Kerry Anne Hoffman

https://lnkd.in/emYdB7iD Was saddened to hear of the passing of Michael Cline. Michael was an extrodinary thinker who focused on client value proposition relentlessly and had a touch and skill to build ideas into companies. I met Michael at Exult. He was co-founder of the pioneer in the HR bpo space. Michael drilled into me the client value prop and differentiation which is part of my fabric. Michael also had the ability to be a coach and mentor and was hungry to learn. Michael also had the skill I have learned is rare which is to balance investor interests with that of the management team. And never forgot people make the difference. Jim Madden Exult co-founder let me know of Michael’s passing and commented that he spent a day with Michael last month and thought Michael was happy and content with life. That took me back some 40 years ago to when my Mom died. I too thought she was in a good spot. She had battled her demons of depression for years and in the end it was too much. Of the many things she taught me one was “ kevin you will never know or understand how I feel cause you don’t have want I have “ #mentalhealth So my lessons and reminders for me; 1. You never know what someone else is going through. So listen with both ears and ask how are you really doing ? 2. If you need help please please speak up. Many of us willing to listen and we all have different struggles and don’t compare your insides with other peoples outsides. 3. We can never invest too much in mental health and have too many resources available that is our obligation as employers. However in the end it is a personal journey and people have to decide for themselves what help works for them and to accept it. 4. Accountability and understanding are often viewed as opposites. But we need them both and all about balance. I will miss you Michael Cline. Blessed to have known you and thank you for all you taught me. Mom I miss you today and everyday. Thank you for what you taught me.

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I work with a recruiting firm that supports founding GTM and EPD hiring for some of the most desirable early-stage startups in SF and NY. One consistent theme we see across nearly every founding GTM search these days? The call for “wildly creative growth hacker types.” I’ve become increasingly intrigued by how this description has evolved across industries with diverse revenue models, especially as shifting titles and scopes blur the lines between sales and marketing, and AI augmentation reshapes growth strategies. To explore the nuances of what it means to be a sought-after "wildly creative growth hacker," I’ve been closely following our searches and also recently had the privilege of connecting with taylor desseyn. Taylor is well-known in tech for his community-focused approach to developer engagement. He generously shared his insights on excelling in a role where creativity and a growth-hacker mindset are not just desirable, but essential. Here are some key takeaways from our conversation that stood out to me: 🌟 Fearless experimentation: He operates without the barrier of fear because he knows some of his approaches will be novel or seen as unconventional. 📊 Data-driven agility: While he’s incredibly data-driven, he prioritizes rapid A/B testing, failing fast, and new learnings over perfect reporting. 💡 Emphasis on providing value: He values deeply valuable content for niche audiences over chasing viral moments. 🤝 Community-first focus: Most importantly, and especially in today’s world, he prioritizes building genuine relationships, supportive communities, and in-person connection over all else. Thank you, Taylor, for sharing your thoughtful perspectives on what it takes to succeed as a growth leader today. You've set the bar high! The last point is a theme I’ve heard echoed time and again. I’m curious — how do others envision the 'creative growth hacker' role evolving, both now and in the months ahead?

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Why Your Startup Is Failing: You're Chasing Product-Market Fit the WRONG Way! 🚨 Nick McEvily Take: Product-market fit isn’t something you "find"—it’s something you consistently create. I recently spoke with Nick McEvily, Fractional Product Leader, and his perspective changed how I see product development: 💡 Without human validation, you’re building tech in a vacuum. If you can’t find people to talk to about your product idea, you won’t find people to buy it either. The solution? ✅ Treat validation as an ongoing process, not a one-time event. ✅ Test small, gather feedback, iterate - then repeat. ✅ Understand your buyers as humans, not just "users. 👉 Founders: How much time are you dedicating to real conversations with your market? #strategy #techgrowth #startup #businessstrategy #product #marketfit

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On my flight back to the East Coast this week I inadvertently got to preview the board packet for a leading global publicly traded CPG. With an easily recognizable logo, the 'private and confidential' labels appearing occasionally throughout the deck didn't do much to assure privacy & confidentiality. I wasn't trying to snoop: the dimmed cabin lights for most of the flight, our respective seat positions, and the board director's very large unprotected screen set to maximum brightness made it near impossible not to pick up the agenda, areas of focus (predictably there were various ESG initiative roundups, a laughably simplistic view (incl. KPIs) of various AI initiatives (since this is an area I can speak to with authority, it didn't give me much confidence in the rest of the company's plans), the usual 'highlights from local markets', personnel updates that haven't been announced yet, and a smattering of various financials. If you're a senior executive or a board director, please, please, please invest in a screen privacy shield. They're ~$20 (~$50 if you want the 'fanciest' one) and can shield your screens from eyes that shouldn't be on them. Buy them for your teams. Talk about ways to mitigate accidental information oversharing. Make your people aware of particularly sensitive routes (for example, if you're a pharma/biotech executive flying b/w two industry hub cities like Boston and Zurich, keep that laptop under a blanket & don't discuss work in the airport lounge). Perhaps the company's next board packet could include a few slides and recommendations on operational security best practices. #datasecurity #boardofdirectors #bod #boardpackets #corporategovernance #confidentiality #sensitiveinformation #opsec #informationleakeage

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The FTC just banned non-competes and estimates: -8500 new businesses created per year -$500+ in average wage increases -20-30k in new patents The ruling may allow executive non-competes to be enforced, but not negotiated for new agreements. It will be interesting to see if this goes to supreme court but a large employee friendly decision made today that could create tomorrow's new ventures.

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For all the #legal folks in my network: - Missed renewals - Redundancies, slow approvals, human error - Mismanaged and misplaced contracts - Risk exposure due to ad-hoc contract content - Messy email threads, inefficiencies and delayed execution - Compliance with standard positions If any of the above things bother you in your life as a legal professional, HyperStart CLM can help you get 80% of your time back. My teammates built it, I designed it. I'd like to hear your thoughts and feedback to make the product better. Give it a shot, let's do a 15-30 min demo - use the link below: https://lnkd.in/gbywQe9B #legaltech #contracts #legal #legalteam #clm #hyperstartclm

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From the descrybe.ai press release today: “Boston, MA – Justice tech company descrybe.ai announced today a major upgrade to its award-winning free case law research platform, offering more sophisticated case law research through its revamped capabilities. Touted as a major improvement over their original release of last summer, the enhanced platform also introduces a major expansion of legal access with the addition of Spanish translations and Spanish search capacity as well as simplified summaries in English and Spanish. “The new release has four major enhancements “• Infrastructure: The platform has been redesigned with cutting-edge AI models, incorporating insights gained over the past 18 months to better meet user needs and optimize performance and scalability. “• Search Results: The enhanced architecture, combined with the latest AI models, enables significantly more accurate summarization of case law, providing greater nuance in search term comprehension and search results. “• Spanish: In addition to summaries in English, the revamped platform also provides judicial opinions summarized and translated into Spanish. “• Simplified English and Spanish: Augmenting the standard English and Spanish summaries, descrybe.ai now offers results in simplified English and simplified Spanish for people with limited reading proficiency.” The full press release can be accessed at this link: https://lnkd.in/g4g5VxjP #legaltechnology #legaltech descrybe.ai Kara Peterson

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Recently, Kelly Sells at SPACEJUNK shared some insight on how they evaluate success with RevBoss. It doesn’t hinge on astronomical figures or unreachable goals. It’s based on meaningful interactions -- the calls they made, the referrals they received, and the pitches they delivered. In just the past three weeks, they've pitched seven times to leads from RevBoss. 🚀 Of course, our work doesn't end after a successful pitch. At RevBoss, the ultimate goal isn't just to provide a valuable service. It's to help fuel growth for companies like Spacejunk and build lasting client relationships. We're not just a tool, but a team player in your business journey. To learn more about how we've helped Spacejunk and other clients succeed, check out the full case study on our website - https://lnkd.in/eD39yV2P It's a testament to the power of partnership. Go team. :)

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Just read SignalFire's 'State of Talent' report after listening to Heather Doshay's interview with Kelli Dragovich and Nolan Church on their podcast(links in comment). The report is super interesting and confirms two things I'm seeing firsthand: ➡ The NYC Tech scene is growing like crazy. This year it feels like every week is Tech Week. ➡ Building your AI strategy around hiring AI experts isn't going to fly. The talent pool for AI experts is tiny and concentrated in companies working on AI models, not applications. What we see with startups building their AI features using Outropy: ➡ Most companies can't find engineers with AI experience. ➡ Finding someone with AI ⦿and⦿ product engineering experience is almost impossible. ➡ The few with a dedicated AI expert team have more demand for AI features than the team can execute—millions of incremental revenue are waiting for AI teams to have time to look at them. ⦿The only way you will make AI development work for application-layer startups is to enable your product teams to build AI features without blockers.⦿ Obviously, I'd love to talk about how Outropy can help (phil at outropy dot ai), but if you are in this situation and absolutely must build and operate the complexity of AI pipelines in-house, my suggestion is to rethink the role of your AI team. You need to shape them as a platform/enabler team and not have them build features. This obviously brings a whole set of issues, including how hard it is to manage products for platform teams and ensure that their backlog is driven by product/business roadmap rather than just technical improvements. There's some good literature on this from Manuel Pais (Team Topologies) 🇺🇦 🇵🇸' work on Team Topologies; I can't recommend it enough—I make their book mandatory for all managers/directors working with me.

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A timely post from me today... No, I’m not here to weigh in on the US election…but it’s got me thinking. Just last week in my company update, I flagged the continued/rising hiring trend we’ve been seeing at Forme Partners this year: a real surge of American talent flocking to the EU. With the US election happening today, it begs the question—will this trend hold, or will the US make moves to keep its top talent at home? Despite lower pay (which in our experience is becoming more of a level playing field) and a so-called “business-unfriendly” environment, the EU is a hotspot for seasoned US operators, drawn by the rise in unicorns and the promise of high-growth opportunities. It’s a fascinating shift, and as the election unfolds, I’ll be watching to see if Europe’s appeal continues to win over top talent or if the landscape shifts again. #TalentTrends #HighGrowthMarkets #CrossBorderOpportunities

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Boston is one of the best cities in the world for sports AND startups. How many others can say that?? When I started MGMT Boston I wanted to explore the relationship between sports and startups in this city. Last week we co-hosted a breakfast with  Kristen Craft from Fidelity Private Shares to meet some startups and operators building (and interested) in Sports, Gaming & Wellness around the city to uncover some of these insights. If you’re a growing startup evaluating your cap table management tools, you need to get in touch with Kristen asap! Jon Von Deylen from Drive by DraftKings brought his learnings & investment perspective to the breakfast. Drive is a multi-stage venture fund that invests in SportsTech & Entertainment with founding partners who include DraftKings, General Catalyst, Accomplice, and Boston Seed Capital. Jon shared... 70% of people in the U.S. say they are sports fans which implies 180M adult fans 124M people watched Super Bowl LVIII and 68M of that audience gambled on the Super Bowl per the American Gaming Association This implies ~60M Americans did not gamble on the Super Bowl and that number would be upwards of 100M+ if you extrapolate to the broader sports fan figure of 180M As of their Q1 ‘24 filing, DraftKings Inc. had roughly 3.5M monthly active users. So even this $16B+ market leader only serves a small (albeit high value and growing) portion of the broader sports fan base. ❗🤸‍♂️ 💡 There’s a good argument to be made that there are some big businesses to be built catering to 100M+ casual fans. 💡🤸‍♂️ ❗ Ahead of the breakfast, I chatted with some members of the professional sports community to hear about their relationship with the local startup ecosystem. In short? It’s varied. Professional athletes get a ton of inbound interest across a variety of requests so they’re often playing defense and choosing from the myriad of opportunities in front of them (or not at all) with agents, managers, and advisors playing gatekeeper. It’s hard to audit quality and often “too hard” to figure out what is worth spending time on, especially with a high performance job where so much of your attention needs to be on the playing field. At our breakfast we had representation from Cephable, Ekkobar, eSki, WurQ, WHOOP, Mementix App, Modulate, SportsVisio, Shift Group and more. Thanks to all who made it.

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Growth-stage DTC brands know that scaling is a financial tug-of-war — every department is pulling for its share of the (budgetary) pie 🥧 In our most recent expert guide, Matt Weiler, founder of Second Star Ventures and interim CEO of Wells Group of New York, shares five tactical tips on strategic cross-functional finance: 1️⃣ Decide between tangible growth and buzz Balance investments in short-term ROI with hard-to-quantify activities. Collaborating across teams to align on needs will help you measure intangible results and focus on net profits per initiative. 2️⃣ Assess your decision risk Evaluate each business decision by mapping out assumptions for probability and measurability. Then consider how easily it can be reversed if it fails, and * only * proceed if the cost of failure is manageable. 3️⃣ Prepare for success just as you plan for failure Whip your ops into shape before you action on strategy. That way, when growth occurs, you can deliver what you promised your customers. For example, a successful product launch can still fail if you don’t have enough stock to meet demand. 4️⃣ Pay back your CAC quickly Tracking your LTV, CAC, and payback periods helps you monitor customer growth at all times. If you can’t pay back your CAC quickly, you can’t drive near-term ROI, making it tougher to increase LTV. 5️⃣ Use Drivepoint for cross-functional strategic finance Drivepoint enables you to easily create and compare financial scenarios, build accurate forecasts in minutes, and sync sales, accounting, and marketing data across all sales channels — for a holistic understanding of your business. Want to learn more? Matt breaks it down here: https://lnkd.in/gXc-f_5x

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I remember sitting at the conference room table with my co-founders, building out our org chart with 90% remote offshore talent and 10% US talent. Our Amazon aggregator business was operationally intensive, and being self-funded, we couldn't afford US salaries. Two of our co-founders from Pakistan showed us the cost-effectiveness of hiring there. For the price of 1 US employee, we could hire 4-5 full-time employees in Pakistan. It was a no-brainer. And the truth is, the team you see in the image below are some of the brightest minds in the e-commerce space. Better than most US employees i've worked with in the past. In the past 3 years, we've hired over 100 offshore employees, enabling us to scale rapidly and survive challenges post-covid without a hefty US payroll burden. This success led me to launch Talent Hackers, an offshore staffing firm. We specialize in helping companies scale by providing top-tier talent at 70% less cost than US equivalents. Don't let payroll limitations hinder your growth. Let me help you build your army. P.S. If you're ever in Pakistan try their chai tea ;)

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Some interesting proposals regarding tips for delivery drivers in New York. --- "Now, City Councilman Shaun Abreu (D-Manhattan) is set to bring more pain: Convinced that the apps’ changes were an attempt to are retaliate against workers (instead of an effort not to sink under the new laws), he’s introduced two bills that would 1) require apps to prompt users to tip before the delivery is made, and 2) set a default minimum suggested tip of 10%, leaving it to customers to notice, and then choose to opt out or manually change the tip amount." --- Link to the full story is in the comments.

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The largest proposal I ever showed a client was for $504M. Here's how it played out: In 2018, I found myself facing a monumental task: securing a deal with a $10B global telco. I had earlier wins that year with Delta Air Lines and Aramark which earned the trust of our EVP of Sales. This internal trust earned me a shot at the opportunity after he was approached by the EVP of CX & Market Strategy of this telco. This was the journey... STEP 1: GET THE SMALL WIN I’m generally not one for securing a small pilot, but urgency was calling. This telco was launching a brand new mobile company, and instead of using their incumbent tech partner, they wanted to design a more innovative CX out of the gates. If this went well, they said we’d have a shot at the larger parent business. STEP 2: STRATEGIC ENTRY Our entry point was the 6-figure pilot in Q1 2019 to launch their new mobile brand. This deal secured our position as an official supplier and earned us an MSA (gold). The key was ensuring our team delivered a successful deployment. STEP 3: USED THEIR OWN DATA TO CREATE A NARRATIVE Running their entire CX program for their mobile brand earned the trust of key stakeholders who were curious about scaling this inside the parent company. They were willing to share all of the key data we needed to form a tight story. Collaborating with Rick, the head of our Gainshare unit, was crucial. He was a better executive sponsor with their EVP than me, so I was grateful to work closely with him to keep the momentum high. We learned that their customer support calls were costing them $200M annually, before any investment in technology. STEP 4: CRAFTED THE PROPOSAL Having this key data point, we simply worked through the numbers, knowing what we were capable of delivering for other telcos. We proposed very real savings of $90M over 3 years by switching from session-based voice calls to asynchronous digital messaging, augmented with AI. We simply laid out the facts like a master litigator would do in a courtroom. The massive lever we pulled was using Gainshare as the commercial model to contractually lock in these savings via a “done-for-you“ managed service versus selling them software and services they’d have to figure out how to roll out on their own (perceived as both daunting and expensive). STEP 5: SEALED THE DEAL No $504M win, but we did secure a $6.6M deal in Q3 2019. This foundation allowed the Gainshare team to clearly pursue a $200M annual budget. A key asset we used was a simple narrative memo laying out our case that got circulated internally throughout their org, including securing us a meeting with their COO using: - No business jargon - Their own data - A simple plan - Clear visuals Anybody who tries to make selling big deals more complex than this simply hasn’t done it. Not saying it’s easy. It’s just simpler than most think. Dare to dream big… Waiting on the other side is true transformation. 🐝

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Saw a job listing today for a SVP Business Transformation at an adtech company. NYC office. Leadership team. Hybrid. Salary: $100k-$120k Are you kidding me? Btw, the salary was slightly lower than that. Heck, maybe the salary was a typo. Or the title was supposed to be: “Future SVP Business Transformation but we are Starting You at the Bottom.” It was a Friday…maybe the Adults had the afternoon off. All good questions… #adtech #careerdevelopment #transformation #youwerekidding

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The first 90 days in a new role—always a rollercoaster. Here’s what I’ve learned. Some Context • It’s a startup in Legal Tech. • The founder is a lawyer. • 7 years in business, with 80+ employees. • I’m supporting the President as his right hand. A Bit About Me • I’ve worked at large Tech companies and startups. • I’m always eager to learn and avoid complacency. • I love both structure and the freedom to build from scratch. Key Learnings • Every company has its strengths, challenges, and lessons to teach. • “Common knowledge” isn’t always as common as we think. • Communication—offline and online—is critical. • Soft skills are just as crucial as hard skills. • The ability to adapt quickly is invaluable. No company is perfect, but I enjoy the chaos of the startup world. It’s a constant teacher, full of lessons. This experience also reminds me to appreciate the structure of established companies—and to blend that rigor into a new environment. It’s only been 90 days, but I’m excited to see what’s next. How about you? Where do you thrive? Established companies, startups, or running your own business?

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A recurring issue I see is founders who fail (or forget) to upgrade the compensation of their early employees, who joined when cash was tight. With scale and accelerated hiring, you either lose out on great new talent because you’re unwilling to pay what is now required, or you offer new hires better pay than existing and equivalent team members. Both are bad outcomes. You need to proactively benchmark and upgrade the pay of your existing team to enable the continued hiring of A-grade talent. For any new hire, compensation involves triangulating between three elements: - What are the market benchmarks for the role? - What do you need to offer in order to land the candidate? - What are the internal comparisons and benchmarks, to ensure consistency and fairness? Compensation by nature is sticky- When you adjust your compensation philosophy, thoughtful change management and communication are key to successful adoption.

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View from the Office. I met Kyle Kazanjian-Amory, CEO and founder of Don't Tell Comedy, at a show he hosted in a loft in New York’s Meatpacking District. Kyle describes Don’t Tell Comedy as a house party for comedians. He launched the company in 2017 when he arranged a performance in a friend’s backyard. Three months later he quit his day job and organized 35 more shows that year. The shows featured little-known comics appearing in unusual locations announced at the last minute. He charged a small amount because he realized it made people more likely to show up. The events were BYOB to reduce the cost and increase the fun. That modest start has morphed into 100 events a week. Growth has been fueled by taping some of the shows and posting content on social media. Kyle said the hardest part about building the business in the beginning and even today is managing the inventory of chairs. Chairs have to be stored somewhere and lugged everywhere. Early on he would pack 60 IKEA Gunde chairs into a Prius and drive from LA to Portland. He jokes that if comedy doesn’t work out they could pivot to be a chair rental company. After graduating from college, Kyle worked briefly as an accountant. He hated it. On the side he was doing stand up; he was frustrated that the shows weren’t more engaging. As he described it on the podcast More of That, shows were held in the same tired venues and required two drinks. Some were held in bars where comics had to compete with football games on TV. It wasn’t fun. His solution was to host shows in smaller, unique sites announced the same day. He picked places ranging from CrossFit gyms to art galleries to barber shops. I attended a show in a loft near 14th street. It was one of the events that Don’t Tell videotaped. That effort started in 2022 with a YouTube channel and has been an accelerant to growth. In two years the channel has ballooned to 1.7 million subscribers. Don’t Tell posts have helped comics develop their own audiences and get discovered by bigger clubs. Kyle said he wants to be known as the brand that discovers talent. I can vouch that Don’t Tell is nothing like other shows I’ve attended. A friend recently took me to the vaunted Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village. We were herded in like livestock through a chute. We had to deposit our phones in sealed plastic pouches. There was the inevitable requirement of two expensive, poorly made drinks. The comics were good, but they would drop in – do their set – and leave. By contrast, the comedians at Don’t Tell lingered after the show. The group included Mason James, Nore Davis, Jay Larson, Rachel Feinstein and Rachel Williams. I listened in as one of them — Mason — shared his experiences with guests. All around us the crew was breaking down and packing away the chairs. Somewhere outside a Prius was probably waiting to take them to the next site. #viewfromoffice

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