John Henderson’s Post

After spending almost 4 years building Socialboat with my Co Founder Swapnil Vats, I would like to inform that we are merging with Noise. This is a great home for our team’s talent - Swapnil Vats, Puneet Singh Mahey to continue what they love doing! Glad to share rest of the team - Saurav Thapliyal Arsh Goyal Nidhi Khandelwal have also found great opportunities. For me, I have decided to continue on an entrepreneurial path and would be launching something very soon. In the meantime, working with some very smart founders like Sahil Bansal to build exciting products. My decision to 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝗡𝗼𝗶𝘀𝗲 and work on Luna Ring was quite tricky. Honestly, I think after all these years, I finally understand what goes in building a great company and I want to give another shot at it. Some things that I have leant are - 1. Techies should have their 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝘁 on - We like to build great products and we forget about business viability. This should never happen. 2. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗮 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 from early days. Performance usually gets early results, but they don’t last. 3. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀, 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 - We built a lot of features early on and only started adding depth later. Now, I feel that the old YC saying of narrowly defining your customer segment is so important to build something exceptional. Will share more details soon on a new exciting venture. In the meantime, looking forward to talking & collaborating with other Founders who are building exciting products. Inc42 Media SocialBoat - Women Health (acquired by Noise) #acquisition #ai #generative

In 2013, a year after starting my video production company, I took an idea to the Chicago Start Up Weekend for Education and pitched it. The idea was a livestreaming coworking space for creatives and I was lucky to have my idea chosen for the competition. We put a small team together to create an MVP and a business plan. Over the next three years, I built out the team as well as my team at CLEAVER and the two companies fed each other both with creative talent and ideas. We joined incubators and accelerators and built the community to over 2,000 users, and created over 60,000 livestreams. Watch Me Work didn’t a silicon valley unicorn, but it ended up being the best thing for my video production work. The reason being, it forced me to get more people involved in my company, as well as served as creative inspiration for everyone who worked in both companies. One of the things I love about business is the ability to create something from nothing, and as I have grown in my career, I’ve realized that some of the projects I’m just purely passionate about end up serving the paid work. What are some of the passion projects you’ve worked on over the years that you’re most proud of. Inquiring minds want to know! #StartupJourney #WatchMeWork #EntrepreneurLife #PassionProject #LivestreamCommunity #StartupWeekend #BuildingCommunity #ProductivityBoost #DreamToReality #CLEAVER #CLEAVERCreates

🚀 𝟰𝟬+ 𝗣𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗸𝘀 𝗕𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗕𝗲𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗕𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻-𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘀   There are 1,200+ unicorns worldwide (CBInsights), and they all have one thing in common—they started with a pitch deck.   If you want to make your own deck stand out, look at how these unicorns did theirs.   This collection includes decks from companies like: 🔷 Airbnb 🔷 Buzzfeed 🔷 Dropbox 🔷 Snapchat 🔷 Uber 🔷 LinkedIn 🔷 YouTube   These companies come from diverse industries and have diverse business models, meaning there’s something you can learn no matter what kind of company you’re running.   Most also created new, industry-defining business models.   Interested in taking a look?   Comment below and I’ll send you the resource ASAP.👇 Please send a connection request if we are not connected already to get the resource📥 Shoutout to Nathan Beckord (CEO at Foundersuite and Fundingstack) for building this great resource!

I caught up with a friend and longtime tech founder in the middle of Collision Conf. We talked about the (mis)adventures of bootstrapping a startup. Right now, they have a short runway of limited resources to cover employee salaries, operating costs, and get new customers. They don’t know if they’ll make it past this summer. Their plan to have laser-focus these next few months to drive growth and keep employees. They’ve beat similar odds before. I’m optimistic for them, yet realistic about the situation. I shared these recommendations: 🔑 When you’re low on resources, priorities are everything. You can take care of your people or you can take care of things, but you can’t do both well, at the same time. 🔑 Choose your top desired outcomes. Then have the best people (you can afford) do quality work. If the company focuses on ’good’ things like growing their social media channels, seeking influencer endorsements and media features, and updating their brand marketing, these pursuits will dilute their efforts. ➡️ The singular goal is to support your people to handle the things. How did you or your company manage through a time of uncertainty and underfunding? Did you reach your goals?

"Follow opportunity, not your passion" That quote reminds me of when I left Big frame / AwesomenessTV back in 2017. It was right after our parent co DreamWorks Animation was sold to NBCU. When I left... I didn’t start a digital network. Or go lead a digital team at a big-name studio or social media co. I didn't raise angel funding or venture capital for a "scalable tech co". Instead, I started a small consulting biz. Or as many at the time told me, an "unsexy services biz". Where there was "little upside", and that it wouldn't look good on my resume. But I saw a great opportunity… I knew digital-native video, and creators, were the future of storytelling and nextgen business building. But there were so many bad strategy and dealmaking decisions being made. Yet there were no advisors who were dedicated to the space, who had seasoned digital media operator and exit experience, and had Wall Street M&A training. So investors were getting burned, and founders and execs were getting disenchanted. It made me concerned the creator economy was going to grow very slowly, and not realize its massive potential. So I started RockWater Industries. Today, we're the go-to M&A and strategy advisor for the creator economy. We help founders/operators/investors earn great ROI from smart business building and dealmaking. Still no "rocket ship, tech-enabled growth", but we've carved out a great lane for ourselves. We have a steadily growing book of client business across 5 continents, and are making new investments in our team this year. We look forward to continue helping more operators and investors shepherd this industry into its incredible potential. (shoutout to Mike Rowe, of Dirty Jobs fame, who gave me the inspo)

Building a startup is like climbing a mountain: Base camp → Mid level → Summit Stage 1: Base Camp - Building an MVP - Hiring a team - Finding initial seed funding - Identifying the right audience Stage 2: Mid Level - Raising capital - Developing a marketing & sales strategy - Building brand awareness - Improving the product - Growing the team Stage 3: Summit - Scaling the company - Attracting high-value customers - Creating multiple revenue streams - Building a solid reputation - Making an impact in the industry Start small and grow big. Just like climbing a mountain, building a startup is a journey. Take one step at a time, and eventually, you'll reach the summit.

In the very early stages of a company's existence, the perception of what makes a company "real" is offices, employees, lofty sounding titles, logos, websites, fancy coffee makers, etc. Those things provide a comforting feeling of progress and success however successful, enduring enterprises are ultimately formed on a foundation of solving customer problems with excellence. Before you accumulate the trappings, be ruthless in 1) focusing on customer needs and 2) giving your founding team the necessary runway to prove a successful business model. I hope you enjoy this piece which my colleagues at ExperienceHack encouraged me to write. You can find this article and other content helpful to early stage companies at ExperienceHack. Michelle Waite, Michael Sattler, Amy Bonsall, Bruce Ericson, Jen L. Cohen https://lnkd.in/gVmB4_9z

🌅Welcome to #NewHorizons! - words I will never forget (take a look at the video linked below to see why) 🌅 “Let’s make it about the ecosystem and let's make it big”, were the words of Thomas, during my first week at Vsquared Ventures, when him and I brainstormed on how we would shape an event, we had decided to put on the books. Which was fitting, since breaking down barriers, persistence and resilience, were the themes we pinned down for the event. Little did I know that around 5 months, countless brainstorming sessions with the best team, numerous debates on design, exchanges with our partners on seemingly all channels existing, being grateful for coding skills of team members (shoutout to Ferdinand), and more requests than I can count to send the invite to someone who should also really come (no tool seemed good enough), we arrived at what we coined #NewHorizons! Tommy’s words rang true. Over 200 people shaping the #deeptech ecosystem came together. The result: a day full of inspiring panels with pioneers discussing the sectors trajectory in the future, talks by founders re-defining their respective industries, and a dinner, turned party, turned overtime for the DJ. Inspiration and innovation laid in the air and it was unequivocally worth it. 𝘼 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙗𝙖𝙧𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙧 𝙗𝙧𝙤𝙠𝙚𝙣 𝙙𝙤𝙬𝙣: 𝙈𝘾𝙞𝙣𝙜 (𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙧𝙜𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙯𝙞𝙣𝙜) 𝙖𝙣 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙚. 𝘾𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙤𝙪𝙨?𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙖 𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙠! Video: https://lnkd.in/e_3CUhtj For more pictures and insights, head over to the Vsquared Ventures page. CC: Herbert Mangesius, Lise Rechsteiner, PhD, Benedikt von Schoeler, Patrick Tucci, Jakob Lingg, Patrick Hümmer, Michael Jobst

We talk a lot about what to do leading up to a pitch, and less about life after Pitch Day 🤔 While pitch competitions can be monumental milestones, the steps you take after can be just as important! Here's what small business owners and tech startups can do after a pitch competition to keep their business moving forward post-pitch day: Am I missing anything? --- More insights available on floreolabs.org/insights This month we'll be diving into the topic of hiring and product teams 🚀

Exciting News Ahead! Over the last few months, we took a deep dive. We have tried to solve a few problems coming up in the world. Ken Cato and I have been working hard on this project. We can't wait to share it with you. Our new venture will change how you approach life and business. This venture aims to make a big difference. It will address some of the challenges we face today. I believe it can bring positive change to many people. Stay tuned for more updates. I will share more details soon. Exciting times ahead! Bullet form summary ↳ Deep dive over the last few months ↳ Excited to share the new venture