Carmen Oprea

Most Pioneer Fund companies send monthly updates (some quarterly), and we read every update across the portfolio of 500+ companies. I actually still personally read every update. Most startups send updates with these sections, and it works well: - High level metrics (revenue, maybe another key metric or two like GMV or MAU, growth since last month, cash in bank, burn rate, runway). Many of the most consistently-growing or fastest-growing companies also include a revenue graph. - Highlights - Lowlights - Investor asks - Maybe a couple investor shoutouts from last month - Some short commentary on what the current priorities are, what's coming next, etc. Some founders like to include a special section or two. A few of my favorites: - Photos or videos of technical progress for hardware companies - One of our founders sends a self rating on a scale of 0-10 for the month, along with detailed explanation. Pretty impressive. - A zoomed out view of how the mission/vision/strategy is specifically evolving - Some have very detailed additional sections that are specific to their business. E.g. manufacturing updates, distribution updates, regulatory updates, etc. Each investor update may only take a few minutes to read, but they are the summary of the hard work of an entire team for an entire month, often fighting uphill or sprinting downhill or exploring the idea maze. We're always grateful reading them.

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If you don’t know Clara Ma , you’re missing out big time. Here’s why… For one, Clara is a brilliant community builder. We met when she led On Deck’s Chief of Staff Fellowship, gathering 300+ chiefs of staff and aspiring “people leaders” at VC-backed startups globally. Today, she runs a company called Ask a Chief of Staff, which has a similar community. It is a MUST JOIN resource for Chiefs of Staff, and… If you’re a founder, CEO, or executive looking to hire a Chief of Staff, Clara and her team have recruitment and placement services as well (a business line that is skyrocketing). Why is she so successful? 1 - she cares so deeply about who she serves As a former CoS herself at Hugging Face Face (a unicorn AI startup), Clara is intimately aware of the challenges her community members face. That’s why she offers weekly, in-depth content for free on her blog, and… That’s why Ask A Chief of Staff organizes happy hours, dinners, and other social gatherings to help peers bond in an otherwise lonely and (sometimes) thankless job. We hosted a happy hour this past Thursday and 75 people showed up, including Chiefs of Staff from VC funds like First Round Capital, companies who’ve raised Series A, B, and C’s from top tier investors, and other “people leaders” eager to learn more about what a Chief of Staff does… (Including planning offsites, using offsite. com of course! 😉) 2 - Clara offers insane value! She gives way more than she asks from her community members. The same is true from partners like Offsite and Ambient. And it’s why hundreds of people vouch for Clara every day online, show up when she hosts events, and consider her a mentor in their careers. 3 - she’s experienced, yet humble. Constantly looking to refine her craft, and yet legit AF given her background at Hugging Face, On Deck, AngelList and other career stops. Experienced and humble is a lethal combo. Something I try to practice more myself… —- Let’s give Clara her flowers today… Give this post a “like” and repost to share with your network. Then, check out Ask a Chief of Staff if: - you are a chief of staff looking for community - you are looking to become a chief of staff - you are looking to HIRE your next chief of staff And comment below if you are in NYC, SF, or Nashville as we have upcoming happy hours and dinners in those cities… In NYC at least, the happy hours are getting so popular we need to take group photos with 0.5 settings, making us really stretchy because we want to fit everyone in 🤪. Thank you Clara for being awesome! #chiefofstaff #askachiefofstaff #odcos #peopleleaders #executiveassistant #offsites #teamretreat #corporateretreat

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I recently invested in Nooks's Series B. Want to learn how I make an investment decision? Many sales leaders, CEOs I know don't do angel investing (yet!) but are curious about the process. So let me share how I think about writing a check: 1. Investor <> Market Fit: You've heard of Product-Market Fit or Founder-Market Fit, and this concept is similar. How well do I know this market? With Nooks, salestech is my passion and I get a lot of deal flow in the space. So over time, it's gotten easier for me to spot which types of companies and technologies have the best chance to break out. I don't invest in stuff I don't have expertise in. 2. The power of the customer referral - I knew Nooks was absolutely crushing it because I heard been hearing a ton of sales leaders mention how critical the tech was to their TOFU / Outbound / SDR strategy. How they couldn't believe the efficiency gains. How they recommended it to many of their friends. And this was many months before I met CEO Dan L. So I was well primed to want to invest before the opportunity arose. As is always the case, word of mouth / customer referrals are so powerful. 3. People >>> - Ultimately, companies are nothing more than their product and their people. The product quality I referenced above, but the people side matters even more. I've been friends with (and admired!) Jonathon Blackburn for years, ever since I got connected with him since his Lattice days through my bestie Dini M.. If Dini says you're the real deal... you're the real deal. So when Jonathon joined Nooks at the beginning of this year, I knew 2 things were true: a. This company knew how to spot and hire A+ talent b. Companies with A+ sales talent tend to win, big. I'm honored to be a (very, very, very small!) part of the Nooks team and support their ambition to empower the next million SDRs to crush and win. There are so many flawed companies that want to replace salespeople... all of which are being built by people who don't understand sales. Sales is human. It requires a skillset that very few understand, even fewer possess. But it also requires a ton of drudgery and menial work that sucks the life out of you. Nooks is taking all that away, so teams can be ultra productive and win. LFG.

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PMF vs PMF. And the concept of "Project-Market Fit"… A concept that was new to me until a founder recently enlightened me. “Sorry man, we don’t have true PMF yet. We only have PMF - Project-Market Fit”, he said. Such a humble statement coming from a founder with an amazing 10M+ downloads for his open-source software, with 100’s of forks, and 6K+ Github stars. Rather than bragging about his organic growth and global adoption for his project, he referred to it as ‘merely’ Project-Market Fit. He explained: “We have users. We have adoption: downloads, forks, usage, and developer love. But we don’t have a paid-for product. So we know that people love our software. But we don’t know if we can build a true product. If customers will pay. If we can sell. We will need to prove all that before we can say we have true Product-Market Fit." He was right. And I realised this is true for many distribution-first businesses. Startups - be it open-source, or mobile, commerce or anything - that have user growth, engagement, customer love, but are still free and not monetising yet. Some of them see crazy growth and it’s easy for founders to get enamoured and over-confident. But growth through free distribution is not enough to self-proclaim “We have PMF!” And so thinking about the concept of Project-Market Fit helps to stay humble. And hungry for proving real PMF. Building a REAL product that people pay for. So you can build a REAL business. But you have to start somewhere. So start with Project-Market Fit 👊

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How to take advice is important. Prioritize taking advice from founders (over people who may be knowledgeable but are giving you advice from a completely different PoV). Ideally, try to find founders that have actually done the thing you are trying to do. When it comes to Korean startups going global, there's unfortunately not many that you can take advice from. Cue Ryan Lee (Jigo.ai) on Learning and Adapting in Business: "Be careful who you reach out to, and take advice from people who are closer to what you want to achieve... No one in our generation has cracked [the global market] yet, so keep that in mind when you get advice." #startupswithseoul https://lnkd.in/g52anyBc

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Founders, if you are having trouble selling your product, you don't need to immediately pivot your product. Instead, I recommend pivoting your goto market first. Check out the video below to find out how.

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Pitching to investors? Here’s what your deck should cover : Introduction- Bold statement/your personal story The Problem Your solution Your product The Market The Team Your Ask Key is to keep every slide simple, with key information. No information overload. Glad I attended the workshop on how to build your pitchdeck by Peter Thomsen The guy’s a legend. Did I miss anything?

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#TISeed #ImpactBillionsRevenueTrillions #SanjayBhargavaMentoredFund Sanjay Bhargava is on the scaled up disruption path again. I have known him for more than 13 years of more than 20 years, since he and his better half Anita came back post the PayPal buyout in 2002 by eBay. For me the couple has the flavour of Don Quixote, wanting the Muskian Mars-shots on Earth ! They have involved themselves in IAC ( India Against Corruption), Anita has been involved in Clean Up Delhi campaigns, been shadow Municipal Councillor to see how Indian Bureaucracy stymies much progressive movement but then both worked on setting up International Innovation Corps (now headquartered in University of Chicago), to help top bureaucracy get talent from top US & Indian universities to envision & implement big transformations. They were involved in setting up Bharosa Club along with their son and his partner, to encourage direct selling and transparent data analysis of mutual funds. Now Sanjay is going solo. He wants young teams anywhere to attempt impact disruptions of planetary scale, and willing to put 100,000 USD of his own, help raise the other 400,000 USD and mentor through governments and his networks, these pilots. And he desires to see teams from anywhere in the world, working on all sides of the Economic & Social Pyramid, across geographies to build a Balanced Sustainable, Healthy and Prosperous planet, inspired by the Gita, he doesn't care if he succeeds but he is going to do his bit. And the prosperity index for him includes good health of both it's peoples and nature. He believes the world can live better lives with lesser consumption. These are the top professionals, who have seen the West & East and want the enterprise pathways out of the ideological & geopolitical impasses. And what are the ideas that will get this support? There are many trillion dollar impact ideas possible from any domain. These examples are just pointers. Poverty Eradication Not Just Alleviation: Reimagining responsible credit, welfare, and UBI Target: 1B+ users, $10+ ARPU Global Youth Platform: Serving the 18-45 demographic Focus: Community and global prosperity Target: 1B+ users, $10+ ARPU Sustainable Employment: Bridging global labor market inefficiencies Solving worker surplus/shortage mismatches Focus on scalable, ethical solutions Smart Villages: Innovative rural development Climate change mitigation Replicable, customizable solutions Investment Focus Focus on trillion-dollar impact potential Deep involvement until Series A AI-powered solutions for global scale Sanjay's Track Record : PayPal pioneer (Employee #7 at X.com) Former Country Head, Starlink India Led Citibank's growth from 1% to 36% market share in Thailand Scaled Citibank India to process 5% of national GDP with just 6 branches Endorsed by industry titans: Elon Musk Founder & CEO, Tesla, SpaceX Reid Hoffman Co-founder, LinkedIn David Sacks First COO, PayPal

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VCs feel more threatened by other VCs than founders worry about other founders. It operates like a zero-sum game, it doesn't have to be. This makes life tough for emerging managers trying to get in, unless you apprentice at a big brand for a decade. Yet even then, you still don't learn all parts of the craft. As in any field, emerging managers learn only by diving in, and learn through trials and tribulations. But with a peer group, you can learn faster and make fewer mistakes. I joined Coolwater to connect with fellow emerging managers and tap into a brand LPs recognize. Learned more in 3 months at Coolwater than in 20 years of reading Fred Wilson. Wrote about my experience here: https://lnkd.in/gB5FFq3T Why Coolwater is great: * Helped 200+ new VC funds that are raising $3B+ * You tap into a 3,000+ top investors network * 8-week program with 300+ experts * Lots of different voices (25% women, 42% from diverse backgrounds) * People love it (83/100 NPS) Coolwater's not just a program; it's like a compass for funds that want to be institutional LP ready. They help you avoid rookie mistakes and build a strong brand with LPs. Considering becoming an emerging manager? Coolwater might be your next step. You can apply now for the next cohort. Have questions? Feel free to DM me. #VentureCapital #EmergingManagers #CoolwaterCapital Winter Mead Sean Chung Alexander K. Kiani, CPA David Teten

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9 tips on how to start a business with NO money. Here’s how I built one of Asia’s largest agencies, from scratch…

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As we all rush back into fall, it's time to think about what CEO's, executive teams, investors and board members look for in sales/revenue updates. This article below has a few great insights that are not just applicable to board meetings but to business in general. Sales is one area that tends to get "over sold." Don't tell me you went with your gut (in presentations when data and information is lacking, this is what signals to people that you haven't done the real work - lack of data. Know your numbers and transform that into "so what's"). Tell me you looked at the data (internal & external), did some research, wrote a few things down, crunched the numbers, understand the numbers THEN used your gut. That's how GREAT companies are built.

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Startups are PASS/FAIL Garry Tan spitting truth: People playing startup house think “build a demo” or “get a first customer” is some sort of check mark in order to join a club or pass a test Do you understand starting a company is do or die? Either your product is something people want or not. We want you to make a great demo or build something awesome not as check mark on the way to something. Either you make it or you don’t. There is no other bar to hit. Those things we want you to do are literally the necessary steps it will take to win in a market. Startups are pass/fail.

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Calling all #mentors and wannabe mentors! Join me for a chat that won’t be fireside because I don’t have a fireplace! 🤪 🌟 Ready to dive into the exciting world of mentoring early-stage startups? Join us for a session where we’ll explore the ins and outs of making a real impact as a mentor. Whether you're already a startup mentor or just considering it, you'll gain invaluable insights and practical tips to elevate your mentoring game. 🗣️ We’ll discuss the best ways to connect with startup teams, share success stories, and even tackle some of the challenges mentors face. This is your chance to learn from seasoned SBC mentors, discover new strategies, and contribute your own experiences. 🤝 Online or in person, we've got you covered: ⭐️In-person Session with Trevor Townsend , CEO Startupbootcamp Australia on Thursday 30th of May 4:00 - 6:00 PM AEST ⭐️Online Session with me! Jacqui Bloom Growth & Investment Director Startupbootcamp Australia on Wednesday, 22nd of May 4:00 - 5:00 PM AEST 🎟️Secure your spot here: https://lnkd.in/gKCTeVcM

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Early in my journey with Quuu.co, we had a bold vision of changing the way people share content on social media. But like all great ventures, we hit a wall. We needed to figure out our product-market fit, and it wasn't pretty. In the beginning, we thought we knew our audience. We thought we understood their needs. But the data told a different story. Customers weren’t engaging as we had hoped. Instead of throwing our hands up in frustration, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. We started talking to our users, conducting interviews to dig deeper into their pain points and needs. It wasn’t easy to hear that our assumptions were off, but we embraced the feedback. We refined our offerings based on what we learned and, just like that, the engagement began to soar. What did that teach us? Product-market fit isn't just a number or a metric; it's about truly understanding and connecting with your customers. It requires relentless conversations and a willingness to adapt. The truth is, you can’t please everyone, and trying to is a surefire way to fail. So here’s my advice: don’t shy away from hearing the tough stuff. Embrace the feedback, iterate, and pivot if necessary. Stay clear on your vision, but be flexible on how you get there. It could be the difference between fading into obscurity and creating something monumental.

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Another masterpiece by Sequoia Capital !!! “Apps: The most interesting layer for venture capital. ~20 application layer companies with $1Bn+ in revenue were created during the cloud transition, another ~20 were created during the mobile transition, and we suspect the same will be true here.” I agree with the thesis AND actually think we will have 100+ application layer companies in the AI era with gargantuan outcomes because AI is impacting and disrupting EVERY industry sector in ways never seen before. Imagine a few *unicorns*, *decacorns*, *hectocorns*, *kilocorns* in healthcare and education and industrial and consumer and retail and … and … and…. Perhaps a couple of *megacorns*? Oh, what exciting times and investor’s dream 🚀🚀🚀. Aileen Lee, would love to hear your perspectives. Full report here: https://lnkd.in/g44cBgGS #AIDecade #InvestorDecade

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the biggest difference between San Francisco & Singapore for me is this. whether it's the population of experienced, ambitious series A-B founders that's low (they leave to SF/London for better network effects once they reach this level) or if they exist but the chance of meeting them is low because they're too busy to spend time with people outside of their team/customers/family (or they rather meet up other founders at their level or higher in private dinners) is worth being looked into. but regardless, this takes a massive toll on knowledge/wisdom transfer in an ecosystem. that's bad because startups are peak knowledge economy and insights and short cuts make all the difference in both life and death of startups, as well as in the rate at which they can grow and generate and capture value. singapore is way ahead of most countries. most countries don't even have that critical mass of early stage startups, or a critical mass of exited tech builders/investors. but this curve will create negative network affects, if not dealt with. not just singapore, any country that wants a healthy ecosystem for startups or any other important thing (scientific research etc.) needs a healthy knowledge/wisdom transfer pipeline. can't miss a few layers in between and expect the system to produce great output. Btw I think San Francisco is absolutely lucky to have the knowledge transfer pipeline that it has. It's not necessarily designed or intentionally set up. and I don't think it's sustainable either (smart people leaving their countries to go 1 place can be exciting for a few decades but then causes their home countries to get worse and worse, which makes the world worse and worse. no city can become/stay great if the world around it is burning). but this problem wont get solved by itself because humans have a natural tendency to hang out with people at their level of competence/consciousness or higher. elitism reinforces elitism. LearningLoop.com's global mission since day 1 has been, not to disrupt elitism, but to capture the wisdom of the elite, present it at different levels of abstraction to people who seek it but can't get it; because of their location, wealth, level competence, etc. make 1 billion elites we've started with 1 knowledge space that is startups. so at this scale, we define success as making sure San Francisco's startup network and knowledge/wisdom pipeline and discourse not just available but accessible globally. availability = being able to see/read/hear about it vs accessibility = being able to participate in it and get value from it. P.S: we're hosting an event in singapore this wednesday, if you're a founder you should drop by. the RSVP list looks amazing and you'll love the people and conversation. link in comments

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Really well illustrated diagram on Growth Loops - an essential part of product led growth. Your key takeaways: -Reduce friction to getting to an Aha moment -Make it easy to share and add others to your product in a free/viewer mode -Make it easy to pay -Make sure your product gets more valuable the more people use it What are your thoughts? #product #design #plg #quantana

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How Dovetail grew to a $970M (Australian) valuation in 5 years—and created a new SaaS category: I chatted with 4 members of their team, and 4 UXR leaders, to learn the details. 1. Product-led growth, design-led company Dovetail's business model is decidedly product-led growth. The company relies on the product, and inherently viral features like research reports, to acquire, convert, monetize, and retain users. But design-led is its culture. CEO and co-founder Benjamin Humphrey has been in the details of the design since its beginning. And the product "feels" like it as a result. 2. Creating a hub for a neglected persona Rewind to 2016. While engineers had JIRA, Designers had Sketch, PMs had Google Docs, and analysts had Tableau, User Researchers had... nothing? Their workflow was a mess of hopping between different software. Ben had lived it as a product designer at Atlassian. There was a plethora of software focused on how to build, but there was almost nothing about what to build. So, after proving out the idea with an MVP, he recruited his Atlassian Engineer friend, Bradley Ayers, to join him. 3. Mastering the PLG motion Dovetail excels in all layers of PLG: → Acquisition: they don't use any outbound sales, focusing on product acquisition → Core problem communication: the home page emphasizes improving how you make product decisions → Reduced friction: its onboarding is focused on a standard walkthrough, but it is 10 steps → Activation: Dovetail has an intuitive product, examples, and templates to take you from setup to habit → Retention: as a system of record, the product gets stickier as more (qualitative) data is put in it → Monetization: the free plan has unlimited functionality, but only 1 project → Expansion: it has a natural growth of free users, who eventually become editors 4. Creating powerful, reinforcing growth loops Dovetail 2 two core loops: • More paid seats helps them build a better product, which helps UXRs succeed, which drives more UXRs and paid seats                                 • UXRs succeed, driving collaborators to join, which go from free to paid seats As well as 2 ancillary loops: • The more paid seats, the more it can invest in inbound sales • The more free seats, the more expansion products like Channels (to analyze customer support data) it can build 5. Building towards a category of one While there are competitors in the research insights space, Dovetail is building out its own category. It's not quite transcription. It's not quite a hub for research. It's that and more. This has helped it create its own, new category in SaaS. As Benjamin, still the CEO, told me: "We're building a system of record for all insights... It's a friggin' long, 20-year journey. You need to be a little nuts to have that level of ambition. "

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We've spoken about the best CEOs and the attributes they brought to the table to build world class teams. What about the worst performing CEOs that I have worked with- what were their similarities? Let's dive in. CEO #1 early stage, semblance of PMF, tier 1 investors. Here are the 3 traits they implemented to build a dysfunctional TA function: 1) Significant ego. Although having no former executive leadership experience or true recruiting experience this individual felt as if they knew/understood the nuances of recruiting. They understood recruiting better than the recruiters they hired. 2) Lack of empathy. This CEO relied heavily on pedigree bias to evaluate candidates which is typical for many first time leaders. Great candidates were dropped/ignored for insignificant resume signals like, "if this individual was really great they would not have been fired during the last downturn". 3) Unrealistic expectations. The company lacked "clout" and "hype" it is a fairly standard product selling to enterprise yet the founder wanted to attract talent from hyper growth startups. It was difficult to sell the mission but what was even more difficult was that the founder expected these candidates to take pay cuts because equity should be the chief motivator. CEO #2, mid-later stage, PMF, niche sector but very strong mission. Here are the 3 traits they implemented to build a dysfunctional TA function: 1) Significant ego. The CEO knew they had a great product with a great mission and ultimately adopted a Messiah complex - in many ways the work culture felt like a cult where the founder projected themselves as a genius (if I had a dollar for every time Steve Jobs was mentioned as a comparison I could have independently IPO'd). 2) Underestimated recruiting. When I joined recruiting was one of the lowest paid departments in the entire org. Often this team would make offers to software engineers for $1m+ packages (equity included) but the highest paid recruiter prior to me joining was earning $110k. Company wanted/needed world class engineers but did not understand why recruiting was systematically unable to deliver at scale. 3) Lack of trust. The CEO was a technical founder and I believe their experience as a highly recruited software engineer created inaccurate biases about recruiters. Frankly, the CEO did not believe that recruiters were smart and that their job was easy. Because of this recruiting never reported to the founder and instead reported to functions that made no sense (at one point recruiting reported to Biz Ops lead). When challenges arose internally around recruiting instead of speaking to the team the CEO would immediately hire outside consultancy services "to fix recruiting" - it never worked. I can't help but think of their core similarities: ego, a lack of respect/understanding of the recruiting function and an unwillingness to learn, grow, or change.   #Flag: These former clients are not listed on my digital resume (LinkedIn).

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