Kevin Merlini

🔥 2-Min Survey: Help Fix the Insights Pipeline, Boost Your Next Review At Ara Platforms we're *obsessed* with the data -> insight -> action pipeline and removing roadblocks. On the data (insight producer) side, we want to make it easier to generate and publish useful insights. On the stakeholder (insight consumer) side, we want to make it easier to ask questions and get useful answers quickly. The process feels like a broken market—data people produce insights that don't get used while stakeholders don't can't get insights to important questions in a timely manner. If you're on either side of this equation I'd love to chat—please reach out via DM! If you can't it would mean a ton if you could fill out one of these quick Google forms. The end goal is to improve everyone's performance reviews Insight producers (data scientist, analysts, researchers): https://lnkd.in/emtMV6um Insight consumers (product managers, leadership, anyone who uses data to make decisions): https://lnkd.in/eEJ3Wse7

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The above is all true, and I'd like to add a really important point. In the Bay Area, I observed that startups collaborate, partner, meet, etc - all in the spirit of the best possible user experience as an end in itself. The startups work together more. It's easy to get a meeting, you can basically show up to someone's office, just walk in, and you're welcomed. Founders work on "cool" experiences or tech first, and worry about financials second. In NYC I found the reverse to be true. It's harder to get a meeting with a founder. When you get one, it's like going to the dentist; the EA schedules a meeting with you 6 weeks in advance, upon arriving you sit in lobby and you wait until you are called. The meeting is transactional, a "novel" user experience or excitement around a technical breakthrough is rarely a main topic. It's much more transactional. This isn't a criticism in any way, it's just an observation that I believe explains why there are less household tech names coming out of NYC. Because if you look at the household tech names in the world - they always put the user first.

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You've already seen the data from Edmunds. For the sake of this post, we will call it 'Market Based Unaffordability' where 17.4% of consumers in Q3 financed a new vehicle at over $1,000 per month. What's even more disturbing is the 18.4% of loans that are 84-months, which is sure to "weld the customer into the vehicle" due to inequity (famous phrase from Robert Hollenshead). Are things actually getting better with rate cuts? No. Carmatic data is showing many makes and models are actually increasing rates as we close out October. You can see in the image below, the average best deal APR is creeping back up. Perhaps this is how the OEMs intend to regain some of the incentive dollars they've promoted throughout the month. Are OEM incentives going to change the course? So far, not even close. Some OEMs are sort of playing along (like Stellantis), but most others aren't. OEMs need to turbo charge incentives. Instead we see them robbing Peter to pay Paul. Incentives go up, rates go up. Incentives down, rates down. Or at least that seems to be a recent trend. It's almost irrational to watch some of the incentivized rates, like Nissan Motor Corporation's (up to) 36 month loan for 0% APR. If they understood the data, they would know that the majority of consumers can't afford loans that are less than 60 months anyways (nearly 70% are over 60 months per Edmunds). Wouldn't a couple thousand incentive dollars on the hood be more appealing? So then, is it just going to be left to the dealers to adjust prices and make deals? Maybe, but that's not a winning strategy at the macro level. I saw any interesting post from Ramp and Car Dealership Guy that said almost 50% of car dealers are using vAuto by Cox Automotive. That's great... except that means half of the market is using the same pricing strategy. With growing inventory counts and the same strategy as the guy down the road... how will you stand out? Here's a thought: In many cases, Dealers know their customer, their affordability profile and frequently, what vehicle they are in. The data lives in the DMS and CRM. What if we targeted individuals with a personalized and affordable payment on a new(er) vehicle that fits their budget?  What if we did this at scale? It's a very real strategy for attacking the market. Instead of carpet bombing consumers at the make-model level based on lackluster lead data, let's talk about Market Based Affordability and how you can start targeting your next customers with VIN specific payment offers. It goes without saying, advertising units with real payments do indeed perform better. Learn more about Market Based Affordability here: https://lnkd.in/g5HYbTpr Source: https://lnkd.in/gZ4s6qFd

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I'm thrilled to share some incredible news about Andi! 🚀 As our company post details, we've just scored 87% accuracy on a groundbreaking new AI search benchmark. But, I want to share why this means so much to me personally. 🥲 We achieved this with just $3M in funding, nearly running out of cash multiple times. That's a fraction of what our competitors have. Our journey's a testament to the power of focusing on what truly matters: our users. 💙 We've been obsessed with understanding content deeply and delivering trustworthy results. Our approach isn't about flashy AI tricks - it's about giving users practical, accurate information they can rely on. 🤝 This milestone shows us that with the right focus, small teams can make a big impact. We're building a trust engine for the AI age, and we still have lots of room for improvement. We won't stop even after we get to 100% accuracy. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. What do you think this means for the future of AI and search? #AI  #Search  #StartupLife  #YCombinator PS For all the AI enthusiasts and researchers: full benchmark data is available at https://lnkd.in/gxf6xqtM!

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Just over a year ago, Imran Mahmud, MD introduced to me what was then called, Co:Helm. I was taken by the backgrounds and stories of Abdel Mahmoud, MD, Zahid Mahmood & Tahseen Omar and moreso their grit and determination to forge ahead with their mission of reducing the cost of healthcare. They soon got into the Sequoia Arc program with the backing of another friend, George Robson. And have been staying low and building ever since. Inbetween rebrandng to Anterior (formerly Co:Helm). And even more recently announced a new round to add more fuel. https://lnkd.in/e3V4qrRz Happy to be a supporter alongside Annelie Ajami, Dorothy Chou, Adil Mohammed, Andy Young, Caroline Mogford, Christian Arno, Felix Leuschner, Freddy Kelly, Leonard Picardo, Mandeep Singh, Michael Steel, Omid Ashtari, Noor Shaker, Sultan Murad Saidov, Yuelin Li and others in the ecosystem... [Anterior is giving clinicians a second set of hands—and fixing one of the biggest pain points for patients. It is a LLM-powered co-pilot for administration, handling all the work that comes before the clinical decision-making. Where it might take a nurse several hours to track down, organize and summarize hundreds of pages of records they need, Anterior can do it in seconds, allowing clinicians to increase their output tenfold and focus on what matters most: helping patients.] #healthcare

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Sharing some insights/trends we are seeing in the first half of 2024: - The majority of startups HQ’d in NYC & SF founded in the last two years are hiring most if not all of their employees in the office (at least 3 days a week) - Less than 5% of those are mandating 5 days a week in office. - Most top candidates are optimizing for hybrid with remote up to 3 days a week - Compensation across the board for early-stage startups has remained relatively flat since 2023 - For startups located outside of core major tech hubs, there is more openness and even preference for remote to tap into broader markets and compete for top talent The overview is that local talent and teams are making a comeback and salaries are not rising as drastically as they have in the past 5 years. Make sure to choose your next move based on fit, impact, passion, upside, growth, and not purely on comp. #startups #venture #VC #seed #Engineering #Hiring

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📈 Curious about the startup scene in Massachusetts? Explore our detailed funding list featuring startup names, HQ locations, and investor info. Perfect for investors and entrepreneurs alike! Check it out: https://lnkd.in/dAp3xj-Q #startup #startups #venturecapital #funding #vc #managementconsulting

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Casper-powered summary of a recent Sequoia Capital article titled "AI in 2025: Building Blocks Firmly in Place" I'll link the article in the comments. As a meta point - if you've read the article itself, I'd love to get your feedback on the quality of the summary.

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The SaaS ecosystem is unbundling, and we're witnessing the "verticalization of everything." In the coming years, expect several major AI-powered vertical SaaS companies to emerge. It's an exciting moment for startups. Here's what we mean: https://lnkd.in/d7vqpEcJ Two major challenges face horizontal SaaS today: • UX often lags far behind the consumer apps we use daily. • One-size-fits-all solutions don’t meet the unique needs of specific industries. Interestingly, this dynamic also applies to AI—vertical AI, trained with industry-specific data, consistently outperforms generalist AI. These factors are coalescing to create an "unbundling" opportunity in B2B SaaS. Years ago, the Craigslist "online classifieds" model was unbundled into industry-specific marketplaces like Airbnb and Etsy. Horizontal B2B SaaS players are about to face the same. Industry-specific platforms, powered by AI, will "super serve" their niches, and the market for these is far bigger than people realize. More on our vision in the essay below: 

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Here's a quick way to discern AI hype from real, applicable use cases next time you're reading a product pitch: Substitute every instance of "AI" with "LLM."  That's the current tech - large language models. They are incredibly powerful and disruptive, but "artificial intelligence" is a misnomer most of the time.

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A top 5 worst VC behavior.... VC wakes up and sees an article on X about a new competitor to a portfolio company. VC just copies the Techcrunch article and sends a text to founder simply saying "Have you seen this company yet? $5M seed round backed by A16Z" Please, don't be this type of VC. Instead, if you're sending a link about a competitor, provide a relevant insight to the founder For example, "seems like they're targeting SMBs and not enterprise," "different GTM than us, starting w/ a PLG motion" Founders are under enough stress. Don't add to it.

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I'm a big fan of "value retail". Time and again, a new platform with value based positioning has been able to carve out space in a competitive market with very large incumbents. Their offering has been simple - significantly (30-40% at least) lower prices than incumbents. They have squirmed their way to a large outcome. This has happened across categories, without a doubt.    Meesho came eight years after Flipkart/ Amazon with their average order value being <INR 350 vs INR 1k+ for market. They're at $5B GMV RR.   Zudio rose from <INR 150 cr in 2017 to INR 6000 cr+ currently with ASP of <INR 500.   Lab grown diamonds are 60%+ cheaper than mined diamonds while being physically/ optically/ chemically the same. From 2016 to 2023, they expanded market share from <5% to 50%+ (by volume).   Janaushadi stores (Govt operated pharmacies selling "generics") rose < INR 150 cr revenue in 2017 to INR 2400+ revenue RR in 2024. They sell 50-70% lower priced medicines.   Physicswallah rose to $200m+ revenue in 4 years with ~20% of incumbent's pricing.   Globally, late entrant Temu rose to $40B GMV RR within 2 years on the back of low pricing. Imagine threatening Amazon's territory   But low pricing as a strategy is an outcome. It looks simple but behind it lies extremely complex inputs that make it possible. It involves opening up exclusive low priced supply and creating the most optimized and lean operations to squeeze out every penny. - Temu/ Shein had access to China's low cost manufacturing capabilities, longtail China suppliers who weren't able to monetize well in China's competitive domestic market, regulation of De minimis in US where they don't pay import duty taxes via air drop shipping - Zudio did end to end manufacturing in-house at low TAT at reasonably low MOQ that enabled entire inventory refresh in < 2 months, leading to limited inventory losses. They made a strong call of spending zero on marketing/ branding - Physicswallah spent 8 years to conquer YT led distribution (45m+ subscribers) leading to limited CACs vs incumbents who spend 30-40% of their revenue on sales / marketing (via feet of street) - Meesho opened up "direct from manufacturers" supply with their low (zero) commission model - LGD/ Janaushadi are both product innovations (same quality at exceptionally low prices)   Because of this, it's nearly impossible for incumbents to replicate the low pricing strategy almost instantly. As they are not just mimicking the prices but also tightly run operations, new supplier partnerships, marketing advantage.   If you want to disrupt pricing for a market, an ideal question to ponder on is how will your supply chain enable that..

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It was another action packed quarter at MGMT Boston. Here are the standout startups we highlighted in Q3 2024.. Sequentially: Sense, mabl, Customers.ai, Wicket, Form Health, EnFi, Inc, Crunchtime, OfferFit Native AI: EnFi, OfferFit ClimateTech: Sense Vertical & Horizontal SaaS (+AI): mabl, Customers.ai, Wicket, Crunchtime HealthTech: Form Health Seed Stage: EnFi Growth Stage (A-C): Customers.ai, Wicket, Form Health, OfferFit Late Stage (>C): Sense, mabl, Crunchtime Sense - a growth stage software company bringing better intelligence to the edge of our electrical grid mabl - growth stage software company building a unified platform to streamline testing across web, mobile, API, accessibility, and performance to bring innovation to QA testing because all software should be shipped quickly with enterprise level quality Customers.ai - a provider of website visitor identification and remarketing solutions that turn anonymous prospects into customers, using smart identification capabilities Wicket - changing the stadium experience through advanced facial recognition software technology so fans can get to their seats faster, enjoy themselves, and stadiums get to improve their operational rigor too Form Health - a virtual obesity medicine clinic that provides science-based obesity care to help patients achieve their weight loss and health goals EnFi - building an agentic, native AI software platform for financial institutions to give complex credit lenders the power of 10,000 analysts Crunchtime - a late stage vertical software company at $100M+ ARR that serves multi-unit restaurant brands, helping them deliver industry leading operational excellence in every location OfferFit - building an AI Decisioning platform that enables lifecycle marketers to automate personalization at scale, taking the tedium & pain out of A/B testing More to come in Q4!

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Imagine you’re meeting a VC today and pitching your company. Now, also imagine the VC goes home tonight and tells his or her spouse about the meeting with you. How do you think the VC would (or should) describe your product to the spouse? Remember, this is for someone who doesn’t have any context, and probably doesn’t have time to listen the whole story. If you can think of a story version that's plain and simple -- how you want the VC to describe your product to the spouse -- perhaps that version should be your pitch in the first place?

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Venture Capital Contact Compilation. Explore a detailed list of 1,250+ VC firms, 7,400+ professionals in the VC space (including partners and principals), and 6,400 email contacts. https://payhip.com/b/cs7UQ #startup #startups #vc #venturecapital #investmentbanking #privateequity #managementconsulting #b2b #founders #entrepreneurs

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If you're wondering how AI will be monetized, and how we'll come to pay for it, this article by Abde Tambawala and https://lnkd.in/gYJxgPSS is worth a read. If you're building an AI-driven product and are thinking about how you'll price and package it, this is a must read.

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🏀 In 2002, Wyc Grousbeck bought the Boston Celtics for $360 Million. In 2023, the Celtics were valued at $4.7 Billion. That's an increase of 1200%. Grousbeck is now looking to sell the team and it will likely sell for a value much higher than $4.7 Billion considering the continuing increase of team values and the positive momentum specifically for the Celtics, which includes winning the NBA Championship this year. While I expect NBA team values to keep growing, it's a great time for Grousbeck to sell after such a strong return on investment. NBA Teams are a fantastic investment and the Boston Celtics are such a cultural monument that the next person or group who buys the Celtics will have not only a power house sports team with religiously devoted fans, but also a great financial investment for the future. In 2001, the average value of an NBA franchise was $207 Million. In 2023, the average value of an NBA franchise was $3.85 Billion. (Via Statista) That's an increase of 1750% and we're looking at the average, not even zooming in on the most valuable teams. For example, this year Ron Burkle sold the NWSL team San Diego Wave FC for $120 Million after paying only $2 Million for the team two years ago. That's an increase of 5900%. While not everyone can afford to buy the Boston Celtics or the San Diego Wave, I've seen a lot of people look more deeply into sports investments for similar returns. There is an explosion of new sports formats, leagues, and teams as people take sports more seriously as an asset class. Each case study like Ron Burkle or Wyc Grousbeck and subsequent year that team values increase will encourage more investors to look more closely at sports. #celtics #sports #sportsbusiness #nba #basketball #investment

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Bold prediction for 2025: Investors will pay founders to access their venture data. Founders own their data and grant access to investors for a fee. This shift promotes transparency, trust, and efficiency in fundraising, while giving startups a new revenue stream.

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👩‍🔬 Ayble Health is building an end-to-end care platform for digestive health, utilizing technology like predictive AI to help more than 70M Americans who live with gut discomfort. 👨‍🔬 It's W6 / Q2 / 2024 & this week in our MGMT Boston startup series we’ve got Ayble Health, a Seed stage healthtech startup building a platform for digestive health, increasing access to nutrition and behavioral therapy for millions who live with gut discomfort to make care better, faster, and more personalized. Sam Jactel had a problem. He had lived with IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) for 10 years. It even runs in his family. Lucky enough to have the privilege of incredible access to care, he was treated at Harvard training hospitals like Brigham & Women’s. But Sam never got the help he needed to use nutrition and psychology as tools to tackle his condition. He would go to the doctor, take drugs, and was still sick. In and out of the hospital with flare ups frustrated by this Grand Canyon wide gap in care. Who was treating the whole patient? And where? There are not enough GI dieticians or psychologists to treat patients. Up to 40% of Americans' daily lives are being disrupted by digestive troubles and some 70M Americans suffer from GI diseases. There are 150 licensed GI psychologists nationwide... By comparison, it would be harder to get into ANY Ivy League university than see a GI psychologist. Like, 1000x harder to see a GI psychologist than get into Harvard statistically speaking. Are you starting to see the problem? What started as an Excel spreadsheet has now been transformed into an end-to-end care platform built to scale access to specialized nutrition and psychology therapy and make GI therapy better, faster, and more personalized. Using advanced nutrition techniques, powered by AI, their team helps patients find and remove trigger foods to live better lives. Their core differentiator? This stuff works. After years doing research backed by 14 clinical studies, they’re going commercial. The proof is in the 💩 , I mean pudding. 2023 was a critical year of validation as their first year “out in the wild”. They’re already working with multiple large state based health plans, 75% of the Top 10 academic medical centers in the country, and several F500 type employers. Next year they hope to widen access to 10s of millions. Sam & the team are hiring across the board, investing in core platform differentiators and wanting to be in every conversation related to GI with the patient at the center. Operators to Know: -Susan Aman, Director of Engineering -Lance Laughlin, Senior Software Engineer -Stefania Patinella, M.A., NBC-HWC, Founding Health Coach -Jessica Russo, Director of Customer Success & Partnerships If you're interested in learning more, including the key roles Ayble is hiring for, the full post is linked in the comments! And sign up for the newsletter to see who we bring you next week, will you?? #bostontech #startups #healthtech

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