Tiger Smith

🎨 📺 Sharon Roth is a Product & Design leader who’s built her career in the lab, across different modalities, to bring more creative product experiences to life 📺 🎨 It's W3 / Q3 / 2024 and this week in our MGMT Boston up & coming operator series we’ve got Sharon who serves as the Senior Director of Product Management at Quantified.ai, the AI-driven flight simulator for sellers. The app feels as real as your next video call, scales across teams, programs, and companies, and ramps reps 42% faster. Sharon is leading Quantified AI’s Product & Design team after previous roles in Product leadership at Tamr & Honor Education. She’s excited to be back working in an Enterprise focused company, leading Design alongside Product, focused on strategic & execution based discipline. ❓Questions Are Your Roadmap ❓ It’s popular to encourage new hires to ask a lot of questions. But it’s always a good time to ask questions! When a member of your team comes to you and says “we really need to build X feature”, they’re coming to you for good reason. Dig into the why to understand how often the issue comes up, when it happens in a customer conversation, and why they’re asking for it in the first place. Is there an even better way to build a solution? Also, people are always excited about getting to a solution. By delaying the solution discussion to first get everyone to agree on the problem, you can coordinate a better response. Sharon has been in rooms where stakeholders can’t agree on the problem they’re trying to solve, which can sometimes be even more painful! By asking better questions and articulating the underlying issues thoroughly, they can work together as an organization to chart a better path forward. 3 Career Insights / Learnings 🙋‍♀️ Seek New Challenges - “Trying new things is how you learn and grow. At a startup, there are so many opportunities to try new things. As startups evolve, you need to embrace all that’s going to happen and make it a positive thing. Otherwise don’t go to a startup!” 🤝 Act with Integrity - “Do your best, show your work. But also treat others with respect and kindness while doing it. How you treat people and how you show up every day will impact your work environment. You’re responsible for the energy you bring to the room, so be authentic and try to inject some positivity. It will help you build the type of network you want to have too” 🗣 Invest in Communication Skills - “It helps you ask questions well, advocate for yourself, have your ideas be heard. It also helps others understand your impact. It takes continuous practice to do well.” If you’d like to learn more about Sharon’s career, the full post is linked in the comments. Go ahead and sign up for the newsletter to see the operator learnings we bring you in the weeks ahead too, will ya? #bostontech #operators

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This weeks Mojito newsletter hits--especially these 2 points, which is how we're thinking about Moxies - If Roblox is a sandbox for brands and Gen Z, onchain metaverses enable users to take those personalized brands assets (i.e., avatars) with them, anywhere. - If AI and web3 are key tools for the future of brands, don't build them in a vacuum; cohesively implement them into your tech stack Do any of these resonate with you & what you're building/working on?

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Quick update on Moxies progress: - ✅ Completed 1st prototype - Waitlist up ↗️ 275% in Q1 - SOLD OUT mother-daughter events - 1/4 way thru database warm up w 75k active email subs 💌 Momentum is growing: parents + girls care about a healthier digital future + want to be part of the solution! In fact in our latest survey: - 90% want to get involved in the building of Moxies in some way - 90% agree or strongly agree that there is a need for the Moxies app When we asked girls what features they wanted the most in a social gaming platform, do you know what the #1 request was? #1 Be part of a healthy digital community that promotes confidence and positivity Moxies is here to build digital literacy and create a healthy relationship with technology. Get on the waitlist to check out our prototype + be part of building with us! ➡️ www.moxiesx.xyz

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Pie is LIVE in San Francisco. This is not a city that is dumb to new startups. There is e large and growing graveyard of companies and apps that have tried to solve the problem of making friends IRL. Having worked on this for five years, here is why we think Pie is right on time: 1. Our Pie Creator Fund is creating a gig economy of people building IRL communities. Loving people is one thing. Being able to afford the time and treasure to bring them together is another. Apply here: piecreatorfund.com 2. Most Pie plans are free. The internet is littered with paid opportunities to buy tickets. But what if you don't know what to expect? What if you don't know what is worth paying for? Believe in free: getpie.app (and click San Francisco). 3. We have secrets about the future. Not all of them are in our product yet. We hope that you give us a shot and maybe later we can tell you our secrets. Maybe you don't have to figure out who to hang out with, maybe we can do that for you.

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When working on larger projects and / or those with high outcome uncertainty, many org cultures (surprisingly pervasive even in many startups) tend to prioritize tackling low-hanging fruit or default to taking a consensus path ironically termed "the path of least resistance". This approach of solving easy sub-problems ("known unknowns" as Donald Rumsfeld fmr. US Sect of state, would have termed it) builds in sunk costs & illusions of progress, creating inertia to course correct. Most modern project or program operations turn out to be successful if we view them as a portfolio of risks (sorted by highest impact, high uncertainty to lowest impact, high uncertainty). Tackle the ones at the top first. Prove or disprove your hypotheses. Source of image: First round review #product #bets #operating #principles

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This is a must listen to for anyone B2B founder. How to figure out Product Market Fit. One of best frameworks I've seen in a while. https://lnkd.in/ghSmhVNB

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Very excited to introduce PMF Method Retreat, our new 4-day intensive experience for super early B2B founders. When we shared our framework for finding product-market fit and opened up applications for PMF Method this spring, we were blown away by the response. After getting thousands of applications for just a handful of spots and bringing together a spectacular group of technical founders (coming from companies like Stripe, Vanta and Retool), we started to think about how to make the next cohort even better. We heard from many founders who were eager to join but couldn't commit to a months-long experience — or make the temporary move out to San Francisco — so we’re experimenting with the format. Same tactical sessions. Same targeted, hands-on support from Todd Jackson and the entire team. Still doesn't cost you any equity. But you don’t have to be SF-based for this one, and it’s refactored into a 4-day retreat that accelerates your progress — while quickly getting you back to building. If you're just getting started exploring a B2B opportunity, please don't overthink it, just apply. Deadline is 9/23, but the earlier the better.

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“So we try to work with founders and CMOs to get them to come through that process with us, and I think what we find then is once they know the process, the process is great, the process is cool, but we will then suggest some pretty differentiated and unique stories that they could be telling, and that’s when the rubber hits the road. Are they comfortable being this ambitious? Are they comfortable stretching to having a strong opinion on this or that, or do they kinda want to just play it safe and get all the goodwill from branding without doing some of the hard work of taking a stand? That’s where it gets dicey.” Quote of the Day with Shannon Deep and Kevan Lee in conversation with Leah Tharin about brand marketing. Some of the best brand marketing experiences I’ve had was doing rapid press response, in which a journalist would reach out writing a breaking story and I would provide a paragraph quote for them to cite. Whenever I took a definite stand on an issue - not veering into controversy for controversy's sake - it would always be published in the article and we would see the benefit. I find a lot of material on LinkedIn to be bland and samey and safe, and frankly that bores me. Even though I too have the pull to ‘play it safe’ at times, if I have a strong opinion, that may even run counter to the prevailing opinion, I try to be true to myself. There was a question asked the other day: Can you build a successful personal brand, if you have no personality? I don’t think so. I’m an introvert, so it’s not about having a gregarious extravert personality, but it’s definitely about having an opinion, calling it as you see it, even if you’re wrong. I’m certainly more engaged with brands that have opinions. But I find most to be bland and filled with safe corporate speak. What’s your opinion?

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I'm at Lenny's Newsletter Summit today along with about ~1000 high-quality product people 🔥 For those that couldn't make it, I'll save you the FOMO LinkedIn probably won't like it but to make it easy I'll post my best takeaways as comments to this thread 👇 Hopefully it's useful 💚 (if you want to stay notified hit the 🔔 icon on my profile: Pulkit Agrawal) #lennys

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So pumped to have OneScreen.ai featured in TechCrunch! The coolest part is that this article came about because Rebecca Szkutak saw an out-of-home ad for a start-up on a Subway in Brooklyn, which prompted questions about how companies are using out of home to reach their target audiences in a time when traditional digital channels are underperforming. Bottom line, in age of digital fatigue and distraction, real world advertising resonates. And with our comprehensive database of out of home opportunities, data-driven selection and measurement, OneScreen.ai helps marketers at all types of companies maximize its potential.  https://lnkd.in/en_Km77G

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Lots of misconceptions about what product-led growth really is. So I sat down with the man himself, Wes Bush to go deep on: - what PLG really means - Who it's for (and who it's not for) - How you can think about implementing a true PLG motion in your business. Even if you're sales-led today, this is a great listen cause it talks to the psychology of a buyer a lot. https://lnkd.in/d4VvJmru

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Interesting read, the Dating App Industry is about to go through it's next big boom...... Notice the words used in this article, "TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES". Users want dating apps to be built intentionally, more like technology companies, with simple but curated matchmaking. When we started Hatched almost 3 years ago, our theory was that the market was headed in this direction, which is why we built Hatched® Dating ground up with rock solid algorithms and a focus on how the technology could be both effective and fun for users. We have some very exciting product announcements to share in the coming months that will further show how Hatched® Dating is going to help the user solve the real problems in online dating and how TRUE product market fit will unlock the growth that this industry has been hoping for.

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I posted some half-baked thoughts on “narrative shifts” yesterday on twitter, and figured I’d share here as well. Over my 15 years in startups, I’ve seen three distinct umbrella narratives for the tech ecosystem. The first started around 2007 or 2008, with the launch the iPhone and App Store. This was an era where founders were underdogs, and tech was a force for good. The industry had finished licking its wounds from the dot-com crash, and was the first to rebound from the Great Recession. The combined platform shifts of cloud and mobile were transformative for consumers and businesses alike, and startups painted themselves as “democratizing” forces. Even the bigger players were seen as challengers—Steve Jobs is probably the best figurehead for the optimism of this era. With the 2016 election came an era of reckoning. There was widespread soul searching in the aftermath of Trump’s victory—had tech, and Facebook specifically, undermined democracy? The Me Too movement swept the industry in 2017. Travis Kalanick, a pioneer in the prior narrative, was ousted from his company by his own investors. Meanwhile, valuations kept going up, and the SPAC frenzy began. The pandemic initially looked like it might put an end to the party, but no—venture funding skyrocketed while companies grappled with demands for more equitable practices in the wake of BLM. Coinbase was a poster company for this tension: a phenomenal IPO, and unrest within its ranks. Sam Bankman-Fried tried to meet the moment with a carefully crafted do-gooder image, but became our perfect villain instead. I think our third era started last year…I’ll call this the anti-hero narrative. The bottoming out of the startup ecosystem gave founders “permission” to do what needed to be done: mostly, layoffs. The tone became unapologetic. Elon led the way, slashing Twitter’s workforce, espousing free speech (the more shocking, the better). The spirit feels gleefully combative: anti-media, anti-woke, anti-DEI. The ethos of e/acc captures this moment: technological progress is inevitable and we should run after it at all costs. Zuckerberg is back, rehabilitated from the prior era with his chain necklace. Jensen Huang wasn’t toppled from his throne for signing a woman’s chest; it made him shinier. Progress is what matters, how we get there matters less. It’s too early to declare this most recent narrative baked, but the vibes have shifted! And of course, no era describes any one company, and no era is all good or all bad. Why does all this matter? The stories we tell about ourselves, about our industry, shape our reality. They influence what kinds of ideas and founders are backed. Where talent flocks. Where we’re willing to suspend disbelief. This is an especially interesting and challenging phase we’re entering: the newly combative spirit of the tech industry, paired with an AI platform shift that’s going to transform every sector, disrupt labor markets, and touch the lives of consumers. 

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Robust #PreSeed VC Contact Compilation. Explore a database of 250+ VC firms and 1,000+ professionals (partners and principals), complete with 900 email addresses for outreach. https://payhip.com/b/1bm6W #startup #startups #vc #venturecapital #investmentbanking #privateequity #managementconsulting #b2b #founders #entrepreneurs

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Want a front-row seat to the frontier of tech? We’ve got the role (or two) for you! We’re expanding our frontier-tech team at Blackbird by hiring a Frontier Tech Investments Associate and Foundry Fellows! Got questions? We've got answers... 1️⃣ What are the roles? 🧪 Associate = a full-time VC investment gig in our Blackbird Investments team, working directly with me. We’re looking for someone with a science and/or engineering background and more curiosity than they can handle. You’ll grow your own investment brand and practice, support our portfolio founders, and will help build Foundry, our early-stage frontier-tech accelerator. ✨ Foundry Fellow = a casual/contract gig in our Blackbird Investments team, ~15h per week for 3 months. The Fellowship is ideal for PhD students and ECRs who want to learn more about startups and VC. You’ll go deep on emerging areas relevant to your expertise (or curiosity!), get a front-row seat to groundbreaking companies in those areas, build out your non-academic network, and develop a solid writing practice. 2️⃣ Why are you hiring? We love frontier tech, and we’re ready to grow our team. 3️⃣ Wow, it’s so great that you’re starting to look at deep tech! Look, we get it: we don’t make a lot of noise about our frontier tech investing. Buuuut we’ve been deep-tech investors since we backed Tim Kentley-Klay to found Zoox back in 2014—we’ve been on incredible journeys with PsiQuantum (building the world's first utility-scale quantum computer right here in Australia!), Inventia Life Science (transforming drug discovery with high-fidelity cell models), Remedy Robotics (surgical robots for remote endovascular procedures), Opto Biosystems (minimally-invasive neural implants to treat cancer), and more. We believe that frontier technologies, and great frontier-tech investing, will be part of the solutions to the greatest problems humanity faces today. 4️⃣ When do applications close? May 31st at 11:59pm AEST. 5️⃣ I have more questions! I’m sure you do! Clare Birch and I are hosting an AMA to answer any and all questions about these roles. Want to know what a week in the life of our team looks like? What’s keeping us up at night? What our ideal candidate looks like? Come along and find out - registration link in the comments 👇 Apply for these roles: Associate - https://lnkd.in/gCfj4EUJ Foundry Fellowships - https://lnkd.in/gj6ATZVZ If you know anyone that we should meet, send me their details! Cameron Elise Ben Andrew Robin Joseph Adelaide James Olivia Lucinda Raghav Jesse Christie Mohamed Tom Amee Pablo Haya Loong Hon Joshua Benjamin Megan Harry Denzil Matthew Diana Daniel Tom Deanna Justin Amar Lilly Stone Thomas

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If anyone is in North County San Diego, on Thursday May 2nd, we will be hosting a tech entrepreneur and investor meet up at 5:30pm. We’ll have a couple speakers, one of which is a fin-tech start-up raising a round, followed up by a presentation on the state of the stock & crypto market. We host these events quarterly and usually get a lot of founders and investors to attend. If anyone is interested, please message me and I can send you the details. LaunchPad San Diego #startups #startupincubator #entrepreneur #investing #crypto #meetup

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⭐ Start Up Reality Check - Getting to Product Market Fit ⭐ Clay’s Path to Product-Market Fit — A 7-Year 'Overnight Success' Clay co-founder and CEO Kareem Amin sits down with First Round Partner Todd Jackson for a behind-the-scenes look at how he grappled with narrowing Clay’s scope and tactics for landing on the right ICP. In the earliest days of building, the founder is the company. Their fingerprints are pressed across every nook and cranny of the business — each decision, hire and product feature. Most early-stage investors will tell you (us included) that the strength of the founding team is the single most important factor in whether a business sinks or swims early on. While some might tout that it’s the tangible stats here that matter most (like the founder’s previous experiences), Clay co-founder Kareem Amin believes that it goes many layers deeper. “Your personality plays a major role in your success because building a company exaggerates all of your traits. You’re influencing how things get done — for better or for worse. So you need to be able to clearly see what is going on in the organization and how your personality is being amplified through this process,” Amin say Read the Rest of the Article Here https://shorturl.at/Nm9vT 😀 👈 #startups #tech

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Hey everybody, I just wanted to check in to let you know that now is not the time to check out for the summer. I'm starting a new YouTube series on Impact Sprints. Impact Sprints are relatively simple AI Automations that full-time and fractional executives can use to make an immediate impact. It's hard to plan for the future when you don't know what's currently available. Impact Sprints represent just a starting point that you can use to get your feet wet. As with any new process or procedure there's always room for optimizations. Be sure to let me know what you think when the first episode arrives later this week. #ai #aicontent #aiautomation #youtube #impactsprints

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