Andrew Peterson

"The best offsites create space for serendipity." ✨ That was our guiding principle for Clarify‎'s recent team gathering in Seattle. The result? A transformative experience that's already paying dividends in team cohesion and product innovation. 🙌 Our key ingredients for offsite success: 🤝 Prioritize unstructured bonding time  💼 Mix work (hello, hackathon!) with 🤿 play (who's up for a lake plunge?)  ❤️Create opportunities for vulnerability and deep connection   💸 Keep it budget-friendly without sacrificing impact But the real magic? Watching our team of 11 take all their energy and use it to ship 6 awesome customer projects in the week following our return. Austin Hay‎ packed all our insights, learnings, highlights, and even a few missteps into the latest Clarify blog. Whether you're planning your first offsite, looking to level up your team gatherings, or just want some recommendations for things to do in Seattle, we've got you covered. 🌆 Bonus: We're turned the Notion and Google Sheets project docs we used to plan everything into templates you can steal for your next offsite.  You can find the link to the full write up w/ our templates in the comments. 👇

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Rippling founder Parker Conrad has spent the last eight years building Rippling into a $13.5B company. In his second appearance on the podcast, Parker and I discuss key lessons he's learned throughout his career, highlighting the differences in how he ran Zenefits compared to Rippling today. Additionally, Parker shared his candid views on the challenges of having investors as board members and why he believes much of VC "value add" is overrated. → Focus on what you hate fixing Many people advise focusing on what you enjoy and excel at while delegating tasks you dislike. However, Parker believes this approach is completely wrong. He suggests finding what you really hate doing in the company and leaning into it. The things you're avoiding are likely the biggest risks to the business, and they are probably the things only you can fix. → Go broad, not narrow Parker Conrad challenges the conventional wisdom of starting with a small, narrow product and expanding later. Instead, he believes in building a broader product suite from the outset (a compound startup), which better meets customer needs and is more competitive when selling. Although this approach requires more time and a larger team, the few immense advantages of creating comprehensive software outweigh the benefits of narrower, focused products. If done right, broad focus can lead to becoming THE dominant company capable of doing everything in the space. → Learning from failure vs success  You learn a lot by just doing any job, but Parker Conrad believes you learn more from success than failure because companies can fail for many reasons, making it hard to know what went wrong. Success, on the other hand, requires getting many things right, offering clearer insights. There’s more value in working at successful companies, as it adds credibility to your experience, whereas holding a high title at a failed company can actually hurt your reputation. More insights in the full episode: https://lnkd.in/dimqNBFA

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Just read Chargebee's latest guide on crafting a seamless checkout experience—so many great insights! A stat that caught my attention is that 74% of businesses in North America don’t feature security logos on their checkout pages. 🤯 While this might seem like a minor oversight, it can undermine customer trust and lead to revenue loss. Don’t let simple tweaks like adding security logos deter potential customers before they hit 'buy'. For more tips on nailing the perfect checkout experience, check out the full guide here: https://chrge.be/4coie6n

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Last night's Technology Association of Oregon panel discussion on raising capital for AI ventures was full of interesting takeaways. The event brought together leading PNW VCs, CEOs, and funders to share their perspectives and best practices. Here's what you need to know: ➡ The AI/ML space is rapidly evolving, presenting huge opportunities for startups tackling real business problems. VCs are actively seeking out the most ambitious and disruptive companies in this domain. ➡ Having an "unfair advantage" is key - whether that's proprietary data sets, unique domain expertise, or unparalleled access to customers. AI ventures need strong differentiation to stand out. ➡ Build relationships early with VCs, even before you're ready to raise. Their insights and connections can accelerate your journey. The PNW venture ecosystem is highly collaborative and accessible. ➡ Don't be deterred by the perceived lack of local funding. Great companies with compelling visions will get funded, period. Leverage the PNW's strengths in developer/engineering talent. ➡ Recognize and proactively address the potential downsides of AI - from data privacy to model bias. Building responsibly is both an obligation and an opportunity. ➡ Move fast, be bold. Raising capital is always hard, but fortune favors the brave in this space. With the right team, tech and traction, you can build a world-changing business here in the PNW. Thanks to the fantastic panelists Diane Fraiman (Voyager Capital), Geoff Harris (Flying Fish), Jon Maroney (OVF), Chris Sestito (Hidden Layer), Jon Turow (Madrona) for sharing their insights, and to Kristy Edwards for moderating!

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Ascend just released this new interview about why I love investing in Seattle/Pacific Northwest (PNW) startups at Ubiquity Ventures. Ascend is the most active pre-seed investor in the Pacific Northwest (Seattle, Portland, and more) and is run by Kirby Winfield. Thanks to Ascend's Nate Bek for the interview! Check it out the full interview: https://lnkd.in/giU2Wy3V A few snippets of what I said: ⭐️ On investing in Seattle (vs the Bay Area) "Companies like Auth0, Esper, Remitly, and others have demonstrated that they can start, grow, and thrive in Seattle. This is thanks to the continuous growth of hometown giants like Amazon and Microsoft, whose employees might outgrow the cultures at those companies." ⭐️ Why I fell in love with VC "First is about following new trends, nerding out on technologies, and getting inspired by new ideas .. resonates with the nerd engineer and the 5-year-old in me that used to love reading about new technologies ... [Next is] the innards of how companies are run, being in those pivotal meetings and discussions that change the direction of a company. These hard conversations about pivots, understanding metrics, and trying to separate the storytelling around startups from internal operations. That was the meat of building an exciting startup, which is quite different from just nerding out on cool new technologies. " And thank you to all the Pacific Northwest startups I've been privileged to invest in and work with: Eugenio P. and Jon Gelsey at Auth0 by Okta, Yadhu Gopalan at Esper, Fredrik Rydén at Olis Robotics, Claire Watts at ThruWave Inc., Adam Schoenfeld & Aviel Ginzburg at Simply Measured, Milkana Brace at Jargon, Yuriy Bulygin & Alex Bazhaniuk at Eclypsium, Inc. #seattle #seattletech #pacificnorthwest #pnwtech #portland

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Absolutely, yes, yes, yes to everything Alice stated! Content moderation is a crucial aspect of a platform's performance, yet it's often undervalued and treated poorly. It's baffling that these essential teams are the ones outsourced. If content moderators were treated as full-time employees instead of contractors, paid fairly, and given the mental health benefits they deserve, moderation would likely be more accurate and effective. Let's push for fair treatment and equitable pay in the industry! 💪🏽

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I'm not a huge fan of large-scale brand awareness campaigns. Except for a few cases like: 1. If you're spending $1M+ per month on performance-based campaigns 2. If you have a highly specific ICP like a Chief Security Officer, Director of IT, or VP of Engineering, and you want to hammer them with ads on LinkedIn, go ahead. For everyone else… I've seen millions spent on brand awareness campaigns without definitive data to justify it, especially at the majority of the PE-backed B2B companies I've worked with.   It’s a weird phenomenon. Marketing managers always feel like they need to be spending "something" on brand awareness, but when I ask why, the answer's always some version of an unmeasurable benefit: "Our marketing agency says it's getting eyeballs," or "It's improving the performance of our prospecting campaign." Nobody can ever show the data of how it performs. Even when they’re tracking attribution and touchpoints, it's like measuring billboard effectiveness on the 405—you know 300,000 people saw it, but you don’t know if it made any of them take action. In almost every company I've worked with, the money was better spent on conversion-focused campaigns. Here's what that looks like: 1. Direct Response:  Focus on campaigns that drive immediate action - demos, trials, or purchases. Track everything from click to close. 2. Bottom of Funnel:  Target people actively searching for solutions like yours. They're closer to buying and the ROI is measurable. 3. Clear Attribution:  Every dollar spent should tie to specific leads, opportunities, and deals. No more "building awareness" black holes. The key is ruthless pragmatism: If you can't measure it, don't spend on it. Focus on campaigns driving actual leads or purchases. Your CFO and your PE backers will thank you.

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Recently I came across Molly Graham's philosophy called ‘Give Away Your Legos’ and wow I can't recommend it enough. In Facebook's early days Molly was responsible for empowering Facebook as they scaled, staffed and developed their culture from 50 to 1k+ employees. I found it super helpful for navigating the challenges of scaling a team, company and organization. Here are the highlights Simple checklist for founders eyeing rapid growth 1. Make a list of the qualities you want your company to embody. Who do you want to be? How do you want it to feel to work there? 2. Write down what you’re doing in the world. What’s your vision for the change you want to make? 3. Communicate these things again and again and again. Through all the channels. All the time. You can’t over communicate these ideas. 4. Focus on hiring quality people rather than speed. Don’t lower your bar because you need to grow faster. It will come back to bite you. 5. Fire people. Just do it! 6. Hire amazing leaders as early as you can and help them grow their capabilities as the company grows. 7. Prioritize principles over process. 8. Keep giving away your Legos! And tell everyone around you to do the same. It’s going to be okay. https://lnkd.in/gpzEKrqJ https://lnkd.in/gw38G_B8

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I had to chuckle about the comment in today's Fortune Term Sheet from a VC saying platform teams are BS. With Chatham House rules, we don't know the context behind the hot take, but my guess is whomever said it is secretly jealous they can't offer these kinds of services to their investments. Maybe that's why you believe the "most valuable support is often simply having access to the partners." Entrepreneurs, if you're not going to have access to the partners at a firm, don't take the money. Since capital is still relatively accessible, find a VC that is going to give you their time and money. Some of a VC's time may come from a broader team of experts they've hired to help you out. These platform / value-add services are not a replacement for doing the work yourself, but I don't know any entrepreneurs who would turn down the offer of more hands to help out, or guidance from operator who has "been there, done that." Would love to hear from founders and portfolio companies if you think platform services from your VCs are worthless. https://lnkd.in/gepWTQ2m

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Let’s talk GTM for early stage startups. It’s not the code that makes or breaks you—it’s whether people actually know, need, and buy what you’re building. Building a company from the ground up the second time around, you quickly realize that the biggest risk isn’t technical. In the Bay Area, we’re surrounded by some of the best engineers in the world. With the right team, there’s no technical challenge we can’t solve. The hardest part—the one that trips up most seed-stage companies—is establishing the right go-to-market motions before you've even raised a dollar. When should you start talking to potential users and decision-makers? The answer: as early and as often as possible. It’s easy to get tunnel vision when building, iterating, and perfecting the product. But here’s the hard truth: even the most brilliant product is like a rocket without fuel if you don’t have a GTM in place. Your GTM efforts should start the moment your idea hits the whiteboard. Why? Because GTM is more than sales and marketing—it’s about: ◾ Understanding your target customer deeply ◾ Defining a clear and compelling value proposition ◾ Building feedback loops between your market and product One of the most common mistakes—especially for technical founders—is to believe that a great product will simply sell itself. But no matter how impressive the tech, engineering in the closet is a recipe for missed opportunities. Early GTM efforts give you an edge, enabling you to pivot, adjust, and fine-tune your offering before you even hit the market. If you're not working on GTM from day zero, you're already behind the eight ball. #startups #gtmstrategy #founders #productdevelopment #earlystage #entrepreneurship

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This is an interesting article from SaaStr sharing data from ICONIQ Capital about revenue per employee. “These are useful yardsticks for folks scaling: At less than $25m ARR, actually SaaS start-ups aren’t any more efficient than in 2017-2019, at $130,000 per employee / FTE. Although that’s still more efficient than the Boom Times. At $25m-$100m ARR, SaaS scale-ups are about 25% more efficient than they used to be, at $172,000 in revenue per employee / FTE. Time to get real at $25m ARR, apparently 😉 And at $100m+ ARR, they are 20% more efficient then they used to be, at $249,000 in revenue per employee. On the path to the $300k+ we see in public SaaS leaders.” At Worksmith in October, our annualized revenue per employee was $238K. https://lnkd.in/gqkkpjEW

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Are we helping or hurting? That is a question many residents of San Francisco ask ourselves in the midst of a stark and increasing equity gap. As a parent, community member, and incoming board member of the Horizons at San Francisco Friends School, I’m keenly aware of the potential learning loss our public school students in the Mission District experience in the summer months without our support. Our city is undergoing another crisis - looming budget cuts threaten vital programs like Horizons at SFFS that provide equitable learning for Mission youth. We urgently need your support to secure bridge funding and ensure our summer enrichment continues. Our scholars and families are relying on Horizons' high-quality academics and social-emotional growth.  Horizons has been successfully leveraging the months when students are out of school to stem summer learning loss for children in San Francisco for ~10 years. The program has also intentionally increased impact by supporting their scholars through their educational journey during the school year and into High School. Last year, Horizons impacted 150+ scholars with targeted small classroom instruction, confidence-building, and joyful community enrichment experiences- thanks to our dedicated summer education workforce. But we can't continue without you. Please join me in supporting Horizons at SFFS today to expand partnerships, engage more crisis-impacted families, and grow our supportive community stronger. In past years, the SF Department of Children, Youth and Families has been a partner to increase access to education for our students. This summer, as we face a potential 40% loss to our summer program due to DCYF funding cuts that have impacted so many vital programs in our city, we’ve decided to celebrate Horizons Giving Day, the whole month of May. Please join me in our movement - your gift saves the summer for San Francisco scholars and helps bridge the educational equity gap in our city. Let’s help together. In gratitude, friendship and community, Aneesha #GiveTheGiftofSummer #SparkPassions #HorizonsGivingDay https://lnkd.in/gJAYnibC Links for reference: Horizons at SFFS: https://lnkd.in/gfsdugDX Impact Report: https://lnkd.in/gZc2jn85 Press Release on DCYF Loss of Funding: https://lnkd.in/gNprpSyB

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Triangle startup ecosystem - first thanks for the incredible generosity that you showed over the last 2wks to help folks impacted by Helene. Here's a last update on our Hurricane Helene relief efforts with a final 'how can you help' ask. The TL;DR - our nascent effort has matured and morphed into the WCEN. The most urgent need has moved from supplies to funding the teams out on the ground that need specialty items like gas, oxygen tanks, starlinks, etc. There's a gofundme, this is a certified 501(c)(3) here-> https://lnkd.in/e4NdxuW8 What is the WCEN you ask?!.... o There were several operating groups that were able to grassroots consolidate efforts under the Western Carolina Emergency Network (WCEN) umbrella and they have a website up that is improving every day: https://lnkd.in/ePYP6_JJ o WCEN's goal is to provide services to survivors until temporary infrastructure can be re-built. There are over 1m people in Western NC without shelter and basic necessities. o WCEN is providing: -> Reconnaissance -> Search + Rescue ( + Recovery) -> Rapid Supply Response / Air Support -> Medical Care o WCEN has these network partners: -> Operation Airdrop Inc- Air support including planes and helicopters -> Carolina Calvary - Coordinator for Operation Airdrop -> Razor Nation - ATV support -> Restoration Church @restoration church - Josh Brown and Ryan Honeycutt- supply collection sites and delivery -> Apex Defense - Search and Rescue, Security -> Lincoln County Airport - Pilot coordinator -> AJ - Heavy Lift Drone support -> GSDF team - C&C logistics, Special Forces team coordinator -> Reagan Madison Inc. team- Back office, infrastructure, and fundraising,FOB coordination (Crystal Suazo, CPA - who looped this together and we connected with here on LI!) -> WRTE, Inc - Legal, tax, fiduciary support -> Christina Marie Noel - Christina Noel + volunteers - Strategic marketing & communications -> United National Weather Team - Medical support with ATV abilities if anyone, especially corps would like to donate $, volunteers, trucks, etc. please contact William McGuire (on the ground items), Rebecca Ross / Jess Porta (Triangle-based corp donations/logistics). We're getting the last truck of items at Raleigh Founded out and future donations should be made at: Electric Supply Co 207 Bickett Blvd Raleigh NC, 27608 Want more ideas on how to have an impact? https://lnkd.in/euNxS8kd Thanks again everyone!

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Building a great culture is hard. When we first started scaling our team, we made a lot of mistakes. Over the course of several years, we put processes in place to improve our hit rate, increase our talent density, and retain great people for much longer than the average startup. There are three pillars that I believe make it work: 1. Hiring process 2. Performance reviews 3. Compensation I thought I'd share the approach that works for us in case it's helpful for other teams...

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“So we try to work with founders and CMOs to get them to come through that process with us, and I think what we find then is once they know the process, the process is great, the process is cool, but we will then suggest some pretty differentiated and unique stories that they could be telling, and that’s when the rubber hits the road. Are they comfortable being this ambitious? Are they comfortable stretching to having a strong opinion on this or that, or do they kinda want to just play it safe and get all the goodwill from branding without doing some of the hard work of taking a stand? That’s where it gets dicey.” Quote of the Day with Shannon Deep and Kevan Lee in conversation with Leah Tharin about brand marketing. Some of the best brand marketing experiences I’ve had was doing rapid press response, in which a journalist would reach out writing a breaking story and I would provide a paragraph quote for them to cite. Whenever I took a definite stand on an issue - not veering into controversy for controversy's sake - it would always be published in the article and we would see the benefit. I find a lot of material on LinkedIn to be bland and samey and safe, and frankly that bores me. Even though I too have the pull to ‘play it safe’ at times, if I have a strong opinion, that may even run counter to the prevailing opinion, I try to be true to myself. There was a question asked the other day: Can you build a successful personal brand, if you have no personality? I don’t think so. I’m an introvert, so it’s not about having a gregarious extravert personality, but it’s definitely about having an opinion, calling it as you see it, even if you’re wrong. I’m certainly more engaged with brands that have opinions. But I find most to be bland and filled with safe corporate speak. What’s your opinion?

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Are Return-To-Office Mandates Really Just Mass Layoffs In Disguise? -- Amazon's Recent RTO Mandate Is Not Going Over Well. Or Is It? https://lnkd.in/eJTxUPKr #startup #technology #work #rto

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I’ve been reflecting on the differences between SaaS startups and Climate startups as I have been frequently asked "What stage/type of company are you looking for?" My initial, naive response was based on my SaaS experience "oh an early stage company with seed funding or more". The reality of how this translates in to the carbon removal space is actually quite different. Some of these are discussed below. ⏱️ Time to Market & Scaling SaaS startups can rapidly develop and launch products, iterate based on customer feedback, and scale globally with relatively low marginal costs. CDR startups face longer timelines to develop and commercialise their technologies. The initial concept often comes from a scientific research paper and to demonstrate that it will work at large scale requires overcoming many physical and logistical challenges, whether that’s building facilities, waiting from agricultural cycles or proving that the predicted outcome is actually realised in the physical environment (e.g. MRV). The Technical Readiness Levels (see below) are frequently used to highlight where different technologies are in their development maturity. 📈 Business Model & Revenue Generation SaaS startups typically rely on subscription based revenue for model for a tangible software product. Revenue is often predictable and grows rapidly with customer acquisition. CDR startups are still working out the best business models with part of the challenge being that there isn’t always a tangible product at the end of the process - CO2 locked away in the ocean or in rocks is hard to see! The primary revenue source is likely to be carbon removal credits but these can only be generated at a certain stage of maturity so grants or pre-purchase agreements are necessary to help bridge this gap. This is still a nascent market with some reputational challenges. Some technologies, like BioChar, may have also have a utilisation revenue stream but that in turn could compromise the permanence of the carbon removal. Partnership also play a key role here but that requires more of a discussion. 💰Funding & Investment The promise of rapid growth, good unit economics and high returns make SaaS startups attractive to investors. For CDR startups, Investors will likely see a lot of risk until a company has reached a certain level of technical feasibility and commercial viability. However, getting to that stage likely requires some substantial capital. A slowly evolving regulatory landscape creates additional uncertainty. The funding journey for these companies is going to be a mix of grants, early buyers (e.g. Stripe, Microsoft, etc.) and will be a bit chicken and egg. So the answer to the question “What type of company are you looking for?” Is “It depends!” But I can say that it’s one that is having a direct impact on carbon removal and is dedicated to protecting and enhancing the physical world. That’s a start 🙏

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