Mark Phillip

Congrats to these amazing #Colorado Startups! Some fun facts: - In 2023, Colorado’s venture capital scene demonstrated resilience and growth, with $4.3 billion invested across 496 deals despite a national slowdown.  - Colorado's strong network of incubators and accelerators, including Techstars and Boomtown Innovation, provide invaluable mentorship and support, further fueling the region's growth. 1. Opopop - can't wait to try out some of your tasty popcorn flavors! 2. Flatfile - I think every business could benefit from some #data clean-up help. 3. True Anomaly - The Jackal Autonomous Orbital Vehicle (AOV) and the Mosaic intelligent operating system sound like fascinating innovations 4. Strive Health - Kidney conditions? Check them out. 5. revnt - an all-in-one video platform for coaches, webinars + courses. 6. FlightLink - Air pooling platform 7. Leafwire Media - Centralied hub for challenges facing the cannabis business and more 8. Long Play Inc - Wellness brands distributor 9. Bluestaq - data management solutions 10. Quantinuum - Quantum, computing! https://lnkd.in/g4dmXkUM

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We got the Digioh Leadership team together in Austin to kick off Q3 🚀 Each team member presented on the history and future of the function they lead, which I learned a ton from I started by providing an overview of my guiding Partnerships Principles 1) Give First 2) Build Real Relationships Then got into what I believe to be the "Partnerships Flywheel" Executive Buy-In → Tech Partners → Co-Marketing/Customer Stories → Agency Program 🔄 Next, I discussed the Q2 results that WE achieved (my first full quarter on the job) - Partner pipeline grew 500% YoY - Activated 2 new strategic tech partners (Tapcart & Skio) - Doubled down on our strategic partnership with Klaviyo and presented to their team in Boston - Partnered with Tapcart, Triple Whale, Rebuy Engine, and Yotpo on our first-ever webinar, and drove 600+ registrants - Partnered with Sticky Digital, AMB Interactive LLC, Magnet Monster, Fluency Firm, and ATTN Agency on our first "DTC on Easy Mode" ebook - Created a Partnerships Wiki so we can scale, built an Agency Pipeline (and added 40+ new agencies to it), optimized our CRM, and rolled out a tech partner SPIFF program But most importantly, I believe we SENT more referrals TO our partners than any other quarter in company history (see above - Give First ☝) How does this happen? Again, see above - Exec Buy-In ☝ Rishi Shah (CEO) started Digioh as a partner-first company. Back then, his whole GTM strategy was convincing platform partners to include his apps in their help docs. We've come a long way since then and the partner-first mindset has only grown. Allison K. (CRO) has been a Partner Leader at some of the MarTech ecosystem's fastest-growing companies and intentionally hires people with experience in partnerships or at least a partner-centric mindset. Blake Imperl (VP Marketing) has built his entire career around successful Partner Marketing. None of the Q2 highlights above would be possible without our lockstep collaboration. He's a huge reason I joined this team. Alexandra Cassis (VP Customer Success) has spent time building Partner Enablement programs and as a Partnerships Director. She said during this week's offsite that she knows our success in Partnerships is predicated on her team's ability to leverage partners to become more consultative with our clients, an initiative we're going to be teaming up on in Q3. Talk about a Partnership leader's dream of a CS leader! And finally, our newest hire Val Geisler!! As VP of Customer Marketing, she's already being intentional about bringing partners into the stories we'll be telling in market and including partners as we build an enablement program. Partnerships is a team effort. Full stop. Boy am I glad to be on this one 😎

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Peloton Interactive dodged a bullet. They bought time. But the giant question mark remains: what is the future of this company? CNBC crystalizes the issue: when a company's churn exceeds new customer acquisition, how does it stabilize, let alone grow? Time for a trip down memory lane... Shortly after PTON's 167.43 peak (January '21), I hosted a group of Wall Streeters for an informal bbq at my house. I shared with them two predictions (convictions). First, "if PTON hits the discount switch before Labor Day, dump the stock. That's your signal that the wheels are coming off." Second, "PTON has built a goldmine they absolutely must leverage. Riders are doing 20-ish rides per month. On the face of it, that is amazing. But consider that this means PTON is only relevant to its customers for 45 minutes a few days per week. And that relevance is hugely dependent on fresh content and cult of personality. Super high risk." Check. Check. Simeon Siegel, CFA has the right idea with the "bear hug," which I agree, makes sense. However, since the peak, I've advocated for PTON to take the bear hug a key step further and think "how can we be relevant to our customers multiple times per day regardless of whether they do a class? How can we deliver value if a customer were to decide 'you know what, I'm kinda done with spinning.' Can we retain them, even then?" If the company is ready to get religion around core customer LTV, retention and referral, this is essential. The good news is the opportunity sits in plain sight. The choice need not be "are we a NetFlix-like content company or are we a hardware company company" as Gabrielle Fonrouge suggests. There's a third, much more attractive option just waiting to be seized. DM me if you're curious to learn more. Jennifer C. Karen Boone Chris Bruzzo #fitness #turnaround #LTV #digitalfitness #homefitness #wellness #health https://lnkd.in/efu36XBD

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I spent a lot of my operating career marketing to technical audiences at Facebook, Box, and Scalyr. My running joke was I love engineers so much I married one (shout out Chris Estreich!). I talk to a lot of founders of dev-focused companies who think they need someone technical or with an engineering background to run marketing. That's a mistake. You need a marketer who is excited to dive in and immerse themselves in their audience, in this case, engineers (and there are many flavors of engineers/devs). There are some areas, like creating technical content, that as a marketer, you need to work with others in your company to do well. I'm excited to be partnering with Justin Gage on a guest post for our MKT1 newsletter focused on how to create technical content. For all my dev marketers out there- who do you think does technical content well right now?

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I’m a fan of symmetry in story arcs, and in this case a career journey. When I left SunPower to start BrightReps, I convinced my brother Matt M. to join me. Neither of us really knew what we were getting into with trying to build a product and company from scratch. A couple years in, we realized there was still a long and difficult road ahead, and decided that both of us having all our eggs in the startup basket might not be the best idea. Matt joined Workday, while I hunkered down and kept going. One thing I underappreciated when starting a company, especially in B2B SaaS, is the importance of sales. When I met Brittani D., I realized that she was the co-founder we needed to turn our product into a real business. Together we hustled, stayed lean, and got enough traction to join the W21 batch of Y Combinator. Getting into YC had been a dream of mine since before I became an entrepreneur, and the actual experience was nothing short of amazing, 10/10 would recommend. We wouldn’t have made it to that point without Brittani, her energy, tenacity, and relentless confidence. I’m grateful she joined when she did. After YC, we were fortunate to raise money from some great investors, and began building a real business. Judy Loehr led our rebrand from BrightReps to FlowEQ, and we hired an awesome team that truly understands and cares about the value FlowEQ brings to customers. Andrew Wilkinson and Geran Smith know about this value better than anyone being former customers themselves! I’m incredibly proud of the team we built at FlowEQ, with a special shoutout to Kevin Pariso, who I worked virtually side-by-side with over the past 3 years and has grown into an extremely talented engineer. I know our customers are in good hands, but I will miss working with them all. Now back to other side of the arc. I spent my 20s transitioning from finance and discovering my passion for software while at SunPower. For most of my 30s, I worked to turn that passion into a business of its own with FlowEQ. I turned 40 this year, and for this chapter I wanted to take everything I learned about being scrappy, resourceful, and constantly improving, and bring that back into a big company delivering software products at scale. It turns out, my brother had been at this pretty great company like that right in our backyard. This time around, it was Matt who convinced me to join him at Workday. Thank you to everybody who supported us on the journey of turning the idea for BrightReps into FlowEQ, and to the team that’s continuing to take it to the next level. I’m excited to be back to working with family again at Workday, and am looking forward to helping them ship great software at scale!

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A room full of some of the brightest minds I met in Austin, and we will be doing it again... I wanted to spend my last night catching up with brilliant investor and friend Gage Gailloux so we decided to invite the coolest people we knew out for drinks (very last minute). So after sending out a couple of invites, the list of interested members quickly grew to be too much for the original plan. Thankfully Samantha Brown was kind enough to host at Q-Branch when the gathering quickly outgrew the single booth we had at the Irish pub. It turned out to be a room of incredibly interesting people! Here are some highlights from the conversations I had: -My conversation with Saad Siddique stood out to me as our startups are in similar lifecycle stages. He is an AI researcher doing some really interesting things at Microsoft, and he had some refreshing takes on the future landscape of AI. He was able to chop up every part of startup strategy which displayed his well-rounded approach--something I have grown to appreciate. -I spoke with JJ Tavernier - I'm Hiring about the exciting things he is exploring with his engineering team. They are applying ML to their investing strategy and seeing great potential emerge. We also talked through some examples of factoring and how it is applied in cross-border trade which is always fun. -I learned about M&A from Rohan Karthik and dove deeper into the world of private equity acquisitions. I will definitely be picking his brain more the next time we get together. -Larry Combs and I discussed the obstacles that fintech startups face when trying to work with regional banks as customers, and he explained the creative ways that he is helping individuals manage credit cards! -I continued to pick the brain of Daniel Castle whom I met at the Antler co-working event earlier in the week. He is a very capable engineer over at Apple right now and is investigating all of the cool projects in Austin, so if you are a founder doing something cool, be sure to connect with him! -Josh Raper and I talked about all things branding, business, and trade! This was toward the end of the evening (several cervezas in for me) so, of course, I started to talk about my wife and how awesome she is. Josh was kind enough to indulge the conversation so we ended up swapping stories about how we met our spouses and the intricacies of having a partner who understands the entrepreneurial journey. (BTW if you want to pick the brain of a data-driven strategist, be sure to connect with Josh!) -I had a great conversation with my new friend Norman H. about his near-term goals as a startup founder. I am excited to see what he builds. We met at the Pitch and Run event here in ATX, and he shared with me lessons he learned from his mentors and the types of frameworks he is building on--which is always fun to learn about. If you would like to receive an invite to the next one in ATX, let me know below and I will be sure to add you to the invite list.

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Lately a few companies in the Collectibles space initiated a few new programs pushing towards targeted customer segments with some live ops. I love seeing this, but think many are missing a bigger opportunity -- opportunity to engage the broader Community that is at the heart of amplifying the "hits" -- many never spend but contribute by watching and creating content via reposting. This is a very critical aspect in a collectibles total value. A value that I think its made up by the actual collectible, its provenance, and the community "amplifying". To me this is the BIGGEST area untapped in the value creation. Events should target this segment as well to enable them with tools to amplify the reach organically, which reinforces the collectible and the events. However, PSA's latest 'event' that is created for the Nationals is a great step forward. They are targeting existing collectors' core 'loop' of collecting. In this case, vaulting or submitting a card -- these are engagements they do without any incentive, but for the Nationals, you get an entry to get a spot in a break with industry known figures, in this case Collectors execs. What I like: - They are giving added 'value' or 'utility' to a collectors normal collecting habits -- great way to create extra incentive - They get the potential to get additional items from valuable vintage sets which is a good 'chase' item to give a real value What I think is a missed opportunity: - They give you a chance in a break with PSA execs, which is fine, but I think it would be a stronger event if they had it with a key player from the sets they are giving you a spot in -- that gives a stacking value multiplier on winning a spot and with a key player relevant to it, and the chance of pulling the key hit -- this is a much bigger potential 'event' to activate the community to amplify vs. execs - They should consider broadening the event to include a spot for folks just viewing or attending in person or online -- some streamers do a good job of creating volume by scheduling programming that does giveaways every 5 minutes to keep folks engaged and create a bigger 'event' at little cost But overall, I love the industry (Collectors, Fanatics, Whatnot, Panini America and the #thehobby) for trying. For the full details of the event: https://lnkd.in/gU4aRSeH

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Big day for Stacker. We’ve lived many lives - from publication, to Studio, to distribution platform. But one thread has tied it all together - a commitment to building out the largest network and infrastructure for syndicating great editorial. Distribution is the most overlooked part of a successful content strategy - that’s why our Studio was paired with built-in distribution from day one. But even though Stacker has helped 100s of orgs distribute content, our homepage didn’t say what we did - and it’s admittedly been too hard to understand the full picture. That changes today, with our new website @ stacker.com With all content available to publishers via the wire now @ stacker.com/stories See the full writeup here - https://lnkd.in/e6Cev8wF Onwards!

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Boulder, CO has a thriving startup community, with thousands of founders, CEOs, engineers, VCs, and more. Every year, they get together for a huge (free!) week of community and events. It's f'ing unbelievable. One of my biggest takeaways was this... Everyone was dealing with imposter syndrome. And almost nobody wants to talk about it. At every level of business there’s always someone who’s doing better… There’s always someone who’s got more revenue and more profit… There’s always someone who has something you want… And you currently aren’t at that level yet. Which - at worst - paralyzes you because of all the work you see in front of you… Or - at best - inspires you so much that you have no choice but to put in the work to get to the next level. Or more realistic… It’s an emotional roller coaster between those two extremes. Which keeps you moving, while also making you question if you should burn it down some days. I’ve done a TON of mindset work… It’s possible to take these big mental and emotional issues like imposter syndrome, and massively decrease (sometimes eliminating) their impact on you. But even then… When I put myself in a new environment, rubbing shoulders with $100m (or more) entrepreneurs and investors… OUCH - it flares up again, my skin flushes, I feel the adrenaline/cortisol mix moving blood to my extremities in a fight/flight response. Which then makes me feel like more of an imposter... Because “I’m supposed to be the mindset guy who doesn’t deal with this kind of issue, aren’t I?! I must be a fraud! I hope nobody finds out!” If we can come to terms with this fact (again, I know you’ve heard this before)… That every new level has a new set of mindset problems, and business problems… That very new level will demand so much more of you… That every new level will cause you to feel imposter syndrome again… Then we can allow ourselves to be scared shitless sometimes. It’s what you do next that matters most.

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I’m not sure who needs to hear this, but Apple is worth +3 trillion dollars, and yet... this is the design they chose for their mouse charger. - You’re doing better than you think. It’s easy to feel like everything you create needs to be perfect, but even the biggest companies have their quirks. The key is to keep moving forward and remember that success is built on progress, not perfection. Sometimes, good enough is all you need to get to the next level. And maybe... sometimes, you just need to be Apple, and it doesn’t matter how you do it. Follow Endrit Restelica for more. #tech #innovation

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Pumped for a week of awesome content and conversations with the Denver startup community 🙌 Join me and Bob McNeil at 4p on 9/17 for a chat on how generative AI can supercharge productivity for founders and sellers! Don't miss one of the use cases I'll present, which teaches how to enhance your post-conference follow-ups with generative AI. I'll be demonstrating a practical framework to automate and personalize your follow-up emails. Attendees will learn how to leverage AI to maintain the momentum of conference relationships effectively, ensuring those new connections evolve into meaningful business opportunities. Join us to see how this technology can streamline your networking efforts and turn brief encounters into lasting relationships. #denverstartupweek #founders #genAI

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Sucker for a good sports analogy. Noah Marks was brimming with the best ones in the latest The GTM Podcast episode - I think I counted a total of 4 sports analogies. One of my favorites he expressed emphasized the importance of going back to basics of adaptability and how that applies to pipeline health 👇 In pretty much every sports movie out there, it's about the fundamentals. It's about the plays. Take the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame (🏈) Back in the 1920s, the coach Knute Rockne had a team. He had four players - a quarterback, a running back, and two fullbacks. Nobody threw the ball. They played both sides of the line. Those players were interchangeable - they knew what was happening with their other teammates in any given play. So even though they: ✖ weren't the fastest ✖ weren't the strongest ✖ weren't the biggest ✅ they could adapt quickly By knowing and depending on where other folks in the organization were, they were able to make the needed shifts. Each one could be placed into the other's position and they would understand fundamentally what they're doing, understand what their role is, and what they need to do to make the team successful. The results speak for themselves - they were undefeated except for a few games in four years, which is incredible. 📈 This also applies to how Noah thinks about pipeline health. There were times where people were sort of relying on leads coming in and had great models that essentially positioned them to have a clipboard out ready to take an order. But being adaptable to different positions and needs is key, and emphasizes the importance of one of the main concepts covered in the episode - the emerging role of a generalist specialist.

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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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Palantir is having a moment right now. For those who've been on the inside, it's no surprise—more like a rite of passage. And not to be reductive, but IMO it all comes down to one practice: Peter Thiel's philosophy of relentless pursuit to hire your smartest friends. Palantir was conceived by Thiel in 2003. In the wake of 9/11, there was a surge in investing in security. Coupled with his experience at PayPal—where the primary challenge was detecting fraud amid countless legitimate transactions—Thiel envisioned leveraging data analytics for counterterrorism. After selling PayPal, Thiel was running a fund, where he hired a brilliant young mind named Joe Lonsdale. In late 2003, as Thiel was conceptualizing Palantir, he teamed Lonsdale with one of PayPal's smartest engineers, Nathan Gettings, to bring the idea to life. Their first addition to the founding team? Lonsdale's smartest friend and Stanford fraternity brother, Stephen Cohen. While the team was incredibly strong, Thiel wanted "grey hair in the room". So he brought in the final co-founder: his brilliant friend from Stanford, Alex Karp, to serve as CEO. The pattern of recruiting the brightest minds continued. Lonsdale and Cohen relentlessly pursued their exceptionally talented fraternity brother, Garry Tan, ultimately convincing him to join the team. Tan wore many hats—even designing the company's logo. Soon after, Shyam Sankar the now CTO joined, and two decades later, he led the adoption of LLMs in Palantir's products. And on and on the pattern went, incentivised by a strong referral policy. Fast forward twenty years, and Palantir is having an incredible run, entering the top 100 most valuable companies. That aside, it feels like half of the YC companies have ex-Palantir founders, and even generational companies have been built by its alumni. John Kim literally runs out of post space, writing about Pal founded startups. My point in all of this: making it your top priority to bring the smartest people you know into your mission seems like a philosophy that will inevitably, eventually succeed. As a young founder, that's what's been on my mind lately. And how do you convince them? Most are attracted to growth, so maintaining momentum is key—you need to relentlessly push forward. And when tough times come, and growth stalls, as it did for Palantir ~2015-2022, how do you continue crafting a narrative that attracts winners during those periods? That's contextual, and I can’t answer that. But if you've hired smart people, you're in good company to figure it out—just as Palantir did. And yes, I'm clearly biased—I met my best friends, lifelong mentors, my co-founder, and even my wife (to-be) at Palantir. But does that actually make me biased, or further prove my point? And Ted, we've seen your messages about returning to the Shire. While many of us who ventured out to pursue our own paths might not return, it's comforting to know we have a home. Once a hobbit, always a hobbit. Go Palantir!

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Yesterday, I attended a panel at the Capital Factory for Austin Tech week focused on storytelling across 3 distinct mediums: newspapers, podcasts, and videos. A key takeaway was understanding the effectiveness of your storytelling. 1. Did you hook the listener? 2. Did you invoke the desired emotion? 3. Did they take the action you hoped would occur? The scorecard is binary: Did it work or not? If not, tweak your narrative for your next call or email until the desired outcome is achieved. P.S. Brainstorm every objection you could receive and create compelling narratives behind it. This will turn all your stories into assets you can shape and pull from in different situations. And if you are always going after the same type of person, these narratives will keep sharpening each at bat.

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🚨 Key Framework for Successful Exec Searches 🚨 When it comes to hiring execs, most founders don’t spend enough time on one crucial step: setting up the search right from the start. I recently joined Daniel Huerta and Stephen Huerta for the The Modern People Leader podcast to talk through this and Index's latest book Scaling Through Chaos. Things to bear in mind with exec searches: 1️⃣  Define Priorities Early: Before jumping into the search, figure out the must-haves and nice-to-haves. And get your team involved early. 2️⃣  Choose the Right Partner: A great search partner should not only be able to tell your story in the market but also be willing to give you tough feedback when needed. True partnership = accountability. 3️⃣  Think Creatively: Don’t focus solely on hiring the person who checks all the boxes today. Look for the candidates who can grow into the role and lead you into the future. 4️⃣  The Hiring Doesn’t Stop When They Sign: onboarding is just the beginning. It takes a year or more for a new exec to fully hit their stride, so it’s crucial to keep supporting them beyond day one. Check out the podcast link in the comments to the full episode! #ExecutiveSearch #Founders #Leadership #HRLeadership #Hiring #Scaling #PeopleOps

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