Michael E. Dunn

I just wrapped up a panel with the Marketing Leadership affinity group within the How Women Invest community with my hero Auntie Nancy Hayes, aka the Yoda of board membership, angel investing, and general badassery. We talked about different ways to serve on boards, a role in which experienced Marketers seem to be often underrepresented. Why? If I had to guess, I'd say: 1 - Most heads of marketing are women 2 - marketing is undervalued, especially under sales/revenue experience 3—Compound the first two with the messages you tell yourself about your own worthiness, and suddenly, you're a great marketer for everyone else but yourself. ___________ For those who are interested in getting closer or into the board room, there are so many ways to start/get experience: 1—Board Observer (one of my current board roles)—you represent the investor but have no votes. It is unpaid, but/and hugely essential to act as a bridge of visibility and communication between the fund you've invested with and the company in which the fund has invested. My role brings value to both sides with much less bias than the other VC board seats. 2—Corporate board director—There is much governance but not much influence on the product, as the company usually has big enough teams for that. There is a lot of hiring/firing CEOs (read: drama), which can still be fun, especially for those fresh-popcorn-in-my-bag swag kinda folks (both grossly generalizing and way understating this role's fiduciary importance, but you get the idea). 3—Independent board director—this is another of my favorite places to sit. It is much like the Board observer role but with voting rights and equity (although not always, as these terms are negotiated and influenced by the shareholding board seats). You are NOT representing a VC fund (typically), but you might have subject matter expertise in the product or are a generalist boss gal like myself and bring a sense of neutrality and balance to the board. 4—Advisor. Advisors are similar to IBD in terms of influence and type of advice but are not part of the board or its meetings. This role is usually paid in some combination of equity and cash. It's another of my faves. (Are you seeing the trend here?) We have not even touched non-profit boards (where I got my start and am currently sitting on my sixth), but we will save it for next time as it's a whole 'nother Oprah. If you want to learn more, How Women Lead is hosting its 5th annual #getonboard week, starting October 21. Hybrid virtual and in-person. Check it out: https://lnkd.in/diizwv8j #womeninleadership #boardofdirectors #howwomenlead #governance #boarddiversity #corporategovernance #boardservice #businessleadership #leadership Julie Candelon Susan Greenwood Schroeder Mikayla Ludwig

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Still feeling energized from last week's roundtable on building successful relationships with hospitals. We invited 7 portfolio companies and health system leaders from Mayo Clinic, Cedars-Sinai and UCLA Health. The founders shared their questions ranging from the strategic to the nuts and bolts of closing partnerships. For example, how do you determine what measures of effectiveness help drive alignment? And how do you get all the stakeholders together to actually drive a decision. Answer: put them all in a room for half a day! “I think we're in a pivotal moment regarding how we assess AI. There are numerous risks currently dominating AI discussions, particularly those concerning bias and other associated risks. However, there's a notable absence of focus on evaluating the proactive value of AI. We need to consider what AI actually offers and what we want it to offer. It's not solely about determining whether it will cause harm; people are apprehensive about how this technology will be implemented. One perspective gaining traction involves ensuring the product's validation process is robust enough to prevent risks to various populations.” -Vladimir Manuel, Medical Director at UCLA Health From Vlad's comments above to perspectives others shared, we heard a sense of excitement for the promise of #AI and other new technologies. But we're also in a unique moment where the risks are not well understood. Still much to do here.

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Today, Two Chairs announces $72M of new funding to continue building a world where everyone has access to exceptional mental health care. Since late 2017, when Maveron led the Two Chairs Series A, the need for mental health services has grown considerably as our society has become lonelier and more isolated than ever. At the same time, our culture’s willingness to openly acknowledge these challenges is greater than ever. Sadly, the rapid growth of Two Chairs affirms the fact that our society is in desperate need of better mental health support. Two Chairs has built a business that believes clinical quality is the defining characteristic of success. Alex Katz has always emphasized the paramountcy of measurement-based clinical outcomes, which the team works tirelessly to achieve. In the process, Two Chairs has illustrated that embracing the ‘move fast and break things’ mentality doesn’t always work. Instead, Two Chairs opted for a different approach: they went slow to go fast. They built a proprietary algorithm that matches patients with the perfect therapist at the onset and hired a team of W2 clinicians oriented toward providing the highest quality care available. Even as the Two Chairs team has grown, their culture has remained small. This has enabled more intimate relationships within the team and between clients and clinicians. Reflecting on this milestone brings me back to the founding of Maveron and the values we hold dear. In 1998, my friend Howard Schultz and I founded Maveron to help entrepreneurs build companies that improve the lives of everyday people—their employees and their customers. There is perhaps no better example of this than Two Chairs. *** Thank you to TechCrunch's Marina Temkin, CFA for the great write-up. https://tcrn.ch/4aMt7yG

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Join Vivian Chang from The Clorox Company and I in room 313 at 230pm in Vegas as we discuss transitioning to business outcomes and Ai + Human operating models. Three insights to remember: 1. The right tech & people can scale any advertiser with fixed headcount. 2. Hidden value is everywhere you just need to know where to look. 3. Evolving KPIs into business outcomes is easier than you think.

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Participating in Cohort 14 of the VC Lab has been an energizing experience so far. I am learning so much about the ins and outs of being an emerging fund manager and how to succeed in this space. Today they hosted a panel for Women in VC that provided some real world advice from some fantastic panelists. The curriculum is rigorous for sure, but rewarding. If you are curious about why this is such an exciting area check out this article. #venturecapital #vc #investing https://lnkd.in/gMMM_mwp

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For all aspiring and current angel investors – take a look at this! #angelinvesting

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My amazing cousin, Cleven Ticeson (https://lnkd.in/gWis4xX6) , a 14 time Emmy award winning producer for KCTS9 in Seattle, is a hero of mine. I grew up watching the educational shows like Bill Nye and the performing arts they would showcase. He was following the work I have been doing de-siloing the Black professional class working in venture scale entrepreneurship in the Pacific Northwest and composed a news reel covering Dreamward Group that moved me not only because he is my hyper-talented and dear cousin but because it voiced and gave me the perspective of the decades that what we’re building has been missing from the mass culture and my culture. Lewis Rudd once told me that the hardest target to hit is an invisible one and my dear cousin hit me right in the heart by speaking in his video about the unseen, but nonetheless felt, absence of inclusive capitalization of startups. Felt by the generation of Black people that watched the tech industry grow not only painting Black technologists and Black founders out of the heroic saga of tech, but Black funders as well. I am so glad that Dreamward Group is able to paint the target and make it visible through our work. Venture Capital, the financial backing of the tech industry, just like tech itself, had an evolution with foundational moments in the 70s on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley yet it’s mechanics, drama, and operation are largely unknown to the public that isn’t working in tech entrepreneurship. It’s trajectory and heights of accomplishment with Andreessen Horowitz and Madrona Ventures are parallel and analogous to Google and Amazon…But only the later two brands are household names to people outside of the industry. The world knows the story of Black people being excluded from Tech, It knows the story of Black people being excluded from executive leadership. It experienced the Obama administration and the depravity of the Trump backlash and had to ask itself why it had actively or passively participated in writing off Black professionals. Some of the world hears of Black founders getting less than 2% of invested capital, but even on hearing that, they don’t know the story of Black people being excluded from the role of deciding which startups get funded using a yet third party’s (often their own government’s) money…That is the story of Venture Capital today, and that’s what Dreamward is changing for the future.

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Big shout out to our partners at Google, especially Tom Stern, Chris Marino, and Rodrigo De Moraes for hosting Bill Nance, Jason Pfaff, and I for an excellent Brandformance LA event in the architecturally-gorgeous Spruce Goose hanger. 🛩 Here were my takeaways: 💡 1. Blurring the Lines Between Brand and Performance The old silos between brand media and performance media are disappearing. Consumers don’t see "brand ads" vs. "performance ads"—they see your story. As Google's Aprajita Jain put it: “Every touchpoint is a chance to express who you are.” It’s time to adopt a unified, performance-driven branding mindset that aligns both creative and financial objectives. And with 70% of campaign success being attributed to creative- it's critical to invest in video. 🤖 2. AI-Driven Creative: 2025 and Beyond By 2025, Google plans to use AI to auto-generate video ads for advertisers based on identified themes and audience insights. This signals a big shift towards personalized creative at scale. Exciting times ahead as we watch this tech evolve, with huge potential for more tailored, adaptive content that resonates with users across formats. 🎥 3. YouTube's Unique Consumer Reach YouTube’s audience is vast: 237M unique monthly US viewers, with 40% of Shorts users not active on IG Reels or TikTok. The platform’s multi-format approach (Shorts, long-form, TV screens) offers a rare chance to meet consumers wherever they are. For marketers, this is a call to rethink video strategy, emphasizing a fluid mix of content that captures attention across formats. 🔍 4. Rethink Measurement and Avoid “Short-Termitis” The challenge for many CMOs is aligning brand investment with CFO expectations. The advice from Google: prioritize long-term value and interconnected measurement strategies. Incrementality is key—don’t just look at immediate ROI; focus on sustainable growth and business outcomes. The key to bridging the gap between marketing and finance? Incrementality testing. By focusing on brand incrementality, you’re not just proving short-term lifts—you’re speaking the language of the CFO, showcasing the long-term value of your brand investments. This is about creating a shared narrative where marketing efforts are seen as strategic growth drivers, not just line items. Also: Google’s new Meridian Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) solution is showing strong potential in Alpha. 🌐 5. Community-Centric and Experimental Content Shorts is becoming a hub for creative experimentation, with 70 billion daily views globally. Instead of repurposing content, brands should lean into new ideas and test what resonates with emerging communities. It’s a playground for capturing authentic engagement, especially as younger demographics flock to the format. 🚀 6. AI as a Strategic Multiplier In a dynamic, high-energy session on applied AI, Google’s Gopi Kallayil emphasized Google's goal to be "your most strategic partner," (not just media partner) through AI. Level Agency YouTube

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I’m so excited to announce the new name of the vetted community for startup founders I'm building: Village Lane Village Lane connects ambitious early-stage startup founders, both in-person and online, who have at least $100k in ARR or $250k in funding. The name Village Lane is deeply personal to me... It's the street I lived on after business school, in an apartment with my friend Andrew - the kindest, most welcoming, supportive person I’ve ever met, who sadly passed away suddenly a few weeks ago at only 31 years old. It’s also the place where I went full-time on Just Go Grind for the first time when it was a daily podcast and then joined VITALIZE Venture Capital. It was a special time and place and where I took a giant leap in my career. I envision Village Lane (the community) being similar - a special place filled with kind, supportive members looking to take a giant step forward with their businesses. Several experiences have led to the creation of Village Lane: - A transformative MBA experience at USC - Working at VITALIZE Venture Capital for 2.5 years - Growing my social media audience to 40,000+ followers - Building this newsletter to 21,000+ subscribers - Hosting 400+ podcast interviews with founders & investors - Creating an angel investing community with hundreds of members Now I'm focused on helping founders connect, build their personal brand, and create more successful businesses. Village Lane's in-person events will include things like: - Co-working - Social activities - AMAs - Retreats The online component of Village Lane will include: - A member directory - Slack group - Vendor suggestions - Tech stacks - An investor database - Media exposure and amplification - Personal branding assistance We'll also phase in monthly digital peer groups as membership grows. This will all be built around our members and their needs. I’ll share more details as this evolves. Interested in joining? Learn more and apply below.

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Interesting study by Katy Milkman and others to study the impact of behavioral nudges and interventions designed to improve COVID booster adoption rates. Millions of CVS customers received reminder text messages about getting the COVID booster shot. A subset of customers also received an incentive in addition to the reminder texts - free Uber/Lyft ride to a CVS store to get the booster shot. Several different messaging strategies were used based on different decision heuristics and biases. While text reminders statistically significantly improved the vaccination rates, the absolute improvement levels were very low (adoption rate increased from roughly 5% to 6%). The three messaging strategies that produced slightly better results were: 1. Messages encouraging recipients to make a vaccination plan that suggested a specific date, time, and location based on their last vaccination 2. Messages highlighting high local COVID-19 transmission rates 3. Messages sent on behalf of the patient's local pharmacy team, letting them know there's a vaccine reserved for them Adding the "free ride" incentive to text reminders surprisingly did not improve the adoption rate any further. Before the interventions were implemented, a team of laypeople and a separate team of behavioral science PhDs were asked to forecast how much improvement in adoption rate would the interventions produce. Both groups forecasted numbers that were magnitude times higher than what was actually observed in the real-world. This is a fascinating study in human overconfidence! 1. Millions of people are overconfident that their bodies/immune systems can handle the short-term symptoms of COVID, shaped by the few anecdotal experiences and memories they have from COVID infections. 2. Even larger number of people are overconfident that they won't develop any lingering or long-term implications from COVID, shaped by the anchors of common cold/flu infections not causing any long-term harm. 3. All of us (laypeople and experts) have overconfidence that we can change other's mind/behavior on a topic, even though we can't change our own mind easily on any topic. While overconfidence is a problem that leads to many bad decisions, ironically, lack of confidence in decision-making is also a problem that humans stuggle with. For example, according to a recent survey of CEOs done by Korn Ferry, 71% of CEOs said that they have Imposter Syndrome and are not very confident in their abilities/decisions!

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Practice your #voting skills and help us highlight #regenerativefinance at SXSW!

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Excited to join Blackout Tuesday # 18 at LocalGlobe this coming Tuesday centered around the theme: 'Increasing Venture-backed Black Founders: Journey from Seed to Series A and Beyond'. This event will focus on the challenges Black founders face when scaling startups and provide insights on navigating growth stages from Pre-seed to Series A. After a panel of founders sharing their experiences, the breakout session will dive into practical strategies for scaling. ✏ Register here: https://lnkd.in/eHZpMDN2 Launched in 2020, Blackout Tuesday aims to: 1. Increase Black representation in VCs 2. Boost venture funding for Black founders 3. Elevate Black employees in venture-backed companies 4. Support Black GPs 5. Increase Black or Black-aligned LP representation Balderton Capital Phoenix Court Blackout Tuesday

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I have spent months understanding the overwhelming challenges the CMOs are faced with and the years and decades of first-hand experience addressing those leveraging data and insight into development to define these critical priorities going forward. As CMOs, our role is evolving, and it's crucial to not only understand the waves of change hitting us but also to harness them for positive transformation. Are you prepared for an AI-enabled future by empowering marketing teams with technology integration? Do you feel you need to rediscover marketing's purpose and redefine its significance within the enterprise to drive growth? Join me in harmonizing growth strategies for sustainable success! -------- I'm Helena Mah, a transformational leader and fractional CMO who helps you scale your business and bring your vision to life. Want to make it happen and unleash your business potential, drive growth, and increase the impact? Reach out and let me know. #growth #impact #technology #businessdevelopment Drop of Milk

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I’m excited about what the future of retail media means for our media tech clients but also for marketing leaders in general. BCG does a great job outlining why CMOs will want to increase retail media spend—and how RMNs need to step up their game to help them justify greater investment. If we are to believe analyst projections of $100 billion in U.S. retail media spend over the next 2-3 years, it seems many of the items on BCG’s RMN “to-do” list need to happen, especially: - Offering a more seamless customer experience across online and in-store to boost performance across the full consumer journey - Providing more and more data and actionable reports to enhance transparency, insight, targeting, and personalization - Deepening relationships to deliver increasingly tailored media solutions that are unique to each advertiser and its consumers - Achieving a level of sophistication that matches—or at least approaches—the performance, scale, and precision of leading digital ad platforms like Google and Meta (e.g., as Amazon has done) https://lnkd.in/gKJ53T-x

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Over the years, we at GFR Fund have solidified our investment thesis, which is that we invest in "emerging digitally native communities." These communities can be built around games, social media, and any consumer applications. Now, founders have many easy-to-use tools to build user communities, such as Discord, X/twitter, Instagram, etc, and we believe the founders should start building communities even before they launch a product. The communities can help founders: - reach PMF faster - acquire users cheaper - retain and engage users longer - build better UX/UI, and - hire early employees Below, you can see how RTFKT and Omeda Studios built the community and then worked with them to create a product the users really wanted. We would love to talk to the founders who think the community is essential in building a product!

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Recently, I joined Daniel Scharff on the Startup CPG Podcast to break down these core financial pillars to help founders build a resilient and scalable brand. Here’s a quick rundown: 1. Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) → Understand the full cost to develop, produce and receive each product (it’s way more than materials.) 2. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) → You need to use your CAC as your constant in the spend equation. 3. Cash Flow → Scaling without a handle on cash flow is a recipe for disaster. Too fast of growth can kill a company as quickly as too slow of growth. 4. Margins → Razor-thin margins (stand alone or via discounting) means playing on hard mode. 5. Retention Rate → Repeat customers are the foundation of long-term success in e-commerce. I break down each one in more detail on the podcast. Listen to the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/eJzypw6x

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Join us next week for an amazing panel on university ecosystems and accelerators! Not just for students and alumni - all founders can work with these giant research engines. Our all star panel will tell you how and answer your questions. #Startups

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Had a blast diving into Amir Dan Rubin's extensive healthcare career on Vital Signs. Amir previously served as the CEO of One Medical and Stanford Health Care, was an EVP at United/Optum and is now the Founding Managing Partner at Healthier Capital. Our conversation spanned payer-provider integrations, lessons learned from leading One Medical, applications of generative AI, and more. Some highlights: ⚡Combining care models We talked a lot about the One Medical/Iora combination. Amir argues that just because two care delivery approaches may occupy the same physical location (e.g., a clinic), that doesn’t mean they necessarily need to conform to the same economic model. For instance, One Medical and Iora were able to combine effectively despite the former being a membership model and the latter being global capitation. Amir emphasizes that much of the overhead resources (e.g., front desk staff, phlebotomy) can be shared across models. ⚡How One Medical uses generative AI to improve efficiency One Medical allows members to message the care team, and then uses NLP to read the message, figure out its content, and triage it to the appropriate team member. Amir is excited about leveraging internal knowledge graphs to get around hallucinations. This approach can point to relevant internal data in helping compose responses, creating more trust and accuracy in the outputs. ⚡Behind the Amazon acquisition One Medical was interested in expanding its direct to consumer offering. However, they recognized that customer acquisition was costly, which is why partnering with Amazon Prime’s existing membership base made sense for them. Amir explains how at their core, both Amazon and One Medical are all about using technology and logistics to create an excellent customer experience. An awesome conversation ranging from health system innovation to startup strategy to health tech investing! Listen to our full episode below: Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wrbnol Apple: https://apple.co/3XWOomb

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As we come to the final week of AAPI Heritage Month, something feels different. I don't recall a time when so many AAPI executives proudly held their heads so high. Celebrating with so many friends and acquaintances across industries in different cities has been a revelation. New friends and old friends have been connecting and reconnecting around the country at events from Wall Street to Hollywood to the White House. What felt like a lonely journey of climbing the ranks in Corporate America for so many just a few years ago, now feels like a true community. A community that wants to lift one another up and collectively celebrate each others wins as their own. When we wrote our letter in the Wall Street Journal almost three years ago, many people were surprised (including AAPIs) by how many companies were founded by Asian Americans. So much so that I created a list of them (https://lnkd.in/gYYnAbu) to inspire others. But people were also stunned at how many Asian Americans were in leadership roles at Fortune 500 companies. So decided to compile a list of Asian American executives across industries and sectors from Sports to Entertainment to Fashion and more. While it is still far smaller than the number should be based on the workforce demographics, we should be encouraged by the progress being made, while acknowledging that there is still a lot of work to be done. My goal was to inspire people to raise the ceiling for themselves in their careers and see what is possible. You need to see what you want to be. We are raised to be humble and to keep our heads down, but we deserve to shine and celebrate our wins too. My hope is that years from now, we won’t even have to make lists like this, because they will be too long to bother writing. Until that day, we need to lift up and support more talented people to join their ranks. Proud to have so many friends on this list. Mike Van Jenny Ming Debby Soo Deborah Liu Kenneth Lin Sabrina Ellis Paraag Marathe Faye Iosotaluno Rahul Roy-Chowdhury Tammy Henault Hannah Yang Dan Lin Albert Cheng Katherine Liu Sewell Chan Eric S. Yuan (he / him / his) Tony Xu David Ko Garry Tan James Chuong Chris Suh Tim Wan Tesa Aragones Michelle Tang Ida Liu Lisa V Chang Carol Carpenter Stefanie Tsen Ward Manny Maceda Jeff Wong Sylvia Dong #aapi #aapiheritagemonth

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