James Layfield

Highlighting: "The market for a bespoke solution like Holoride may be narrower than its founders once hoped." "No shit, Sherlock." This was a niche of a niche of a niche that I honestly never understood. Imagine starting with the people who are VR enthusiasts, and then reducing by the people who want VR in cars, and then the people who have recent year Audis, and then people in Germany (the USA was added later), and then the people who will buy a $700 semi-enterprise package that comes with access to only a dozen games, but also a $20 a month subscription. This is like 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1%. The shocking thing is not that they ran out of funding. The shocking thing is that they EVER got any funding. Oh and keep in mind, all that fun stuff about VR being 6DoF, roomscale, body movements, arm movements, hand tracking? All gone. This is semi-3DOF locked in your seat holding a console style knock off bluetooth controller. The VR headset? HTC Vive Flow. The gamepad? 8BitDo Pro 2 Gamepad. The cars supported? Only the Audi A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, Q5, Q7, Q7, Q8, Audi e-tron, Audi e-tron Sportback, Audi e-tron GT* Nothing else. No other makes and models. Just a few Audis. Who does this?! Seriously? Its like developing a PC Game that can only be played by people in Madison, Wisconsin running Mac Pro towers built between 2009-2015, and they can play that game on Wednesday on odd dates of the month. Who does this?! This isn't a business. It's a boutique artisanal popup shop selling handcrafted farts to people who can't smell. It's just confusing. ----- UploadVR: "Holoride Insolvent As Investment Falls Through: 'Pioneering Is Painful'" (IAN HAMILTON) (10 MAY 2024) Holoride's founders say they've filed "for insolvency" after an investment round fell apart. The startup built a platform to present VR headset as in-car entertainment with demos offered at trade shows like CES showing off the concept and a partnership with Audi to sell it to for use in cars in Germany. Holoride CEO and co-founder Nils Wollny acknowledged making mistakes in a post on LinkedIn, that “pioneering is painful” and they "missed our first shot." Responding to questions from UploadVR, Wollny explained over direct message that some employees had been laid off “in February this year based on a new strategic direction. Our team's right-sizing was also based on terms we had agreed on with our planned lead investor.” “While our business operations continue, we are working with the provisional insolvency administrator to find a solution by the end of June to ensure the continued existence of holoride GmbH and conclude our strategic repositioning, which we have intensively worked on.” UploadVR: https://lnkd.in/g32pFPrA #vr #xr #holoride #puzzling

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It's a bit of a cliche but I think a core belief I've come to adopt is this: unless you really actually enjoy doing something, you won't want to do it long enough for results to start showing up.   Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham has a great essay about how it's common to "want to want something" but difficult to actually change what you actually want.   His advice in the essay is therefore to align your life with things that you actually want to do.   Simple, but not always easy.   How have you navigated this conversation of finding where your work meets your natural inclinations? Always curious to hear how others are solving this for themselves!

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I've had so many questions from other founders about our crowdfunding campaign that I've teamed up with the amazing AccelerateHER to offer a free webinar for founders. Our Seedrs campaign was actually the second one I've been a part of, after also working on the FreeAgent crowdfunding campaign back in the day. Between the two, I've learned loads about this type of fundraising that I'm so keen to share! This webinar will be especially focused on a founders viewpoint, including: * Is crowdfunding right for your business? * Legal considerations * Top tips and things to look out for * Pitfalls and what not to do Sign up below to join us and let me know in the comments if there's anything in particular you'd like me to cover!

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Mental health founders and operators ‼️ I'd love your help. What has 2024 has been like for you? What challenges have you faced and what are you excited for next year? Want to help, just complete this survey for The Hemingway Report > https://lnkd.in/g87wRGXm Insights will be shared in an upcoming report :) #MentalHealth #BehavioralHealth

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🗞️ I caught up with Hayden Evans recently at Beam it Recruitment to talk about: ▶ how I started with programming and my career so far ▶ the current landscape of Elixir learning materials ▶ the pros and cons of a language like Elixir ▶ why I started PureType and how it fits into a new world of software development 🔗 Link to the article is in the post below

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A founder's perspective on Founder Mode: It's about craftsmanship and soul Last week Brian Chesky and Paul Graham ignited the tech startup world with a discussion around "founder mode", which Paul summarizes in this post - https://lnkd.in/gC7swj59 This comparison of founder mode vs. manager mode and stream of bad advice around it really resonates with me as a multi-time founder. I find there are two areas in particular that get systematically eliminated in the process of moving from product-market fit to "building the machine" and scaling up an organization. 🔮 🛠 Craftsmanship: Early days require a lot of craftsmanship - as if you're designing and building custom homes for a small set of early customers. You need to inspire them with your vision, co-create with them, and make constant decisions about how to iterate, where to influence, and how to listen - all shaped with a view to repeatable and scalable patterns you can leverage to scale. This requires a lot of top-down intuition and hands-on crafting to get right - it also benefits from strong and fast decision making from the founder(s). As companies grow, this founder craftsmanship is easy to see as an enemy of scale that needs to be removed in favour of proven process. While it is true that this is not easy to scale, it is possible and worth it to figure out. I saw Zuck do this at Facebook as we scaled, shaping high impact initiatives and role modelling his craftsmanship to high potential people in his "Zuck reviews" for important new products and key initiatives. Combine this with a clear set of values and entrepreneurial people and you can keep the founder's touch on key initiatives without giving in to manager mode. 💙 🙏 Soul: A founder-led business can be felt much easier than it can be described. There is a passion, a set of values, a purpose that gives the company indescribable depth when done right - that feels magical and gives the company soul. This is the part of founder mode that enables people in the company to embody the same values, act with the same standards, and channel the inner purpose and passion of the founder. It attracts people that are entrepreneurial and secure in their abilities. People who see a founder's touch as a secret ingredient to add, not a box to be checked or worse to be avoided. My former Meta (at that time Facebook) colleague Fidji Simo wrote a great perspective on founder mode for non-founders in the information today, which I also see as possible. Founder mentality is a mindset and combined with an ability to imprint a sense of craft and soul into a company. I think founder-led companies like Meta and Shopify have shown a pattern to study and replicate in scaling startups, they have also produced a talent pool to mine for leaders that can operate in founder mode as the company scales. What do you think? Curious to hear your thoughts on founder mode... it's been a fun one to think about over the weekend. 🤔 #foundermode #founders #yc

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Movac KiwiNet Deep Tech is difficult because you do not comprehend 95% of the universe using the Standard Model of Particle physics. Either learn that measurement is flawed due to human bias or experience and unbiased state through transcendence experiences corresponding to Christ consciousness. The physics of life is based on LENR and not the Standard Model of Particle physics. Unfortunately, scientific research has been captured by the materialism perspective. This is mutually exclusive to the light observed in consciousness. Physics of life. Deep Tech https://lnkd.in/gKqC3PAR Gateway into the aromatic ring Faraday cage system. Time to see the light 😁.

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Who will be the next supply chain consolidator? From 2011 to 2021, XPO scaled up from $70M to $20B, fueled by a combination of organic growth and 18 acquisitions. The model was extremely successful. But the supply chain ecosystem remains extremely fragmented. There is plenty of room for new consolidators to emerge as winners. In the food supply chain software arena, one emerging acquiror is GrubMarket Inc. They have built a network model to help food suppliers automate their relationships with their customers. GrubMarket has acquired over 100 companies to date. They are expecting to exceed $2B in annualized revenue. And they just announced their latest purchase: Butter 🧈, a SaaS platform to automate food distribution. Kudos to Mike Xu, Winston C., and all involved! #logistics #supplychain #consolidation https://lnkd.in/emY4wpsy

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AR ❤️ AI... What happens when you invite OpenAI ChatGPT 4o to be a guest on your podcast? Well our CTO Jason Baldwin did just that on a recent episode of Darabase Meets... Using its new feature to let ChatGPT "see" some of Darabase's tech and case studies, it made for an interesting "conversation". There's a snippet below - to see the full episode, click here - https://lnkd.in/gpA-ctGg #AR #AI #Podcast

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Good to see an #IPO in the DX space with Tempus AI. With 11M shares at $37 per share at #top 🚀 end of the expected range, raising $410M at a valuation of $6B Founded in 2015, Tempus is creating an intelligent diagnostics platform for precision medicine ⚕. #Positive #news Looking forward what's come. #AI #healthcare #data #digitalization #DX https://lnkd.in/dJiKrrPC

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I get to speak to some incredible digital health innovators, here are some traits I have noticed the best teams have in common: 🗣️ They build a bilingual team that speaks tech and healthcare 🎯 They focus on fixing one problem well instead of building a platform that tries to do everything ❤️ They prioritise outcomes over technology 🤖 They own their tech and understand its unique value intricately ⏳ They have a sense of urgency 🐋 They focus their time selling into the whales of healthcare 💰 They manage financial health closely rather than pushing for growth at all costs 📊 They obsess with clinical outcome metrics 🏗️ They build for the long-term 🚀 They have a mission that is bigger than the product they are building Is there anything else you would add to this list?

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Episode 340 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Steph Johnson, Co-Founder & CEO at Multiplayer. Steph is an inspiration. As discussed in this interview, her background might not be the prototypical tech CEO profile for a few reasons. First, she came up through the agency world and then ran comms in-house for major tech companies like DigitalOcean and MongoDB. Second, she is a female founder of a dev tools platform startup and yes, we need more female founders. And third, she has a neurological condition called Tourette Syndrome. All of these factors have ultimately given her unique skills to thrive in her current role. Multiplayer is a visual collaborative platform that makes it easy for engineering teams to design, develop, and manage distributed software. The company is backed by Bowery Capital, Okapi Venture Capital, Armory Square Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Mitch Wainer, & Edith Harbaugh. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Steph’s background story and how she got her career started with agencies in NYC. * Her decision to move in-house to run comms at DigitalOcean and MongoDB, plus what she learned at each company like the importance of a developer community. * Advice for making the shift from agency to in-house roles. * Founding Multiplayer with Tom Johnson, her Co-Founder, CTO, and husband… and why being married was a strategic advantage when they raised capital. * The details on the Mutliplayer platform and its beta release. * Advice on the storytelling element for a company building technical products. * And so much more. #entrepreneurship #startups #devtools #venturecapital

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Most software buyers rely on analyst reports or word of mouth to discover tools for their business. But is that enough? On Episode 462 of The Full Ratchet, I sat down with Godard Abel, Co-Founder and CEO of G2, to dive into how they're changing the game for software discovery with trusted peer reviews. Godard shares the journey from starting G2 as ‘Yelp for software’ to building a $100M ARR marketplace. We unpack his insights on building companies, the transformative impact of AI, and what it takes to persevere through early failures to reach big wins. If you're an entrepreneur, operator, or investor, you won't want to miss this one. The link to Episode 462 is in the comment section below.

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Capital efficient growth is all the rage these days But what does that actually mean? -- ♻️ Repost to help a founder in your network Click 'visit my website' at the top of this post to register for my Seed to Series A session

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How do you build and scale a startup in one of the most competitive industries? In episode 487 of Driven to Win, I sit down with Richard White, CEO and founder of Fathom AI—the #1 top-rated AI note-taking tool on the market. 🥇 We explored how launching during COVID-19 gave his startup a unique edge, the importance of timing, and the strategies that helped Fathom stand out in the crowded AI space. If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur looking for a push in the right direction, this episode is for you! 🎧 Tune in: https://lnkd.in/d46MtKrA #driventowin #entrepreneurship #gatheringthekings #businesspodcast #businesstips #chazwolfe #fathomai #ai #aitools #startup #growth #richardwhite 

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Industry experts call for tailored AI rules in post-election UK

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Exposing harsh truths with data, not opinions. Practical, actionable steps for founders to thrive in their next funding round. The time is good to go fundraising - I'll show why and how. If you're at Bits & Pretzels, come have a chat!

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Want to know what an “all-in” founder mentality looks like? I’m sure my co-founder, Michael Keenehan, won’t be too happy when he sees I shared this publicly, but I couldn't resist. In our founder chat yesterday, he offered to forgo part of his own paycheck to reward one of our employees who is crushing it with a bonus. Let me tell you, this fierce level of conviction and commitment from him reminds me why we started Platter together with Kieran Derfus two years ago. Finding partners who will live in the trenches and work long hours with minimal financial stability alongside you is difficult. Business building is f*** hard. You might as well do it with high performers who you enjoy being around. Hey Mike - when you read this, know Kieran and I appreciate your level of commitment to the business. The bonus was granted (from the company, we let Mike keep his paycheck) and now it’s time to go back to work 🚀 PS: we're #hiring right now

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Should board meetings be in person or virtual? As someone who attends (and has attended) countless board meetings, I encounter this question more often than most. In a recent webinar for recruitment & tech founders in my network, we discussed why I advocate for remote meetings. Benefits included: ✅ Streamlined processes ✅ Saves everyone travel time ✅ Access to all reaches of the globe Today’s tech means remote meetings can be just as good, if not better, than face-to-face ones. Allowing us to collaborate seamlessly no matter where, or how busy, we are. From my experience, creating this level of efficiency for your board is the ultimate goal to ensure the best people and outcomes. Keen to hear your thoughts, which do you prefer? #NED #BoardAdvisor

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