a pin in that one. Knowing myself, I'm pretty good at new beginnings. I make it my humble goal not to judge any current state of the team, the product or the work process. For the next few days, I wear my invisibility cloak, I listen, I watch, I soak in what people do, say, behave and how they deliver themselves and their work. I just watch. I schedule 1-on-1 meetings with everyone. It says alot about the team atmosphere when people allow themselves to talk about their personal lives. I've learned that when they do, it means they feel happy where they are. When they dive into talking about work I can tell they feel emotionally disconnected, or not part of the team and thus focus on filling me in on the technicalities of tasks and work processes and what their role in the team is. When they start wearing flip-flops I know we can start making the magic happen. Being a process-building veteran, I know the lack of defined processes can feel like trying to build a plane while flying it. When not everyone on the team has experience working in a scrum and agile environment, it means I have to build everything from scratch, teach and mentor the team, and get everyone on board this crazy thrilling ride. The challenge of building order in a dynamic environment has pushed me to grow in ways I never imagined, but the first step is always getting the team on board. Do you also have some great onboarding strategies ? I’d love to hear about them. #CareerJourney #CorporateToStartup #WorkLifeBalance #ProductManagement #CompanyCulture #StartupLife #network LinkedIn
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Nathan Firth
If anyone is in North County San Diego, on Thursday May 2nd, we will be hosting a tech entrepreneur and investor meet up at 5:30pm. We’ll have a couple speakers, one of which is a fin-tech start-up raising a round, followed up by a presentation on the state of the stock & crypto market. We host these events quarterly and usually get a lot of founders and investors to attend. If anyone is interested, please message me and I can send you the details. LaunchPad San Diego #startups #startupincubator #entrepreneur #investing #crypto #meetup
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Sawyer Middeleer
Ops and growth generalists have to do a ton of context switching. It's why I often discourage aspiring CoS's from this role if they tell me they struggle with poorly defined responsibilities and a to-do list that's both a mile deep and a mile wide. Most people are in that group. I'm sure you've seen the pile of research that says context switching is bad. A UC Irvine study found that it takes 23 minutes to regain focus after a distraction. Other studies have measured high cognitive fatigue and depleted concentration. But sometimes it's just part of the job. And personally speaking, I often enjoy it. So I want to share some tips and tricks that I use to smoothly switch contexts multiple times within a workday. 🤹♂️ When possible, minimize context switching by prioritizing and batching tasks. There's no fully avoiding the cognitive costs, so block time for your most important projects. I like reserving the early morning or late evening for these. 🤹♂️ Give yourself a short break in between meetings or tasks to reset. 15 minutes is best, but as little as 2-3 is fine. Manufacture a little time if you need to -- get water, go to the bathroom, etc. 🤹♂️ Use this break to calm your mind and quiet the thoughts from the last thing you were doing. I will often make myself coffee, doodle a little, or do some pushups. The worst thing you can do is start a new task while still distracted by something totally different. 🤹♂️ Prepare yourself for an upcoming meeting or task by reminding yourself of the top 1-3 agenda items or objectives. Starting from the main points helps prime your memory to fill in the details. Usually, I have these top objectives written down in my to-do list or notes so they're readily accessible when I need them. 🤹♂️ This one is kind of counter-intuitive but it works for me. Make the most of the context switching ramp-up time by doing the easy parts of a project first. Let's say I was just doing some marketing stuff and now I need to do a financial model. I'll start off by creating headers and setting formatting, then ease into the meat of the task. This way I allow myself to regain focus while still getting some basic work done. Let me know if you have any other tips for things that have helped you!
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Nathalie Brochstein
Transitioning from an enterprise agile transformation advisor/coach to leading product development at a generative AI startup has afforded me a unique perspective on adapting agile methodologies in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. I am committed to sharing these insights, which have significantly influenced our development strategies. Here are a few key patterns that demonstrate how these experiences are reshaping our approach: 🔵 Visual Show-and-Tell Replaces Traditional Stand-ups We've transformed traditional stand-ups into interactive show-and-tell sessions. This adjustment promotes immediate feedback on tangible product changes, keeping our team aligned and highly engaged. 🔵 Optimized Timing for Review Sessions Drawing from research on productivity rhythms, particularly insights from Andrew Huberman, we’ve reallocated our review meetings to the end of the day. This adjustment respects individual peak productivity periods and enhances our collective efficiency. (We opt for team member in the same time zone) 🔵 Biweekly In-Person Strategy Sessions (Always in front of a White Board) Regular in-person gatherings are crucial for aligning on vision and strategy (the Why). These sessions are invaluable for harnessing collective creativity and refining our collaborative processes, as well as strengthening team cohesion. (Value = We are all leaders) 🔵 Holistic Evaluation of Content and Visuals Our daily evaluations integrate visual designs with their interactions with language models. This integrated approach ensures that our GenAI solutions are functional, intuitive and meaningful. We quickly realized that content and visuals must be evaluated together to fully assess their effectiveness. 💬 I welcome thoughts from others on how they are adopting new ways of working into their tech development practices. How are you integrating changes and what impact have they had?
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Garnet S. Heraman
Here’s an interesting read/concept to consider from TechCrunch! AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT are incredible innovations that are worth being excited about — but it’s important to also remember that we haven’t perfected these platforms yet. When it comes to chatbot technology and inclusivity, there are still multiple obvious shortcomings. #ChatGPT and other AI tools of the same vein currently struggle to read cultural nuance, and the algorithms that power these services mostly approach things from a Eurocentric/Western lens. Basically, one of the most popular and widespread AI platforms we have today was not built with the perspectives of #POC #BIPOC in mind. As a result, we’re starting to see alternative chatbots/modifications of ChatGPT in an attempt to create #PersonalizedAI such as John Pasmore’s Latimer.AI, an AI language model that tailors its answers to the experiences of Black and brown people. See also Erin Reddick’s beta ChatBlackGPT, which adjusts the harsher language and rhetoric regarding Black historical events, was trained by Black authors, writings, and philosophers. So, do you think #culturallyspecific AI models are a good solution? Or eventually, should broader companies that own ChatGPT/chatbots have a responibility to make them as inclusive as possible? Could that even be achieved with the structural racism and persistent inequalities that prevail in the tech ecosystem today? I want your takes.
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Tyrese J. Love
Amazing news for all startup founders out there! If you're struggling to validate your idea, build your MVP, or get traction early on, this opportunity is for you. Pre-seed accelerators can provide the capital and support needed to get your product to market, and Tré Baker has shared an amazing opportunity to access these resources. As a fellow early-stage founder, I know how difficult it can be to secure funding, which is the stage where many startups unfortunately fail. By providing underrepresented founders with the resources they need, these accelerators can help ensure higher returns for everyone involved. Don't miss out on this chance to take your startup to the next level! #startupfounders #preseedaccelerators #earlystagefounders #funding #resources
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Dart Lindsley
Share this with a friend: the 2025 Mira Fellowship application window is now open. If you or someone you know has a young, world-improving idea you want to make a reality in the company of other aspirational leaders, you can apply or nominate someone else at the link below. The Mira Fellowship selects five proven doers each year who are bent on reframing how the world works. They are typically mid-career individuals with a strong track record and a passion for solving specific problems.. As a 2024 Fellow myself, I've experienced firsthand how Mira has accelerated my mission to equip every company with the tools to deliver an experience of work that makes employees feel whole and alive. Other projects this year have focused on issues including: protecting the working poor from heat, assisting families in end-of-life preparations, fostering connections among children from diverse backgrounds, safeguarding NGOs from authoritarian pressure, and providing judges with access to independent environmental experts on demand. If this is you, and you are tired of working alone, now's the time - the application window closes on June 1st. You can apply or nominate someone else here. #leadership, #socialentrepreneurs #mirafellowship https://lnkd.in/gcVkvFC8
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Samantha Rose
This week I got to chat with Jason Shafton (Founder + CEO at Winston Francois) on Best Day Ever. Jason really stands out as someone who knows and has seen it all. With a distinguished career that includes leadership roles at Google, Headspace, and Comedy Central, he now spearheads Winston Francois, guiding brands and products to new heights. His strategic, metrics-driven approach to marketing ensures brands succeed spectacularly. 🎯 When product founders (specifically) market their own brand, it’s easy to be consumed by their own passion for what they’ve created. As a founder myself, I empathize deeply with this challenge. I had to learn to be an operator; to take the passion to the next level and build systems for digital growth. Jason offers invaluable advice for how to tackle this struggle, and here are three of his top insights: 1️⃣ Start with strategy. “I think brands often struggle to not just launch a bunch of marketing tactics. You know, we need to run ads on Google or Meta, or we need to issue a press release or post on social media. Why? Those are just tactics. Brands would be better served by starting with a growth strategy and identify the hypotheses that they want to test.” 2️⃣ Experiment. "At Google, we used to say: know the user, know the magic, connect the two. How is your product magical? How does it solve a real problem that your customer has? With that in mind, build a list of growth experiments you want to run to reach your ideal customers in the places online and offline where they spend their time and give their attention. Then measure those experiments and repeat. It’s more about investing in what works and stopping doing the things that don’t. The big watch out is that brands get trapped in this navel gazing at their own brands and products. And it’s way, way better to start with the user or customer and think about what matters to them." 3️⃣ Be obsessed. "I think if you’re obsessed about your problem and trying to solve it, then you’ll be equally obsessed about your user and your customer and where they show up in the world so that you can be present in the places that they already are." Jason’s got knowledge just dripping off him! Catch some of our chat here. ⬇ For the full conversation, head over to Substack—link in the comments. 👋
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Robert Lopez
This report came out a few months ago (yes, I know, quite slow to the game here) and while I don't know the SignalFire team that well, they did an excellent job describing the talent migration and dynamics happening right now. Much better than the sensational and silly headlines that you see in the major publications. The biggest and most mind bending, stat in my view? That Gen Z has twice as many jobs 4 years out of school on a cohort basis as Gen X did. I see it in the workforce on a micro level but interesting to see the data back it up. Also, it appears that Gen Z folks don't want to be manager? I do not see that in the real world based on the folks I talk to! Some other interesting nuggets: 1) NYC tech boom is real and still has momentum. When I came back here in 2014, there was a small cohort of funds who called nyc home like Union Square Ventures, FirstMark and Thrive Capital. Since then, many more have opened offices like Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed and Sequoia Capital. Exciting to see. My biggest concern? The cost of living in NYC has gone bananas. $9 cortados? A taxi to Laguardia at $70+? $25+ cocktails? If NYC wants to have a diverse startup ecosystem with different types of roles, keeping the cost of living in a reasonable spot will be important. 2) Founders, despite what you see in the press, are actually getting older, not younger, on average. The data shows that founders are twice as likely to have 15-20 years of experience today than they were 20 years ago. In fact, almost 70% of founders today have at least 10 years of experience today versus only 35% a decade ago. Research by The Wharton School, MIT, Northwestern University and the Census Bureau actually supports this saying that the probability of success in founding a company increases with age until the age of 60 (link in the comments). 3) Data, Data, Data. Yes, AI is big. But the undertone is the rise of data roles. With more and more companies leveraging data warehouses like Snowflake, Redshift, etc. it is becoming increasingly challenging to manage it at scale and structure it in a way that is easy to access. Especially when navigating tech debt and legacy code as software companies mature and delayed this cleanup too long. Big kudos to Heather Doshay and Asher Bantock for putting it together. https://lnkd.in/e55GrpJH
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Anup Gosavi
Ever wonder how teams at Airbnb & directors like Spielberg turn big ideas into unforgettable experiences? ✨ It all starts with storyboarding - it’s like sketching out your project with a comic strip to visualize each step before you begin. We’re launching a "Multimodal Storyboarding Starter Kit" for developers, enabling you to unlock GenAI storyboarding in your apps. Check out StoryFlow, a demo app built on VideoDB: 1. Enter your app description. 2. List user steps. 3. Hit Generate & watch your user journey come to life! Want early access? Reply or like this post! :)
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Jonathan G. Blanco 🛠
Some context from the #Founder perspective. As liberal as Seattle is as a city with policy and politics, it's incredibly conservative from an investment standpoint. One of the reasons you may not hear big "home-run" type pitches or pitches with sizzle, is simply because investors in Seattle don't like those types of pitches and Founders have been ingrained to not present in that manner. They may say they do, but ask any Founder and they'll tell you how they have been told to size down their pitch or talk about MVPs, first customer, first revenue, etc. or how what matters more is what you can do first couple years rather than the home run. Those early metrics are important by the way, but different from the big home run. Do you know who is receptive to homerun pitches? Investors in the Bay, NYC, Miami, Hong Kong. Seattle is not great for early-stage Founders with many prioritizing raising outside the city. We will be raising capital in the fall and as of now, have no plans of reaching out to Seattle-based VCs. I should also add that our company has a blockchain component and sadly Seattle VCs have not embraced crypto or blockchain. Welcome to #Seattle, Kyle Lui! Hopefully, you can help change the narrative! GeekWire
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