Rich Mironov

Join us tomorrow to hear Lisa Orr talk about navigating your next career move as a senior product manager, and me talking about the "mirage" of AI hallucinations. When artificial intelligence (AI) outputs don’t match our shared reality, people have been saying it’s "hallucinating." But hallucination makes it sound like AI is conscious and distracts from the part we humans play in generating synthetic meaning. Do words matter? Learn why we should all change how we talk about AI to promote better understanding in a future world with the ✨sparkling intelligence✨ of AI.

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Leveraging proven frameworks helps founders accelerate their technology, culture, sales, and operations. Frameworks help founders for us in action instead of struggling to figure it out. Join Julie Penner, Jim Franklin, Larson Stair, and myself as we delve into how frameworks have been game changers for us in this Denver Startup Week panel. Tuesday, September 17, 10am Techstars Denver #FrameworksForFounders #startups #DSW2024 #CTO CTO Levels

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When you hire someone in a new state, do you need to register to do business there when you use a PEO? If you ask most PEOs, they would say, "Yes - you should also register your entity with the state if you have employees there." But why? Technically with a PEO you are "co-employing" people. Typically PEOs don't handle foreign registrations or secretary of state filings for your entity, so that's on you. If you're not registering in a new state is because you don't know how or don't have time, Discern makes it extremely easy. You can complete your foreign registration filing in a few minutes directly out of our product. I don't know if I fully realized it when we were building the product, but it is by far one of our biggest points of value add for companies growing across state lines. Registering in a new state is a shockingly annoying process to do on your own. You typically need to get a certificate of good standing before you can even file, and sometimes the filing involves publication requirements where you need to advertise your foreign registration in an actual newspaper. We handle all of that behind the scenes. All you do is complete the digital form in Discern. IFYKYK

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We've invested in some really compelling teams with awesome products. As they transition from startup to scale-up, you reach a strategic inflection point where the company begins considering its options. The Power Law is a mathematical nicety (copium), but the cold reality is that not all exits are ideal. For a winning startup, an acquisition or an IPO can accelerate growth, provide access to greater resources, and create opportunities for expanded market reach and innovation. But, for a struggling company, an acquisition is a responsible consideration to safeguard employees’ jobs, preserve the company’s mission, and provide stability by integrating with a financially stronger organization. A lot has been written about how startups are acquired, but not much about *why* startups are acquired. I penned some thoughts on how to be more 'acquirable' and build with the end in mind. https://lnkd.in/dHdbXpPt

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A few weeks ago I posed a question. How many members should the board of directors of a "typical" company have? The overwhelming response was 4-5 (67%). Generally - this number makes sense for a lot of private companies. If we define "typical" as an early-stage or growth-stage startup, 4-5 seems about right. 5 is probably a good number for an established company with 7-figure revenue in a mature industry. Maybe a case can be made for 7 when there's deep expertise or industry connections required... or a lot of money has been raised in a short time. The topic of board size and composition came up recently in the context of startup companies. When you raise money, are you adding board seats? If so - who do those seats go to, and how does that ultimately impact the company? It's important to balance the board for the interests of the business. How awkward is it to have the founder and largest shareholder standing alone against 3 large investors when money is tight? I found this article to be an excellent run through of several topics impacting startup boards. In a startup company, your board of directors can be a tremendous asset if considered, managed and grown strategically. https://lnkd.in/gDbzV_C9

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Super thoughtful approach to org design highlighted in this week's First Round Capital Review. When I read it, I realized that simplistic advice is a poor shortcut to the more complex but useful advice, "structure follows strategy". “When you read management books about org design, they always show you these perfectly balanced charts. Symmetrical tree diagrams and curated grids that fill up to the margins. But creating a pretty looking chart is not a KPI,” says Linear’s Head of Product Nan Yu. Yu unpacks why conventional thinking around org design is slowing startups down. Instead, he pulls from Conway’s Law and lays out the three key pieces to constructing the asymmetrical “heirloom tomato” org chart. https://lnkd.in/gASyChQC

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Exciting news from Techstars for our #Colorado ecosystem! Thanks, Nicole Glaros, Natty Zola, and David Cohen, for your collaboration in reimagining how best to support founders in #Colorado. #startups #entrepreneurship #ecosystem #innovation

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In his latest piece, Paul Graham dives into a thought-provoking realization sparked by Brian Chesky's memorable talk at a recent YC event: **what if the conventional wisdom on scaling companies is fundamentally flawed for founders?** Graham dissects why advice that works for professional managers often fails founders, leading to disastrous results. He introduces the concept of "Founder Mode" — a distinct approach to running a company that clashes with traditional management practices. Graham argues that embracing this mode could be the key to unlocking greater success for startups, potentially revolutionizing how founders scale their companies. Made me think. https://lnkd.in/exHmEE5M

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Pivot or persist? It’s a question every founder faces. Don’t wait until it’s time to make that call to think about how to make the decision. I shared my perspective on how to plan for that question with Starcycle and Jaclyn Siu https://lnkd.in/gvtaKChi #founders #entrepreneurship #startups

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🚢 Today, we are launching the expanded platform for Retirement At Finch, we are democratizing the data models underlying the employment industry. Access to this data will spur new and much-needed innovations, such as what the retirement sector is currently experiencing. With around $40 trillion in retirement assets in 2024, retirement represents a major segment of the employee benefits industry that has only become more important as our Social Security is unable to sustain the growing population. SECURE Act 2.0 is going to drive 2-3x more sponsors to offer retirement benefits over the next five years, and the retirement infrastructure needs to evolve to sustain this. As an infrastructure company, we power the likes of Fidelity Investments, Ameritas, ePlan Services, Inc. (Paychex), Morningstar and other leaders in the space, serving more than 40 recordkeepers and TPAs and 45K+ sponsors with 5M+ participants. By working with the early technology adopters, we saw firsthand the need to evolve our platform so that Finch could grow to serve all 2,000 TPAs and 500 recordkeepers, ultimately powering the entire ecosystem. The speed we ship features at Finch is incredible, and there are more on the near-term roadmap! Now is the perfect time to onboard with Finch. Reach out to me at [email protected], and I’ll make sure you get a personal onboarding experience.

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It’s one of the most common traps for founders and leaders—and in startups, it’s a virtual rite of passage: The feature race. Watching your rival’s roadmap instead of your own strategy is hard to resist. But while it’s tempting, it doesn’t work. #competitorMyopia #cognitivebias #strategy #startups

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Pet Connect was a fantastic positioning test for our (coming soon) stealth venture. But it was also an incredible distillation of the ideas that matter going into 2025. If you didn’t attend, here are my favorite big ideas: 1 - Winners won’t be chosen by private equity or sales teams. They’ll be chosen by pet owners. One of the things I loved most about Pet Connect was a level of irreverence for stale thinking. Perhaps principle among these stale thoughts is that we can build fantastic products by building them around the needs of veterinary practices. Companies may be initially successful in convincing vets to buy their products, but until those products help them win, their market position is vulnerable. A practice wins when they become more appealing to pet owners. This industry needs a crash course in Product Market Fit. 2 - Omnichannel and On Demand drive results Brendan Lynch shared that VCA has had over 250,000 telehealth interactions in the last year. They have a 4.8/5 star rating. When care is recommended through telehealth, more than 50% of clients book a follow up appointment within two days. Younger pet owners (especially gen z) don’t suffer stodgy systems that force you into the same solution and communication channels for everyone. They expect to text you. To video chat. To combine telehealth, teletriage, and in office visits to create a system that makes more sense for the end user. One question we’re asking: where (and how) should the visit actually start? 3 - Driving breakthroughs by customer segmentation In the (AMAZING) cat panel led by Dr. Jane Brunt, the panelists brought up evidence that we are turning off cat owners by referring to them as “pet parents”. While that message resonates with dog owners, it doesn’t with cat owners. This is a symptom of a larger problem in our industry - our treating of pet owners as a monolith. This is backed by research that we are doing on how pet owners perceive veterinary care. Pet owners vary on how they want to be communicated with, how much they want to be communicated with, how they want to evaluate pricing, what expectations they have of their visit, and dozens of other variables. We give everyone a one-size-fits-all journey, when there is a tremendous opportunity to create more personal (at least digital) journeys based on intelligent segmenting. This was one of my favorite events I’ve been to in animal health - huge thanks to Poppy Adams and Kisaco Research. The unique mix of startups, investors, and industry leaders create a true cradle of innovation, and I believe did a meaningful service for our industry. Alie Cline and I will be back at VMX, and can’t wait to see everyone there! Boo L. Danielle Niccoli, MBA Bruce L. Truman, MBA Candise Goodwin Heidi Sirota (She/Her) Max P. Margie Adelman Jules Benson BVSc MRCVS Audrey Wystrach DVM Randy Valpy

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Some midweek wisdom from Y Combinator founder, Paul Graham, on why startups shouldn't stress over competitors. According to Graham, based on Y Combinator's extensive data set, few of their startups are actually killed by competitors. He compares the protection a startup has against competitors to the vastness of space, emphasising that the market is large enough for multiple players to thrive. Graham's analogy likens encountering a competitor to suddenly finding another runner in your race lane - the best course of action? “It’s sort of like if you’re running the hundred meters and suddenly a lane appears with another runner in it. What should you do? Run as fast as you can, just like you presumably were.” #Startups #Competition #Entrepreneurship #wearehiring

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Here is a recent Substack article I wrote about how to effectively leverage your board at various stages of startup growth. This is a questions we get quite a bit. If you are interested in reading the full article: https://lnkd.in/gUYNW9iB

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As we explore a seed round of VC funding for Avnir, a mentor has driven into me to "interview them as much as they'll do their due diligence on you!" When I consider professional etiquette important to me (and probably every serious founder), I am reminded of what I've coached hundreds of executives on over the past two decades: "Your culture is a culmination of behaviors you're willing to tolerate!" So, here is a Top 10 List of Professional Etiquette crucial to long-term strategic relationships between VCs and founders: 1️⃣ Respect for Time—Punctuality, Efficient Communication, and Timely Feedforward are demonstrated and genuinely felt. We would both rather me invest time in building the business. 2️⃣ Transparency—Clear Expectations, Honest Feedforward, and Disclosures on conflicts of interest or resource limitations save everyone unnecessarily wasted cycles! 3️⃣ Professionalism—Politeness, Confidentiality, and Objective Evaluation allow courteous interactions, respect for proprietary information, and avoiding bias in evaluating the founder's meritocracy. 4️⃣ Empathy—Understanding the Journey and Constructive Dialogue acknowledge the uphill battle founders face while avoiding unnecessary criticism and providing supportive guidance, demonstrating a genuine interest in their vision. 5️⃣ Integrity—Fair Terms, Follow Through, and Avoiding Overpromising honor commitments during discussions, and create realistic expectations from the relationship. 6️⃣ Co-Creation—Value-adding Mindset and Team Player Attitude accelerate the founder's ability to gain traction and position the VC relationship as transformational vs. simply transactional. 7️⃣ Humility—Avoiding Arrogance, Condescension, and Open-Mindedness acknowledges that both parties have unique expertise to add and enhance the receptivity to unconventional ideas, approaches, and perspectives. 8️⃣ Listening Louder—Present, Engaged, and Clarity of Intent eliminates distractions, brings out what's not being said, and jointly crafts better questions to help uncover the unknown and the undiscovered. 9️⃣ Encouraging—Supportive Communication, Positive Reinforcement, and Inspiration help celebrate small wins and key milestone achievements. It's ideal to light a fire within the relationship rather than under anyone, which seldom lasts! 🔟 Playing the Long Game—Relationship Nurturing and Post-Investment Care establishes the runway for a lasting partnership rather than simply pitching a deck and closing a deal. After the investment decision, sustaining the relationship will determine the partnership's long-term perspective. Jason M. Lemkin, Peter Bell, Cassie Young, and Ed Sim - you exemplify world-class in the relationships you build with your founders. Did I miss anything? #VCFounderRelationship #AlignedExpectations #RelationshipsMatterMoreThanEver

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Today, GTMfund’s is excited to announce to launch of Operator, its first incubated company. Max Altschuler (founder of GTMfund) teamed up with co-founder Adam M. (design engineer and 0-1 builder) and co-founder Mark Kosoglow (Outreach employee #1 and former SVP of Global Sales) to create Operator.ai alongside an insanely talented team Pleasant Middelhof, Jeremy Jonas, Carl Gunderson. We've entered a period called “The Great Ignore”. Spam and irrelevant, poorly-automated outbound campaigns are running rampant.   Operator gives you an easy-to-use Growth Engineer that allows you to build and enrich lists with accurate data, and run experiments and queries using AI to generate highly targeted outreach.    Check out their website to get updates, early access, and see how they are taking the world back to 2 touches meant to attract buyers into conversations that convert, instead of 20 touches meant to make sure you hit your activity number: https://www.operator.ai/

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"Don't Make it a Thing - Just Do the Damn Thing" ✨ 2024 Highlight Reel - One day, I'm helping founders raise capital, and the next accidentally organizing an entire event week... 🎯 The Greatest Hits ✅ Watched in as my former colleagues at Alliance for Southern California Innovation helped startups secure $110M+ in funding. (Congrats Eric Eide, Dan Davidson, and Nima Ashraf) ✅ Collaborated as CogX Festival Ambassador with Charlie Muirhead (CogX) & Crew ahead of their first LA Conference. We threw 8 salons that were basically tech TED talks with better snacks at the Fairmont Century Plaza. Special shoutout to Brandon Florian and Travis DeMeester for making "Dual-Use Technologies" exciting. ✅  Reunion with the Aerospace & Defense community thanks to my long-lost brother from another mother, Rahul Singh, at the DIU & NSIN roundtable. ✅ Then came the "hold my coffee" moment: SoCal Deep Tech Week 2024 with Owen Fileti, Joshua Peng, Rahul Singh, and many others. Zero resources, all hustle - somehow convinced 900+ brilliant minds to show up (and 60% actually did! 🎉) 🙏 What 2024 Taught Me 📝 Seize opportunities immediately - waiting only leads to missed chances 📝 Make decisions and commit to your course 📝 Trust your well-intentioned decisions, even amid uncertainty 📝 Leverage your network when the mission matters - people will support what they believe in 📝 Embrace imperfection - treat everything as a pilot and iterate aggressively 📝 Above all: Don't make it a thing - just do the damn thing 🏀 2025 Game Plan ☒ Assist in revitalizing the Industrial Base across Deep Tech ☒ Increase collaboration within and outside ecosystem (no siloes) ☒ Talk to more Deep Tech Founders, hear their story, and introduce them to funders, business, etc. (more on this soon) ☒ Share more brain dumps (I keep too much in my head.) 🔮 2025 Predictions ✨ More "Applied AI" / "Physical AI" + "" – AI is the Engine and Interface, and Data is its fuel.  ✨ History class finally becomes useful (ex: Defense Production Act & National Defense Education Act) ✨ Global politics gets industrial (CHIPS Act is just the appetizer) ✨ Two-front challenge: Rebuilding at home while playing global chess ✨ The Great Talent Hunt: Brace for more conversations about workforce gaps (spoiler alert: upskilling and education are about to become everyone's favorite buzzwords for social mobility) Thanks to all who supported, contributed, and shared the moments this year. Here's to a wild 2025... 🫡🇺🇸

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We’re thrilled to unveil our 2024 State of Talent report! Thanks to Matt Schulman, CEO/founder of Pave, for partnering with us. Thanks also to the whole Pave team that helped (especially Frances Mitchell!) The last few years in talent have been, as I was quoted in Fortune this morning, "super weird" - we put together this report to offer a broad view of what's happening, what we expect to happen the second half of this year, and what founders & People teams can do to prepare. 📍 Managing Spend: In ‘23-24, more companies froze merit increases to manage budgets. Despite similar median merit cycle increases, average increases are lower YoY. 📍 Focus on Retention: Attention has shifted from hiring to retention of top performers, with expected attrition increases in H2. The rise in applications per role + the increase in job postings suggest a competitive rest of the year. 📍 Job Postings as Leading Indicators: Job postings can signal future salary changes. Data Science/ML saw a 56.4% increase in ‘23, with salaries rising. Sales, Marketing, and Product also saw significant growth in Q1. SF continued to see more competition than other US areas. 📍 Sales Talent: Top-quality sales talent is more competitive, especially for top percentile talent. Last year, 23% of companies grew their sales teams; 86% plan to expand this year, with 2/3 of those aiming to double their headcount (thank you for the data Bravado!) 📍 AI's Impact on Job Families: Ai disrupts roles like Customer Support, which has the highest apps per job posting and significant salary changes YoY. Though engineers aren’t being replaced by AI yet, the potential automation of roles like sales development raises questions about career ladders. 📍 Managing Equity Burn: To manage burn, companies are limiting equity to certain levels, reducing targets, and exploring new geographies. Equity burn is a major concern, especially for late stage privates and public companies. Companies are concentrating their equity comp towards great leadership and strong, autonomous ICs. 📍 Geography-Based Equity Adjustments: Surprisingly, geography-based adjustments aren't more common. Outside of the top few US tech metros, equity comp can be as low as 50-60% of Tier 1, and even lower internationally. 📍 New Equity Structures: Data shows that late stage private companies see a 60-70% increase in burn with refresh programs. Companies are experimenting with 1- and 3-year grants, backweighted vesting schedules, and other new structures, led by changes in public tech companies. For a deeper dive into these insights and more, check out the full 2024 State of Talent Report here: https://lnkd.in/g_yTTxFz

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