🚀Jim Liu

Very energized by the customer workflows I’m seeing incorporating Zapier core, Tables by Zapier, Interfaces by Zapier and Central by Zapier! Whole applications and ecosystems are being built and they are all powered by Zapier! If you haven’t heard of the solutions above, you’re not late but folks are certainly bush whacking no code and it’s just a whole new category of automation! #zapier #builders #automation #saas #central #tables #interfaces #chatbot #zapconnect #automationforeveryone

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Source: GeekWire From the article: "LinkedIn released its annual list of Top 50 startups, and three Seattle-area companies made it: Chainguard, Truveta, and Statsig." Additional articles are included in the first few comments of this post.  #Seattle #Technology #News #Chainguard #Truveta #Statsig

Sometimes the best product features don’t come from a roadmap. They come from observing how users are already interacting with your platform. This week, I spoke with Sean (Solme) Kim, former Head of Product at TikTok and Amazon, he shared how the Stitch feature came to life. Instead of following the original roadmap, the team noticed users were stitching videos together using third-party tools and re-uploading them. Sean’s team recognized the friction in this behavior and turned it into a seamless, integrated feature within TikTok. What’s even more fascinating is how Stitch evolved. While originally intended for video reactions, users started using it in unexpected ways, like asking questions and creating interactive content that opened up a whole new genre. Listen now for more insights👇 🎧 Apple: https://lnkd.in/eyXPftpt 🎙️ Spotify: https://lnkd.in/ex4dMBm3 How do you observe user behavior to drive product innovation? Let’s talk in the comments! ________________________ Did you enjoy this episode? Don’t miss out on future insights—subscribe to the Product Thinking podcast newsletter! 🔔 Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/ewU7KFwu #productthinking #productmanagement #innovation #tiktokstitch #userbehavior #productleadership

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Ever wondered where the perfect balance between tranquility and innovation lies? For me, it’s Seattle. Unlike the Bay, Seattle has a more serene environment that’s perfect for focusing on building products and businesses. The city’s vibe encourages deep work and creative thinking, free from the overwhelming hustle. But let’s be honest, Seattle’s founder and investor communities aren’t as vibrant as those in SF. Yet, this city holds a special place in my heart – a blend of my love for startups and the charm of Seattle. I believe in Seattle’s potential and I’m on a mission to help ignite its startup community. From connecting with fellow founders to engaging investors, let’s come together to build something extraordinary here. Seattle has all the ingredients to be a startup hub – talent, innovation, and a supportive ecosystem. What it needs is a spark. Let’s be that spark.

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【Tech Events in SF Bay Area from 9/21 to 10/5】 I have summarized the 101 Tech Events in SF from 9/21 to 10/5 in a Air Table, and I will share it with you. If you have any other exciting tech events to recommend, please feel free to share them on the comment:) Event list👇️(There are tabs for AI events,VC and Investor events and Hackathon) https://lnkd.in/eEXMxCMU - 53 Ai Event - 8 VCs & investors Event - 8 Hackathon Event I would greatly appreciate it if you could share or like this with others in the SF community. 【Kyosuke's Newsletter】 https://lnkd.in/e5X896ZG It's a weekly newsletter where I provide updates on tech events happening in the SF Bay Area. Additionally, you can expect to receive complimentary tickets to conferences, recommendations for must-attend events, and exclusive invitations to SF's premier gatherings. 🗓️Our Upcoming Events: SF & LA SF. 10/7 5:00pm 『MELT』Founders x Investors Dynamic Network Event 💎VIP Sponsored by Stacks, Inc As of now, we’ve received 290 registrations, including: ​60 VC and Angel Investors ​200+ Founders/CEOs ​・2 Series C,D companies ・3 Series B Companies ​・8 Series A companies ・13 Pre-Series A companies ​・77 Seed companies ​・96 Pre-Seed companies ​・28 Bootstrap companies ​・6 Executives Details https://lu.ma/7zypq83u #Sanfrancisco #SF #Bayarea #Techevent #YCombinator #Stanford #founders #VC #Investors #Networking

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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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Looking for a Product Leadership role? Explore these top opportunities to drive innovation, lead teams, and shape strategy at these companies: 1. SVP, Product Management – MasterControl, Salt Lake City, UT (Remote) Lead product strategy and development for MasterControl's quality and compliance software portfolio while managing the product management team. MasterControl provides cloud-based quality and compliance software to over 1,000 companies in life sciences and regulated industries. 2. Group Product Manager - Microsoft Security Service Edge – Microsoft, San Francisco, CA (Remote) Lead Microsoft's Security Service Edge (SSE) offering, driving product strategy and development for Microsoft Entra Internet Access and Private Access solutions. Microsoft is a global technology leader with 228,000 employees across 190 countries, focused on empowering every person and organization to achieve more through technology. 3. VP of Product Management – Benevity, Seattle, WA Lead product strategy and development for Benevity's Finance Platform, managing a product team while driving vision, roadmap execution, and platform operations. Benevity is a B Corporation that provides social impact technology to Fortune 100 companies, enabling corporate giving, volunteering, and other social action initiatives. 4. VP of Product – Banyan Software, Chicago, IL Serve as a key executive leader at SoftSmiths (a Banyan Software portfolio company) responsible for driving product strategy, innovation, and execution in the energy sector, initially working independently with potential to build a product team. Reports to the CEO of SoftSmiths, working closely with VP Technology. Banyan Software is one of fastest-growing private software companies in the US that acquires and grows enterprise software businesses with dominant positions in niche vertical markets, operating with a permanent "buy and hold for life" strategy. 5. Director of Product Management – Mark43, New York, NY (Remote) Lead the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) product line and Mobile applications, managing a team of 2-3 Product Managers while driving product strategy and development. Mark43 is a technology company that develops cloud-native software solutions for law enforcement and public safety agencies to improve community safety and quality of life. 6. Head of Product – 0x, San Francisco, CA (Remote) Lead Product team overseeing consumer and developer platforms while driving product strategy and fostering team growth. Reports directly to the CEO. 0x is a Web3 company providing developer APIs for token access and liquidity, having processed over $130B in trading volume through major platforms like Coinbase and MetaMask. Want more Product Leadership roles? Access the weekly updated database: https://lnkd.in/gq9qY6s4

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🚀 PushOwl Pods Episode 7: While Shopify reported an impressive $11.5 billion this BFCM, Arvind, CEO of Swym, believes there’s still room to push that number even higher.... Here's how 👇 In this episode, I’m thrilled to host Arvind Krishnan, an e-commerce veteran whose platform empowers 35,000+ retailers to deliver seamless cross-channel shopping experiences. Together, we discuss 3 actionable strategies for brands to capture the intent of "last-minute" shoppers and turn it into real revenue: 👉 Capturing the right signals to inform decisions 👉 Sending timely, contextual alerts 👉 Leveraging innovative campaigns like direct mail (shoutout to our friends at PostPilot!) If you're looking to extend your BFCM momentum and drive better results, this one's for you. Tune in for actionable insights, share your thoughts in the comments, and follow PushOwl Pods for more expert tips! 🎙️ #PushOwl | #Shopify | #BFCM2024 | #Swym | #Wishlist | #PushOwlPods

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SF has its mojo back! 🌉 Just spent the past week meeting with VCs, fellow founders, and mentors in the Bay Area - and wow, the new energy in the city is incredible. During my BCG days, I did a lot of work in SF and used to dread flying there shortly post-covid. The whole city felt dystopian - unhoused crisis downtown, everyone talking about moving to Texas or wherever they were moving, big tech layoffs, etc. But oh man, what a difference a year makes! The WeWorks are buzzing with future Steve Jobs who are cruising around the city in Waymos 🚙 I think it's fair to say the driving force behind SF's renaissance is GenAI. There will definitely be some kind of reckoning after the AI bubble bursts (no doubt about that), but the lasting impact of this revolutionary tech will create a new wave of innovations that the city (and the world) will ride for many years to come. There are not many paradigm-shifting technologies, but I have a sense that this is one of them. Just look at how much it has reinvigorated the world's cradle of technology. What an incredible time to be alive and to be building! 🚀 #SanFrancisco #GenAI #StartupLyfe

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Real talk on App Store revenue... I love helping apps go from zero to one, but too many devs focus on going from zero to 100 and skipping everything in between. According to RevenueCat, only 17% of apps reach $1k monthly revenue, but of those that do, 59% of them reach $2.5k, and then 60% of those reach $5k. So... In the early days of your app focus on getting around 30 downloads a day and converting those downloads into PAYING users. Our latest video (in the first comment), breaks down the entire funnel and what you should be focused on during the early days.

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This is what it might look like if Typeform integrated collaborative commenting features from the Velt (YC) SDK. The best part is that any product can increase its engagement by easily adding collaborative commenting like this!

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How to fix California? Subject of today's Daily Dipup. Cali's had it's ups (goldrush, SV, YC) and downs (quake, fires), but now we are way down. The only way to lift Cali back up is shrinking govt like @elonmusk is doing at #DOGE and supercharging innovation by founders & startups. If you live in Cali and want to lift it up again, comment below on what you think we need to do.

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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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53% of consumers are willing to pay more for AI that delivers higher quality results and outputs. This speaks volumes about where the market is heading—and directly informs our investment strategy at OpenSky Ventures. But quality isn't the only factor at play. Speed and personalization also appear prominently in consumer preferences: ➝ 29% would pay more for faster AI ➝ 27% value AI that's personal to them These numbers reveal an important point: AI users have varied priorities. The most effective tools will perform well in multiple areas. In the AI space, there's no one-size-fits-all solution. At OpenSky, we look beyond single features. We assess the complete range of AI capabilities, focusing on tools that deliver high-quality results. This approach led us to invest in companies like Reactiv and Siena AI. Why emphasize quality and results? It's simple, that's where the market is heading. When over half of consumers are willing to open their wallets for better results, that indicates a shift towards valuing performance over empty promises. Reactiv and Siena AI fit this model. They're developing AI solutions that don't just work quickly or offer basic customization, they elevate output quality across various commerce applications. We're excited to see companies changing the face of commerce with AI in ways that benefit businesses and consumers. Are you seeing similar trends in willingness to pay for quality? 

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Vertical LLM Agents with vertical specific business context are the new $1B SaaS opportunity. This is why our laser focus on the $1.3T Insurance industry - built on the foundation of the team’s decades of experience in this industry, with a deep understanding of the nuances of the insurance industry, the technology systems that power this industry, trust from the real humans that work in it, the business processes that create real LAE, Opex and ultimately Combined Ratio impact - allows us to reach real scale with AI Agents and gives me conviction in our purpose.

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Google is officially a monopoly -- and hopefully will be broken up. Why? Because this is great news for future startups. In the category of "advertising", Google pretty much sucked the oxygen out of the room for the last 15 years -- I cannot think of a single innovative ad startup that could survive building in a Google world. Over the last decade, I would often contemplate doing another ad company -- given my domain expertise in advertising. I would then go on to (virtually) slap myself out of the idea and drive that thought out of my mind. Why? GOOGLE!!! Google owns literally each and every part of the ad ecosystem. The best analogy for this would be Vanderbilt owning all the railroads a century ago. And if they can't compete with you on ads, they can kill you with their other assets (Search, Adwords, Adsense, Youtube, Android, etc) Today is a great day for America and the world (Disclaimer: If this judgement reaches its conclusion!) 

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Breaking News: Wiz Backs Out of $23 Billion Acquisition Offer from Google! In a surprising move, Wiz has rejected a $23 billion acquisition offer from Alphabet, Google's parent company. The offer was nearly double Wiz's previous valuation of $12 billion from a funding round in May 2024. So, what drove this decision? Wiz's management and investors are committed to maintaining independence, and concerns about antitrust issues and investor apprehensions also played a significant role. But what does this mean for Wiz's future? The company is positioning itself as a major player in the cybersecurity market, with an impressive growth metrics and market presence. Wiz's annual recurring revenue has surpassed $500 million, up from $350 million in 2023, and it protects over five million cloud workloads, serving about 40% of Fortune 100 companies. With plans to enhance corporate governance, including forming a structured board of directors and appointing a CFO, Wiz is poised for greatness. The company aims to reach $1 billion in annual recurring revenue before pursuing an IPO, a testament to its commitment to growth and innovation. This bold move raises questions about the future of cybersecurity and the role of Wiz in it. Will Wiz's independence allow it to be more agile and innovative, or will it struggle to compete with larger players? Share your thoughts in the comments below! What do you think this means for the industry, and how do you see Wiz's decision impacting the market?

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