Lisa Cohen Gevelber

ZI Labs is headed to Seattle and Chicago this week—are you around? Join us this week for two amazing events: 1) Seattle: GTM Plays Cooking Class Wednesday Oct 16th, 6 pm PT Millie Beetham and I believe in the power of signals and storytelling in GTM, much like a classic recipe. Just as cooking requires the right ingredients, timing, and techniques to create a memorable dish, a successful go-to-market strategy demands the same attention to detail.  Join us for an amazing evening of cooking, dinner and learning. We’ve got 12 amazing GTM Leaders signed up from Stripe, Outreach, Highspot, Airtable, Salesforce and more!  Have one more spot. Who is in Seattle we should know about? 2) Chicago: AI + GTM Masterclass (and then dinner), Thursday Oct 17th, 3:30 pm CT Join us this Thursday for an AI + GTM Masterclass, where we’ll explore how to blend AI into your strategy. We’ll create a recipe for success that fosters innovation and connection, moving beyond just AI copywriting. Discover how AI can save time for your sellers, brainstorm opportunities within your territory, and streamline your team’s GTM efforts. What You’ll Learn: 🔍 AI’s Impact: Discover how AI is reshaping the B2B arena and how you can leverage its power. 🛠️ Blueprint for Success: Develop a comprehensive AI readiness framework to assess your capabilities, identify gaps, and implement effective strategies. 🤝 Network & Collaborate: Connect with like-minded leaders from the Chicago area, sharing experiences and insights in a dynamic environment. 2 spots left, so don’t miss out! DM me or tag someone in Seattle or Chicago if they should join us. Let’s unlock the potential of AI together! #AIMasterclass #GTM #AI

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Content creators have always relied heavily on advertising, which often meant catering more to platform algorithms than to their own audience’s needs. But, with powerful tools like Mighty Networks, the game is changing. Creators and community hosts can now monetize directly by charging for access, memberships, or courses – without relying on the traditional ad-based model. The result? More meaningful connections, deeper engagement, and a sustainable business model where creators are truly in control. Tune in to this episode of The Expertise Economy with Gina Bianchini, CEO and founder of Mighty Networks to learn exactly how you as a creator can harness the power of successful community building to build a powerhouse business. #CreatorEconomy #DigitalCommunities #Entrepreneurship #MightyNetworks #ContentCreation #Monetization #Podcast

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In my latest episode of The Expertise Economy Podcast, Gina Bianchini, CEO of Mighty Networks, dropped some serious insight on what’s *really* been driving growth in Silicon Valley for the last 25 years. It’s not about content. It’s not even about building an audience. The real asset? Network effects. A network effect happens when you bring people together in a community, and with every new member who joins and contributes, the community becomes more valuable for everyone involved. This creates something incredibly sticky and self-sustaining—the gold standard for building lasting value in today’s digital world. If you’re a creator, entrepreneur, or community builder, this is a game-changing concept you can’t afford to ignore. Tune in to this episode to learn how you can harness the power of network effects to build stronger, more engaged communities 🎧 #NetworkEffects #CommunityBuilding #Entrepreneurship #MightyNetworks #DigitalCommunities #Podcast

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Back in 1997, The New York Times highlighted a “Roundtable in Multimedia” attended by senior media executives. They lamented that apart from a few exceptions like pornography websites and Amazon, no one had cracked the code for a viable 'interactive' media business model. Fast forward to 2024, and Fable has launched Showrunner, a revolutionary platform known as the “Netflix of AI" , which allows users to create their own TV shows with just a few prompts. 📺✨ The way we create and consume content has evolved dramatically. But what does "interactive media" really mean today? We break it down, exploring how it intersects with massive shifts in technology, culture, and new media. And how with a growing "Swipe before Type" generation, there is now an ingrained expectation of interactivity in all digital experiences. We dive into the future of interactive media and gaming and see where we're headed next! Link in comments. #InteractiveMedia #Gaming #AI #TechRevolution #ContentCreation #NewMedia

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If you’re looking for a distraction from political content this week… look no further… allow me to introduce: VC podcast content :) I was so excited to finally be on Minnie Ingersoll and TenOneTen Ventures’ LA Venture Podcast. She grew this platform massively while I was on the operating side and it was such an honor to have this be my first interview since returning to VC. Minnie and I chatted poolside in her backyard in Pasadena and covered a lot of ground: - 🚀Why I think distribution and GTM is potentially a greater early moat than product in an AI-native world - 1️⃣ Is first mover advantage still a thing?! -🕵🏽‍♂️ How I think about channel vs integrated product partnership dynamics and why most of them dont work! -💰 What is (and isn’t) exciting to me and Fika Ventures in marketplaces, supply chain, commerce enablement, and more - 🧐 Why we love investing in subject matter and domain experts at Fika more than technology experts learning new domains - 🤝 What makes our partnership and team special at Fika Ventures and how we think about working with founders - 🪢 and finally, why Pejman Nozad and I have more in common than I do with most VCs! Shout outs to friends and colleagues like Tianxiang (TX) Zhuo, John Chen, Gabriella Brignardello, Route, Michael Tam, Troy Henikoff, and more in this one. And most importantly, thanks for having me, Minnie Ingersoll!

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Ezra Klein opens his podcast, with AI Expert, Ethan Mollick, with an all too relatable preamble: “I consistently sort of wander up to the A.I., ask it a question, find myself somewhat impressed or unimpressed at the answer. But it doesn’t stick for me. And I think that failure matters. I think getting good at working with A.I. is going to be an important skill in the next few years.” In the next hour, Klein and Mollick go back and forth with some of the most insightful and practical AI guidance I’ve heard.  For example: Ethan Mollick: "A.I. is built like a tool. It’s software…But because of how it’s built, because of how it’s constructed, it is much more like working with a person than working with a tool. In fact, there’s some early evidence that programmers are the worst people at using A.I. because it doesn’t work like software. It doesn’t do the things you would expect a tool to do. Tools shouldn’t occasionally give you the wrong answer, shouldn’t give you different answers every time, shouldn’t insult you or try to convince you they love you. And I find that teachers, managers, even parents, editors, are often better at using these systems, because they’re used to treating this as a person.” See comments below for some of my other favorite sound bites. I definitely encourage everyone to listen. https://lnkd.in/gjmHCEvq

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🚀 Big kudos to Partiful for snagging Google’s App of the Year Award! 🏆 If you haven’t jumped on the Partiful train yet, it's time to check out why this NYC-based gem is redefining events and beyond! 🌟 💡 I've been low-key obsessed with Partiful for a while now. Who knew Partiful could work as a tool for early access brand product launches!  It’s not just about creating an invite; it’s about building a mini-community that hypes your launch before AND after! Here’s what we tested recently: 1. Build the hype: Use a hyper-segmented audience and point them to the exclusive Partiful invite. 🎟️ Here's our launch: https://lnkd.in/g-cCshBF? 2. Engage the VIPs: Interact with your micro-community on Partiful, making them feel special with early access perks. Send them your early access product drop link before any other customer gets it. 🫶 3. Blast off 📲: Send FREE texts & MMS through Partiful to keep the excitement alive! 4. Behind-the-scenes magic: Share fun BTS content to tease the launch! 📸✨ 5. Keep the momentum: Post-launch, encourage your community to share their photos and experiences! Keep the fun rolling long after the launch. 🎉 Wishlist for Partiful: A sub-product for brands where we can capture email & SMS opt-ins directly through invites and create a more branded experience. This could be THE way Partiful monetizes while helping brands build relationships! Or perhaps a retention platform should clone this... SMS VIP texts blasts are starting to get boring and stale... pssst... Eric Miao 🔥 Anyway, glad to see consumers other than gen-z using Partiful... I'd love to see more brands create engaging and social experiences around product launches. Any other fun examples out there? Kudos to our internal team for helping pull this off! Charlotte Meier Winnie So Daniela Bascunan Reese Gonzales Jeremy Linaburg Adam Hayim Jobim Aragon #Innovation #Partiful #ProductLaunch #CommunityBuilding #MarketingTools

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This is a wake-up call to all retailers and brands CEO/CDOs/CMOs, you are going in the WRONG direction. Stop competing with commodity commerce sites like Amazon and Walmart and start innovating. You all “say” the right things at trade shows: “better customer experiences” “personalization” “real connections and brand engagement” Yet your actions are the OPPOSITE You don’t encourage your teams to take any risks or come up with creative ideas. You have teams of paper pushers. Everyone is looking to press a button or implement the newest Acme Company technology (yes, a Roadrunner cartoon reference). You are looking for the latest AI bot to do the trick Newsflash, consumers hate bots…no matter how smart they are You are cutting programs left and right, reducing customer service hours, getting rid of free returns You are being lazy You're playing defense not offense You need to do some real work, some elbow grease type stuff Case in point: When Domino's pledged to get you your pizza in under 30mins – that took effort and it worked. It was all about the customer experience. When Enterprise said “we’ll pick you up” – that wasn’t a push the button effort, it was a program and executed well. When my friends at Sweetwater promise you access to a real musician expert 1:1 to help buy the right products, that was a real effort (and it worked, driving their DTC to $1.7B) The biggest risk is the risk you don’t take. NEED Help? Here’s an example of an idea to inspire creative thinking – it may be a terrible idea but I want to get the point across on how you NEED to be dissecting the customer experience and coming up with creative solutions I call it Pizza Party - that will both drive conversion and reduce returns for apparel brands Hire fit models of varying sizes and body types near you warehouse For every new drop, have them try on the clothes and record their fit feedback Share that feedback on every PDP page Have fun with it, make your fit models ambassadors and show their personalities. 6 fit models $500/a day x 3 days of work = $7,500 1 Producer at $500/day x 3 days - $1,500 8 times a year = $72,000 Web manager to project manage this whole thing - $100,000 For $172K a year An apparel brand doing $50M GMV a year with 30% returns – that’s $15M in lost revenue + probably another $1M in return logistics A 2% drop in returns would recover approx. $1M in revenues Add another 2% conversion lift and that’s another $1M in revenues Net net - $2M gained for $172K spent Sounds like a pretty freaking good ROI to me any my CVR and reduction in returns #s are conservative  Plus you’ll get some amazing content, brand ambassador, etc etc That’s old school innovation stuff You get my point – start innovating.

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Starting a new fun project with Victor Lee - an AMA series with early stage founders. There are many podcast shows featuring successful, famous entrepreneurs. But what about those who are still relatively early in their journey, perhaps just one step ahead? The zero-to-one founders who have recently cracked the product-market fit and raised Seed or Series A capital. They may not have figured out everything yet, but they have fresh, relatable tips and advice to share. We’ll invite early-stage founders for a one-hour AMA session. Afterwards, we’ll create a public webpage featuring each Q&A session with media clips and transcriptions. This will be 100% free and open to the public. Our first AMA (June 11 1pm PST) will feature Will Drewery, whose company (Diagon) recently raised $5.1 million in Seed funding. We’ll get to know Will better and cover topics such as tips on raising funding in this tough environment. It will be a fun AMA, and you can register for free using the link below. RSVP now!

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Bravo to Julie Crabill and the team at Fathom.org for this eye-opening, nuanced take on #AI's impact on American society. The research indicates not just the business and productivity impacts of AI we like to talk about, but also impacts on public policy, bipartisan viewpoints, and the growing lack of trust in the tech companies who are on the forefront of AI development. A great read and something for me to keep in mind as I work with organizations grappling with AI. Marie Gill, Gina Jeneroux, MBA FLPI, Mark Wayman, Allie K. Miller ORG AI Download the report from the Fathom site. https://fathom.org/

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AdAttributionKit: Unpacking Apple’s new ad attribution framework AAK unifies Apple’s various advertising attribution frameworks under a single umbrella product name and extends SKAdNetwork in meaningful ways, including with support for re-engagement and alternative app marketplaces. These are substantive improvements. But impediments to adoption remain: IP-based attribution is still widely viewed as a suitable alternative to Apple’s native iOS attribution framework, meaning that platform tools like Conversion APIs will take adoption priority.

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I wrote two term sheets this week into startups backed by amazing founding teams, and in both cases I recommended a pivot to the team’s initial GTM strategy.   Sometimes being well networked, or building in a white hot problem space can be a gift and a curse when it catches the attention of enterprise customers.   On paper, it is the exact type of validation a funding team is seeking as they work through an initial version of their product, but more often than not it has the potential to derail a startup’s potential for success.   The startups in question were both experiencing this exact dynamic.  In one case, the team had caught the eye of one of the largest robotics companies in the world and begun conversations around a potential partnership.   The second company is backed by a 20 year industry veteran with a deep rolodex of enterprise customers within his ICP.  Some of the largest retailers in the world were engaging in conversations around piloting his product.  As I explained to both of these founders, this was amazing validation, but should also not be the focal point of their initial GTM.   The reality is, in order to successfully deploy within either of these customers, they were looking at a long and arduous path, filled with security reviews and product feature sets that realistically an early stage pre-seed company with 2 founders could not deliver upon.   My advice to them, continue those conversations, with the realization that they could take 1 year+ before realistic deployments, but focus the lion’s share of their GTM energies toward customers with lower deployment hurdles, in this case Series A/B backed robotics companies and $50M-$250M retailers.    To be clear, the  genuine interest from these enterprises is a massively positive indicator on the problem/solution set they are building for, and it is part of the reason we are bullish on the market opportunity of each startup.  I’ve just seen so many startups fail to deploy an initial product and ultimately never raise a seed round because they get stuck in a seemingly never ending enterprise sales cycle.

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Have a story to tell... Use Narratize AI Co-Authoring platform to tell your stories in an impactful manner. Katie Trauth Taylor, PhD and the entire team is committed to helping you in becoming amazing storytellers. Check out their impressive work at https://lnkd.in/gnNYHSSX Start telling your stories with Narratize AI as your co-author. #generativeai #storytelling #innovation #aicoauthoring #innovators #researchers #impactstories #startups #problemsolvers #AI #AIStartup

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Exciting news to share today: Stamped is joining forces with Repeat! I got introduced to Kim Stiefel and Sarah Wissel back in February, and it felt like a perfect fit right out of the gate. Repeat had evolved out of the needs of their own CPG brand, the product immediately clicked for me from the first demo, and most importantly - I've never heard customers talk about a software company the way Repeat's did when I got to speak to a few of them. That's a function not only of how much the Repeat team has put into those customer relationships & the core product, but also how big of a need Repeat is addressing in the personalization space. Back when I was at Away, we had an A+ retention marketing team. I had an awesome team of 7 on the data side, and much of their time went toward partnering to drive marketing outcomes. We were growing topline fast on the back of a balanced ads + brand acquisition strategy. We had an expanding product set meant to boost LTV in an otherwise low-repeat luggage category (backpacks, accessories, duffels, etc). And we had a big valuation that was predicated on that LTV story expanding. Basically, we had all of the people and motivation in the world to figure out how to maximize re-engagement and repeat business. And still, it was incredibly difficult to actually deliver the personalized experience that we knew we needed to. Like any other company, the product catalog was optimized for website merchandising, not marketing. 5 versions of the same sku labeled v1, v2, v2a, v3, vSummer2019 so you could connect it to small variations in the product development cycle. Basic email marketing tools were too simple & non-dynamic, and the earlier versions of Customer Data Platforms were taxing to build around. Personalizing the timing and featured products in a message based on a customer's attributes and purchase history generally meant spider-webbed branching logic & brittle dynamic templates. We managed to drive some pretty good outcomes mostly by throwing an army of very talented marketing + data people at it - but even a comparably high-growth DTC brand in 2024 is probably operating with 25% of the headcount that we were given changes in the funding & macro environment. And most of the problems above have gotten marginally better, if at all. This is what Repeat has been obsessively solving. Cutting through this messiness to surface the right product(s), at the right time, in a user-specific way, automated across email, SMS and cart. Given all the work we've already been putting in at Stamped to surface targeted user-generated content and individually tailored Loyalty incentives, this combination moves us into a great position to deliver genuine personalization across the board starting today.

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As we’re building the Next-Gen Attention Platform, AI is naturally a core part of our business. Love to see Gareth Leeding leading the charge for creativity and data here. #gaming #advertising #marketing #ai

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The consumer news, brands, people, places, things that captured my attention last week: 1. Kiehl’s starts selling on Amazon — (from WWD) https://lnkd.in/gxA2mDWH 2. Gap raises full year forecast and Zac Posen bets on celebrities to revive the brand — (from WWD & Vogue Business Instagram) https://lnkd.in/gxA2mDWH 3. The flat lay is back — (from Glossy) https://lnkd.in/gxA2mDWH 4. DTC Briefing: Startups are pursuing a mix of credit and equity amid fractures in funding — (from Modern Retail) https://lnkd.in/gxA2mDWH 5. The fight for influencer marketing dollars heats up with a lawsuit — (from BoF) https://lnkd.in/gtWGAb6A 6. 96% of Ulta’s sales run through their loyalty program — BoF Case study on loyalty — (from BoF) https://lnkd.in/ghZ9Gx-u 7. Abercrombie’s stock surges 24% as they capitalized on “wedding weeks” — (from CNBC) https://lnkd.in/guzQKu8U 8. Golden Goose sells $500 dirty sneakers — they’re raising €100M in an IPO — (from WSJ) https://lnkd.in/gi94ff54 9. L Catterton leads $40M Series A investment for Squared Circles — (from PR Newswire) https://lnkd.in/gdJzvTij

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After nearly 5 life-changing years, as Walnut enters its next growth phase, I sought my investors’ blessing to find a U.S.-based leader for the company and to continue supporting the company in a supportive board role. Today, we’re very humbled to welcome San Francisco-based Eric Anderson, former President and executive of top GTM companies, as the company’s new CEO. Being the Founder/CEO of a startup that took off within a couple of months with a waitlist of 700 companies, and evolved into a whole new tech category, where dozens of companies have raised hundreds of millions in venture capital and was rapidly adopted by hundreds of enterprise customers, has been the wildest ride of my life. We also saw an online movement explode, and built a brand inspiring people to make a change —all amidst COVID lockdowns, bank crashes, global wars, and a heartbreaking situation in Israel which has just entered its second year with no resolution. I couldn’t have navigated the business without the best team a founder could possibly ask for 🩷 , and I’ll be very lucky to get to work with any of them in my future endeavors. I’ll continue supporting Eric in leading Walnut for the foreseeable future, and I’m incredibly grateful to our board for supporting the company through this transition. (NFX, Eight Roads, Felicis, Gigi Levy-Weiss, Eyal R., Jake Storm, Viviana Faga, Yair Amit). P.S. - I will, of course, forever be a prospect. First, off to get a new shirt. #WeAreProspects

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I’m thrilled to be announcing that Notion Capital is leading the $15m Series A investment in Cogna today. In the industry, we like to think that software has been eating the world. But when you look at the data a better description would be more of a nibble. Depending on what source you look at the software industry represents between 5-8% of global GDP. Contrast that with the services industry that represents between 60-70% of GDP and worth around $25 trillion on a global basis. Most services have been out of reach for the software industry. They have either been too complex or too specialized for off the shelf software to access in any economically viable way. But that’s beginnning to change with GenAI leading to the emergence of ‘service as a software.’ Cogna is at the forefront of this opportunity - building precision software at scale and delivering huge productivity gains for traditional industries. We know Ben Peters & Lars Mennen well having backed their previous company Five AI that was acquired by Bosch in 2022. And we’re very excited to be backing them again together with Hoxton Ventures & Chalfen Ventures Read my full blog post on why we invested here. Radu Bozga Ben Peters Lars Mennen Bryan G. Mike Chalfen Hussein Kanji Kirsten Connell https://lnkd.in/eh8mhcJb

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