Raman Naidu

At Black Box Intelligence™, we've been closely monitoring California since the minimum wage increase in April, and the findings may surprise you! Explore the trends in sales, traffic, check growth, and staffing, particularly in comparison to the rest of the nation. https://lnkd.in/gkf2mVUf

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👉 Attention Pacific-Northwest founders ✅ Are you building in B2B SaaS/AI? ✅ Have you raised less than $250K? ✅ Had one-too-many VCs tell you you’re too early? I’d love to chat. The Pacific Northwest is home to two of the magnificent seven, the birthplace of some awesome companies (Slack, Outreach, Remitly, Redfin, Auth0 to name a few) and a magnet for great AI/technical talent. Forum Ventures, will be doubling down in this awesome ecosystem and writing more checks into B2B SaaS/AI founders for $100K+ admission to our pre-seed accelerator. Our pre-seed program is highly personalized - not your generic startup school. Here’s what you can expect: 🤝 Hands on GTM and Sales support to get you to $200k+ ARR 🌎 A community of B2B founders who have raised $1B+ in follow-on funding 🚀 An awesome Managing Director who will work alongside your team as a fractional senior operator / co-founder. They’re all former founders and have lived 0-1. 💸 No-bs investors who will help quarter back your seed round and show up through the good and the bad. 👋🏻 PNW founder? Pitch us here: https://hubs.ly/Q02tdP_r0 🙏 Not a founder? Please share with your network or tag a founder below ⬇️ cc Simon Chou Dominic Lau Richard Kerby Casey Van Maanen Ryan Holmes Adarsh Pallian Paul Irving Scott Barker Sara Lindquist John Eng Sarah Studer Jacob Laes Marius Ciocirlan Chris DeVore Brendan Wales Sheila Gulati Jen Haller Kirby Winfield Andy Liu Matt Wang Sanford W Spivey Amy Sallin Erik Benson Annie Luchsinger Lauren Glatter Bryan Hale Brian Glaister Kristopher Alford Jeffrey Manner Julian (Jay) Rhind Connor Edwards Daniel Baraghoush Kaylee Lieffers (Astle)

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All of those LinkedIn posts about layoffs aren't lying, but how deep do the tech layoffs really go? Our CMO sat down with Kevin V. Nguyen at The San Francisco Standard to talk about the current state of tech jobs. #TechHiring #hiringtrends

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For folks in my Bay Area network... Join me next week at HIGHER’s The State of TA breakfast briefing on Tuesday, June 18th at Chief Clubhouse San Francisco! I'm looking forward to catching up with a bunch of other TA leaders to discuss the challenges we’re all facing across the industry. It still feels like we are navigating uncertain times, but we'll do our best to make sense of it. I hope to see you there!! HIGHER’s The State of TA is grounded in detailed analysis from interviews with TA leaders across the US and Europe, alongside additional context provided by the panel. Here’s some of the topics we’ll cover: - Hiring and turnover: is this holding steady? - Talent quality: can this be defined and what key metrics do others use? - Talent teams: are we reaching the threshold for capacity and how do you bridge the gap between technology, efficiency, and capacity? - DEIB: is this falling down the priority list? Register today to secure your place: https://lnkd.in/gFd7TSE6 [eu1.hubs.ly] 

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Couple people reached out about this GeekWire article yesterday by Taylor Soper covering supply chain tech in Seattle, asking more about it. I really believe Seattle is a great spot for the following reasons: 1. Modern supply chains are built from the ground up to serve customers. While Amazon helped cement this, others deserve credit for their commitment to customer focus. Many of those companies are in Seattle (Nordstrom etc). I really believe that every supply chain will fail to modernize if it doesn't reorient towards its respective customer at the center. The 90s era operating models of push-based cost management and misaligned incentives will prevent true modernization. Because Seattle has had so many companies with this at their cultural core, a lot of the supply chain tech talent here is committed to this attitude. 2. Technology, in particular cloud based software engineering, and supply chain operations are now so intimately intertwined, that you can't have an operator who isn't technical (or have someone who is technical but doesn't understand operations) and still expect to modernize. Seattle is also a technology epicenter, with Microsoft/Amazon and dozens of excellent public and private companies shedding supreme technical talent. It has allowed a higher hit rate of leading technologists to infiltrate logistics tech. 3. Similar to above, I believe most supply chain problems are probabilistic in nature. There is little certainty in supply chains. This means data is the root most important thing to modern supply chains, but also that true data science with real data scientists powering real ML and AI models is critical to successful supply chains. Data science talent is all over the place here in Seattle. 4. Lastly, hard to put a finger on this one, but there is something interesting about the intersection of the profiles of startups (high risk based profiles) and supply chains (low risk based profiles). Startups and startup culture embraces change. You have to in order to be successful. Seattle is definitely a top startup ecosystem in the country, so a lot of people here are comfortable pushing boundaries. Meanwhile, operations and supply chains are historically risk averse, and for good reason. Physical atoms are involved. It's the heartbeat of organizations. Most tech is 90s era on prem stuff. It's really hard to change. I think there is something compelling about each side counter balancing each other for the best ideas for innovation coming out of it. When I look at the startups on Taylor's list, it's a lot of ideas are targeting the highest value and most fertile problems of supply chains. I think the talent here is focused on meaningful change that industries can absorb, versus too risky of ideas that will never be adopted or too small of ideas that will never make an impact. https://lnkd.in/gm4bikHb

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Weekly updates in Lattice are great! 1:1s and Updates in Lattice help our teams at Tekion Corp! #management #linkedin

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RE+ was excellent this year! My overall takeaway: credibility is key in our industry, and credibility comes from clarity and crisp execution. AI was less visibly present this year, reflecting the rediscovery that vendors should prioritize results rather than how they achieve them. Still, methods matter; use the right tool for the job, and be truthful about the tools you use. Long onboarding times plague our industry; the right mindset and tools help. SCADA and Asset Performance Management (APM) software are powerful together, and the ecosystem they operate in is flourishing, both within and outside PF. Large-format modules are increasingly available on the market. They look great on paper, but are likely to break at higher rates in practice, highlighting the disconnect between the field and the board room, and the difference between ground truth and cloud truth. Trust the people closest to the action, and give them a seat at the table. What were your main takeaways from RE+?

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Your problem: If you're not automating the leasing process, the emerging generations are going to teach you a very hard lesson, and it will occur very rapidly, as you scramble to stay in business. These prospects want access to the maximum amount of listings; they want to schedule showings rapidly, and they want this available 24/7/365. They want professional, user-friendly interfaces, with minimal friction, and results. And, self showings are growing as a percentage of overall showings, and self showings get 30% more leads. Are you even aware of this option? If you think a chat bot is automating the leasing process, you're in for a big surprise.

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Listen to our President and co-founder talk about the latest in tech and AI

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Great Place To Work® and Fortune magazine have honored Five9 as one of this year's Best Workplaces in the Bay Area. 🌟 This is Five9's second time being named to this prestigious list, coming in at No. 17. Earning a spot means that Five9 has surpassed rigorous benchmarks, establishing itself as one of the best workplaces among companies headquartered in the San Francisco Bay region. Learn more: #Five9 #BestPlacesToWork #CustomerExperience

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🚨 Why Every Talent and HR Pro Needs to Hear This Conversation 🚨 I am proud to bring you the first episode recorded live at the ERE Recruiting Conference in Anaheim! ✅ Leading off, the first of 10 interviews is Ron Fish! He is the Global Talent Acquisition Leader at Ivanti and brings over 20 years of experience leading global recruiting teams and building inclusive hiring strategies. We dive into the critical importance of disability inclusion in the workplace. This topic goes far beyond compliance; it’s about creating cultures where everyone can thrive. From personal stories to actionable strategies, Ron shares ↴ → How recruiters can serve as trusted talent advisors while empowering underrepresented communities. → The importance of data-driven decision-making in transforming recruiting processes. → Insights into how AI is shaping the future of talent acquisition. ✅ Ron’s passion for accessibility and intentional approach to diversity recruitment will inspire and equip you to make meaningful organizational changes. Take 30 minutes to listen. It may change how you think about inclusion, talent, and the future of our field. 👉🎧 LISTEN UP: https://lnkd.in/eUWNgJfe 👉🎥 WATCH: Link in the comments What steps are you taking to build a more inclusive workplace? Let’s continue the conversation in the comments! 🔥 THIS IS #THEPOZCAST > GET INVOLVED 🔥 🏆 These episodes of #thePOZcast LIVE from ERE 2024 in Anaheim are brought to you by Juicebox (YC S22). AI Recruiting just got smarter with Juicebox, the company behind PeopleGPT! With AI Sourcing powered by Generative AI, you tell it who you're looking for in natural language. PeopleGPT* instantly creates the search and evaluates profiles, saving you hours of time and effort.  Ready to improve your sourcing skills? Use the code "POZ20" for an exclusive 20% discount. Visit Juicebox.ai

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Another masterclass podcast from Christian Idiodi. This time he's covering coaching impostor syndrome with Chris Jones. Two quotes in particular that resonated with me: (1) "Coaching impostor syndrome starts with having a culture of coaching” - Christian. My take: Imposter syndrome is a sensitive topic. If you don’t have trust (which comes with genuine coaching), you likely won’t even be aware that someone on your team is going through impostor syndrome. Yet, someone’s direct manager is often one of the people best positioned to boost confidence and help a person through impostor syndrome. (2) “It’s always hardest to see your own problem. It’s really a lot easier to see clearly a structure around somebody else’s problem.” - Chris. My take: I love how Chris talks about getting help on impostor syndrome from various different people beyond just your boss (especially as you move up in leadership). This quote reminds me very much of the peer-to-peer relationships we have among the directors in Intermountain’s Digital Services team. We cover a wide variety of different product areas (e.g. patient portal, contact center, IT service management, intranet, marketing site, etc.). Despite these differences, we often collaborate and coach each other through tough problems. This creates a magnifying effect on our ability to learn that helps us solve difficult problems and stretch ourselves in ways that overcomes impostor syndrome.

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Exciting times for Cresta. Here’s to continuing the journey in revolutionizing the contact center! Check out the blog to see what’s next for Cresta: https://hubs.la/Q02YKsjS0

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It’s been a minute since I’ve been active on LinkedIn, but I’m back and excited to announce that I started this week as the President and COO at Kustomer. A little bit of backstory: after an amazing four year journey at Grafana Labs, I decided to take some time off before thinking about my next chapter. I wanted a real break, so I went on a two month trip with my now fiancé (we got engaged on said trip!) to rest and recharge. (Highly recommend doing this if the stars align and you can do it with a loved one.) When we returned, I knew I wanted to spend time exploring what was going on in the exciting world of AI and get a better sense for the type of company and team I wanted to work with. To do this, I pursued what ended up being a really fulfilling time investing, advising, and consulting. I did some of this with the great folks at The General Partnership (co-founded by Daniel Portillo, who I have known since I was a teenager) and some of it independently. Regardless of how I met the company, it was super interesting to meet a bunch of great founders and teams and see both the commonalities and differences in scaling companies. In the course of these conversations, I reconnected with Alex Bard, who suggested I meet Brad Birnbaum, co-founder of Kustomer. I had been aware of Kustomer since my time at Zendesk and knew they had experienced rapid growth, an acquisition by Meta, and later a spin-out from Meta. Brad shared the full story with me, along with his excitement for Kustomer’s next chapter. Before even meeting Brad, it was already clear to me that AI would be transformational for customer service - AI has the potential not only to reduce costs for companies but to enhance the customer experience for all consumers. The team at Kustomer clearly recognized this as well - they have already released a number of products focused on helping companies leverage AI and their roadmap and future plans are even more exciting. I’m joining Kustomer because I’m excited about this roadmap and the potential for this amazing team to radically transform how customer service is delivered - at scale and across industries. There is a lot of exciting news to come, but for now, I’m grateful to Brad, Jeremy Suriel, and the rest of the team at Kustomer for inviting me to be a part of this journey. I can’t wait to have an impact. Let’s go! And yes, we are hiring! Please reach out if you’re interested.

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Employee terminations: they're a topic no one wants to discuss but that every company has to navigate. Thankfully, Melanie Naranjo and wonderful Ethena advisor (& Gusto's former People Leader) Jess Yuen are tackling this tricky topic for the next Ethena webinar. Register if you want to learn more about these topics: How to pressure test whether or not termination is the right course of action Best practices for communicating termination decisions How to minimize risk and choose the best course of action when things get tricky Critical pitfalls to avoid

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Are we helping or hurting? That is a question many residents of San Francisco ask ourselves in the midst of a stark and increasing equity gap. As a parent, community member, and incoming board member of the Horizons at San Francisco Friends School, I’m keenly aware of the potential learning loss our public school students in the Mission District experience in the summer months without our support. Our city is undergoing another crisis - looming budget cuts threaten vital programs like Horizons at SFFS that provide equitable learning for Mission youth. We urgently need your support to secure bridge funding and ensure our summer enrichment continues. Our scholars and families are relying on Horizons' high-quality academics and social-emotional growth.  Horizons has been successfully leveraging the months when students are out of school to stem summer learning loss for children in San Francisco for ~10 years. The program has also intentionally increased impact by supporting their scholars through their educational journey during the school year and into High School. Last year, Horizons impacted 150+ scholars with targeted small classroom instruction, confidence-building, and joyful community enrichment experiences- thanks to our dedicated summer education workforce. But we can't continue without you. Please join me in supporting Horizons at SFFS today to expand partnerships, engage more crisis-impacted families, and grow our supportive community stronger. In past years, the SF Department of Children, Youth and Families has been a partner to increase access to education for our students. This summer, as we face a potential 40% loss to our summer program due to DCYF funding cuts that have impacted so many vital programs in our city, we’ve decided to celebrate Horizons Giving Day, the whole month of May. Please join me in our movement - your gift saves the summer for San Francisco scholars and helps bridge the educational equity gap in our city. Let’s help together. In gratitude, friendship and community, Aneesha #GiveTheGiftofSummer #SparkPassions #HorizonsGivingDay https://lnkd.in/gJAYnibC Links for reference: Horizons at SFFS: https://lnkd.in/gfsdugDX Impact Report: https://lnkd.in/gZc2jn85 Press Release on DCYF Loss of Funding: https://lnkd.in/gNprpSyB

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ICYMI - Last week, we announced the launch of ⚡"Voice of the Candidate"⚡ insights At its core, TA is about attracting and hiring amazing talent. Yet, TA teams have never been empowered with the tools to truly understand what candidates care about 💖 With BrightHire's "Voice of the Candidate" insights, we're changing that -- opening the black box to show TA leaders what's inside the mind 🧠 of the candidate and help them close great talent. Check out the demo! PS: Hungry for more data? Tune in on Sept 6th for data-rich discussion between our CEO Benjamin Sesser & Hung Lee, recruiting guru, where they'll discuss insights gleaned from 1mil+ interviews covering process benchmarks, topic trends, motivations and so much more. Sign up using the link below 👇 https://lnkd.in/gVPQhU7Q

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Today is Workstream’s 7th birthday! 7 years ago today --- Max, Lei and myself started Workstream after going door to door around San Francisco Bay Area talking to hundreds of business owners and learning that there was not a good all in one solution built for hourly businesses. Business owners were doing manual tasks from payroll, onboarding, hiring to HR tasks and spending 10s of hours each week manually running HR processes. Therefore, we started Workstream together! We have never looked back since. On our 7th birthday, I like to share 7 learnings from the past years 1/ Find truly great co-founders to be on this journey together I am incredible thankful to say I found not one, but two amazing co-founders. Just last week, Max, Lei and myself had our usual weekly sync and we had a 6+ hours call on Friday late night till midnight. To be able to be at it for 7 years, and still feel the same passion, determination and drive -- I'm thankful to have met the best co-founders one can ever have! 2/ Find a pain point that you want to invest 10 or 15 years in To build something great, you need time. Media and PR often glamorizes businesses & startups growing overnight. That is often not the truth. Choose wisely what you really want to spend 10 or 15 years on, because you will spend that and more on it. 3/ The team you build is the company you build Find great people who align with you on values, mission and purpose. The people you hire and work with is the team you build = the company and product you will build for your customers. 4/ Embrace the lows and highs Building a business is not easy. There's more lows than highs on the average, but one should learn to embrace both of them. Michael Jordan often says "I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. That's why I win" 5/ Find a mission and purpose you care about Both my parents are hourly workers and I grew up seeing how hard it is for hourly businesses to manage payroll, HR and hiring all in the same place. Find a calling that you really want to work on and care about, despite the lows and highs. 6/ Go all-in 120% Building a business, whether you are an early employee/streamer or a founder, is extremely hard. We need to go all in to have a chance at winning. 7/ Enjoy the journey The days are long but the years are short. Enjoy the journey! Happy birthday, Workstream! P.S Photo was taken in 2018 when Workstream was a 6 months old baby (I would say we all looked younger back then too!) as we were outside our co-working space in San Francisco at South Park / Soma.

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