Katy Amaya

Check out three M13 portfolio companies currently hiring - Bento (gobento.com) & Lifeforce are making strides in the future of health, while the team at Rho is building the future of fintech. Scroll through to learn more about each and how you can fuel their missions 🚀 #hiring #brightertogether #m13 #bento #lifeforce

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Excited to host a 30-minute panel at Andreessen Horowitz Tech Week in SF on Wednesday, October 9. If you're a founder or sales leader at a high-growth startup who predominantly sells into the enterprise, you won't want to miss this discussion. Our expert panelists will share invaluable insights on: - Breaking through to key decision-makers - Structuring an efficient sales process - Proven techniques for closing high-value deals

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Our story began with a simple idea: to help developers grow. Over the years, this idea evolved into something bigger. We believe location shouldn't be a barrier. Back in 2014, we built Codementor to give developers 1:1 mentorship. We moved from Taiwan to Seattle to join Techstars and bring our vision to life. This was just the beginning. Here's what happened next: → 2017: Codementor grew into a marketplace for freelance developers. → 2019: We created Arc to help developers land full-time remote jobs. → 2023: We introduced HireAI to make hiring developers easier. → 2024: We added designers and marketers to Arc by popular demand. Helping people build careers from anywhere drives us. From a small mentorship platform for developers to a big marketplace now supporting other tech roles, our journey shows what can happen when you care deeply about something. Changing people's lives. We're excited to keep going and see what's next.

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"When Stacklet’s founders, Travis Stanfield and Kapil Thangavelu, came out of Capital One in 2020 to launch their startup, most companies weren’t all that concerned with constraining cloud costs. But in the ensuing years, as they experienced economic headwinds, first from the pandemic, and then rising interest rates, it became an imperative." Read more in this TechCrunch article https://lnkd.in/ezPiwati #CloudGovernance #FinOps #Cloud

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Inspired by what we’re building at Build Momentum. We realized tech recruiting is broken—non-technical recruiters struggle to find and attract the best talent. That’s why we’ve flipped the script and developed a community-based recruiting approach: a trusted network of elite engineers, embedded within Latam’s top tech communities. The best engineers know the best engineers, and we tap into these deep, authentic connections to deliver top talent faster and with better fit. Want to see how we’re doing it differently? Check out our post

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I recently listened to Zach Perret, founder of Plaid, on the 20VC podcast discussing his evolution in recruiting. His mindset shift resonated with me. Here are three key takeaways: ▶ Be yourself and do it. Cold emails and genuine curiosity unlock unrecruitable people. People love to talk about things they're passionate about. ▶ Embrace the hunt. The best founders love to compete for talent. They understand the value each person can bring and don't like losing. This skill will also translate into founder-led sales. ▶ Hire for "Spike". This is essential when building an early team. I often think of it as the shape of a "T"—someone with deep expertise in one area but is open and curious to learn and contribute in other areas outside their core strength.

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Paraform just raised $3.6M to help startups connect with independent recruiters—a smart pivot after the 2022-2023 tech layoffs. With 100,000+ recruiters laid off and going independent, Paraform’s platform offers startups access to this valuable network. So far, they've helped over 200 companies hire and grow their revenue 10x since their pre-seed round! The subscription Key takeaways: Subscription + success fee model ensures commitment from startups. Paraform works with in-house talent teams for flexible, on-demand recruiting. Expanding globally and branching into new industries like defense and manufacturing. PS: Will the future of recruiting be all about networks? #startups #recruiting #AI

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Want a front-row seat to the frontier of tech? We’ve got the role (or two) for you! We’re expanding our frontier-tech team at Blackbird by hiring a Frontier Tech Investments Associate and Foundry Fellows! Got questions? We've got answers... 1️⃣ What are the roles? 🧪 Associate = a full-time VC investment gig in our Blackbird Investments team, working directly with me. We’re looking for someone with a science and/or engineering background and more curiosity than they can handle. You’ll grow your own investment brand and practice, support our portfolio founders, and will help build Foundry, our early-stage frontier-tech accelerator. ✨ Foundry Fellow = a casual/contract gig in our Blackbird Investments team, ~15h per week for 3 months. The Fellowship is ideal for PhD students and ECRs who want to learn more about startups and VC. You’ll go deep on emerging areas relevant to your expertise (or curiosity!), get a front-row seat to groundbreaking companies in those areas, build out your non-academic network, and develop a solid writing practice. 2️⃣ Why are you hiring? We love frontier tech, and we’re ready to grow our team. 3️⃣ Wow, it’s so great that you’re starting to look at deep tech! Look, we get it: we don’t make a lot of noise about our frontier tech investing. Buuuut we’ve been deep-tech investors since we backed Tim Kentley-Klay to found Zoox back in 2014—we’ve been on incredible journeys with PsiQuantum (building the world's first utility-scale quantum computer right here in Australia!), Inventia Life Science (transforming drug discovery with high-fidelity cell models), Remedy Robotics (surgical robots for remote endovascular procedures), Opto Biosystems (minimally-invasive neural implants to treat cancer), and more. We believe that frontier technologies, and great frontier-tech investing, will be part of the solutions to the greatest problems humanity faces today. 4️⃣ When do applications close? May 31st at 11:59pm AEST. 5️⃣ I have more questions! I’m sure you do! Clare Birch and I are hosting an AMA to answer any and all questions about these roles. Want to know what a week in the life of our team looks like? What’s keeping us up at night? What our ideal candidate looks like? Come along and find out - registration link in the comments 👇 Apply for these roles: Associate - https://lnkd.in/gCfj4EUJ Foundry Fellowships - https://lnkd.in/gj6ATZVZ If you know anyone that we should meet, send me their details! Cameron Elise Ben Andrew Robin Joseph Adelaide James Olivia Lucinda Raghav Jesse Christie Mohamed Tom Amee Pablo Haya Loong Hon Joshua Benjamin Megan Harry Denzil Matthew Diana Daniel Tom Deanna Justin Amar Lilly Stone Thomas

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Navigating equity compensation for early employees can be challenging for startup founders. After unsuccessfully searching for an approach we felt comfortable sharing with founders, we decided to create one ourselves. Today, we're excited to share a new framework to make sizing equity grants easy and transparent for founders. In this post, we cover: -🔍 Key questions to ask when creating early equity grants -📊 Important definitions and concepts -💡 Guidelines for equity allocation, including multipliers, premiums, and discounts -📈 Tips for managing equity as your company grows -🧮 An easy-to-use equity calculator to perform this exercise on your own Whether you're a Pre-Seed, Seed, or Series A founder, this guide will provide you with the information needed to confidently make informed decisions about equity grants for your team. https://lnkd.in/gji_pU6s

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My first startup story: 🙋🏽‍♀️ I answered a Craigslist ad, had an onsite interview 1 week later, and was working at my first startup 2 weeks later. 📈 With the ambiguous title of Operations Associate, I was onboarding customers in my first week ,and gradually became unofficial people ops as the team doubled in size over that first year. 🥵 Over the course of nearly 4 years, the team would 5x in size, I would have 5 different managers, & would learn what “sweat equity” really meant. 🤪 It was the best. It was the worst. I had to learn everything as I went. I cried a lot. I cared too much. I (like to think) I got a lot of people their first experience in tech. I fast tracked my startup career. It was addictive. I spent the next 8 years attempting to replicate the highs of that experience in other roles. Join me for more startup journey stories at Initialized Capital’s May 15th Startup Talent Summit. 👉🏽 Register here: https://lnkd.in/g_nDPjWi (Space is limited)

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On this episode of the Founders Forum, it's all about turning visions into victories! Co-Founder at Clozd, Spencer Dent, sits down with Blake Tengberg and dives into the journey of being a startup and how you can continue to scale to win. Watch the full episode: https://lnkd.in/gTudkqtE #BusinessTalk #IndustryPodcast #BusinessLeadership

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What a week this has been for innovative companies in Seattle (first Smartsheet and now OctoAI). Today NVIDIA made public the news that they have acquired Madrona portfolio company OctoAI. Partnering with the founders since Day 1 (ok Day -1) has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. Luis Ceze, Jared Roesch, Tianqi Chen, Jason Knight, Thierry Moreau and Carlos Guestrin were all involved in the research and insights that helped create the TVM open source technology at the University of Washington computer science school and then the creation of OctoAI back in 2019 to drive commercial impact with this technology. From sorting out the terms of the original "pre-seed" round over a bottle of Caymus Vineyards wine to helping Amazon Web Services (AWS) understand the dynamics around the open source movement in Applied AI to learning our way in to product-market fit with the BEST inference optimization service available (OctoAI can help customers find their optimal fit of performance, customization, and cost), OctoAI has been the best! The company has helped set the table for AI-driven innovation for the years ahead and they will be a perfect compliment to the many capabilities at Nvidia. Luis, his leadership team, the board (including Carlos Guestrin Lip-Bu Tan and Mike Dauber) and so many "friends of OctoAI" know what a motivated, talented and authentic group of people are associated with this company. It is inspiring to see an acquisition at a total deal value of over $250 million in this highly dynamic and fast-moving phase of AI disruption. It is even more exciting to anticipate what will be possible with innovations powered by AI models and related technologies in the years ahead. Madrona has been investing in Applied AI for over a decade and we truly believe that we are just getting started! One of the hardest judgement calls as an investor and board member is to assess the benefits and risks of selling a company at a key inflection point in the journey. Nvidia made a compelling case that the impact for the OctoAI team and technology would be maximized within the market leader for AI infrastructure. I will be rooting every day that they all maximize this impact in the months and years ahead!

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My service in the IDF taught me almost everything I know about building startups. (Keep reading so you can skip the army part, lol) I spent 4 years as a combat officer, leading a team of 40+ amazing people. Along the way, I picked up some serious skills in leadership, team building, and figuring out how to get things done. Here are the 3 biggest lessons I learned: 1/ Mission first, always 2/ Make your people the best they can be 3/ There’s literally NOTHING you can’t do These lessons have shaped who I am and how I run my company every single day. ◆ Focusing on the mission keeps me dialed in on the big picture, even when things get tough. It also makes daily tasks easier. Being mission-driven means your tasks get done by the end of the day—if they’re not, then it’s not the end of the day! ◆ Sure, we all want A-Players on our team, but even A-Players need fine-tuning. Helping them grow = helping your company grow. Simple as that. (How do you grow the people around you? That’s a great question for another post!) ◆ Believing anything’s possible if you put in the work? Total game-changer. When you truly believe in yourself, things start to click. Sounds cliché? It’s a mindset. I know I could learn how to play the cello tomorrow morning or be an astronaut—it’s all about how much effort I’m willing to put into it. Military service was hands-down one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but it was also the most rewarding. Honestly, I have no idea where Windmill Growth would be without it! 😂

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Check out the first episode of Balderton Capital's new video series, "What's Next," where deep tech entrepreneurs share their experiences developing innovative technologies that have the potential to impact millions of lives. In the debut episode, James Wise interviews Alex Kendall, founder of Wayve, who recently announced their impressive $1bn Series C fundraise. Don't miss this insightful conversation on the future of tech! #BaldertonCapital #WhatsNext #DeepTech #Innovation #Entrepreneurship #TechLeadership

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On this episode of Building Jam w/ Retool + ex-Stripe eng leader Tamar Ben-Shachar: 1. How to get out of fire-fighting mode and back to proactive engineering 2. Slowing down short term to add observability to move faster long term 3. The importance of aligning on what does "Done" mean on your team 4. Why the best dev teams are good at saying no 5. What are the best engineering interview questions to ask Hope you enjoy the episode! YT link below

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🚀 Scaling New Heights: Cribl's Strategic Growth 🚀 In a remarkable stride within the competitive market of data infrastructure, San Francisco-based startup Cribl has recently clinched a substantial $319 million in its latest Series E funding. This momentous investment spearheaded by GV (Alphabet’s venture arm) pushes Cribl to a towering valuation of $3.5 billion. 🌟 🔍 Here's Why This Matters for Startups and Small Businesses: 🔹 Innovation and Expansion: Cribl's trajectory illuminates the potent impact of innovative solutions in data management amidst an ever-expanding corporate data environment. 🔹 Significant Growth Potential: With the company boasting an impressive portfolio including 25% of the Fortune 500, the journey reflects significant growth potential and scalability that startups can aspire to. 🔹 Strategic Partnerships: The involvement of heavyweight investors like GV and others underscores the importance of strategic partnerships in accelerating business growth. Key Takeaways: - 🌐 Adapting advanced data solutions is crucial in leveraging the voluminous data generated today. - 📈 Embrace growth by seeking impactful investments and forming strategic partnerships. - 🚀 Aim for scalability by continuously innovating and expanding your solution offerings. Stay updated, engage with current trends, and continuously seek to innovate. The path Cribl is carving out highlights the robust possibilities within tech and data management sectors. For a deeper dive into Cribl’s funding news: https://lnkd.in/gQhmrYUK #DataManagement #StartupGrowth #Innovation This post was generated by an AI. Please contact us for more information.

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🚀 Share to help get #BIPOC hired at startups 🚀 📅 Only two weeks until this IRL event. ICYMI: We’re partnering with Initialized Capital for their Startup Talent Summit on May 15th in San Francisco. The Summit is for startup-ready or startup-curious job seekers looking for their next role in an early stage startup. REASONS TO PARTICIPATE 👉🏿 Learn why it’s a great time to join an early-stage startup 👉🏾 Demystify the landscape and understand the upsides (and downsides) of startup life 👉🏽 It’s an opportunity to connect with hiring companies looking for talent like you Apply to attend here: https://bit.ly/4aSdlma #WeAreHue

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Tem ‎Nugmanov, CEO of Optemization, was on the podcast this week. Ironically… he cautioned Notion users on the idea of OVER-OPTIMIZING their workspaces. At LA Tech Week, some VC and founder types hit him with a question that stopped him in his tracks. — ”How do you take a workspace that is already a 4/5 to a 5/5?” Apparently, that's not a situation Tem deals with on the regular. But it got his gears turning, and he realized something key. The answer? Keep it simple, stupid. Tem sees tons of folks getting a little too excited about all the crazy stuff Notion can do. They get sucked into this never-ending cycle of tweaking and optimizing every little thing. But here's the reality: There's a point where all that extra effort starts to give diminishing returns. At some point, you just gotta call it good and start actually using the workflow. And here's the kicker: Even a "good enough" setup is going to get you most of the results you're after. So Tem's words of wisdom for all you Notion nerds out there? Don't get too carried away with all the bells and whistles. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. — What is the silliest over-optimization you have ever seen? How do you keep your Notion workspace simple? If you wanna hear more of Tem’s expert takes on Notion, catch the full episode, now live.

Hiring the right engineering talent to build your startup is one of the most critical pieces of a founder's early journey. Jellyfish founder and CEO Andrew Lau knows quite a bit about building an engineering team. We tapped him to author this piece in Founder Docs, about how to know if you’re ready to hire your first engineers, what characteristics you should seek, and how to avoid costly failed hires. Learn more on Founder Docs: https://lnkd.in/eSjpmf3E

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