Henry Innis

Balancing startup life and personal moments? Thoughtly co-founder Casey Mackrell took that to a whole new level. On his wedding day, a colleague needed urgent access to code, and Casey stepped away from the dance floor for a quick 30-second fix. A photo of him wrapping up the task amid wedding festivities, taken by co-founder Torrey Leonard, quickly went viral—sparking a mix of admiration and criticism. While some were inspired by Casey’s dedication, others saw it as a sign of unhealthy work-life balance. The post tapped into the ongoing debate around "founder mode" vs. "manager mode," a concept Paul Graham of Y Combinator often discusses. Founders in "founder mode" are hands-on with every detail, while "manager mode" is about delegation. Casey’s moment resonated with the startup community, with many founders seeing it as a testament to the non-stop hustle required to grow a company. However, outside of tech, the picture prompted concerns about boundaries and burnout. Regardless of where you stand, the viral post is a powerful reminder of the unique challenges founders face. How do you balance being all-in on your startup while also being present for life's biggest moments?

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As an angel investor, I’ve made over 50 early-stage investments across the UK, US, and beyond. Now, as a Partner at Antler in Australia, I’ve experienced firsthand the shifts between angel and VC investing - and these findings have transformed my approach to supporting founders. I share 5 surprising lessons I learned that about angel vs. VC funding that I wish every founder knew in the article below. From the unexpected empathy VCs have (yes, we pitch too!) to why VCs reserve capital for follow-on funding and how market size can make or break a venture-backed business. Thinking about joining our February '25 residency and/or raising your first round? This is an inside look at the mindsets and strategies VCs use when investing, offering takeaways to help you get funded. 👉 Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/g_jStAWS

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Decoding VC speak is often tough - many founders will hear a combo of “Come back to us when you have more revenue” or “Let me know once you have a lead investor” Much of this means “Tell me when it’s safe enough for me to make a decision because someone else has done the hard work” I talk about this and more in an article for our friends at Startup Daily https://lnkd.in/gnFvGFy8

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Pivot Labs is our free online startup incubator supporting first-time founders Our focus is ‘dual use’ - building a commercial product that might also have a defence / security application My Co-founder Mark Adams and I have supported a bunch of founders with: ▶ Getting started / developing ideas ▶ Finding early customers / customer discovery / product ▶ Finding and evaluating potential co-founders or hires ▶ Fundraising / pitching / decks ▶ Identifying and hiring fractional advice (legal, financial etc) ▶ Spinning out (corp, uni or gov) ▶ Reviving ideas / dealing with difficult situations ▶ And just general emotional support We’ve been experimenting with formats for helping founders including: ▶ Online 30 minute focussed calls with founders booked via Calendly, as and when they want contact ▶ Pairing entrepreneurial-curious innovators (with a bit of free time, and the need for something on the CV) with busy founders who welcome the extra hands ▶ A slack community for the founders we support alongside government innovators, investors, experienced founders and operators If any of this sounds interesting do please get in touch, we particularly welcome: ▶ Founders ▶ Future founders ▶ Those who’d like to help the above

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Many Aussie/Kiwi founders eventually face the decision of: what market should I go to next? Often, the answer they land on is the US. The key decision points then become: 1) when should I enter the US? 2) how should I break in? I spent the last 2 weeks with US VCs in San Francisco and New York, exploring those two questions and understanding what they've seen work and what they've seen fail. If you're in the early stages of building a venture scale business, I wrote the below as a simplified guide for thinking through those two decision points: https://lnkd.in/gY2JzByV

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On average, it takes up to 12 months to produce ONE book. 📚 However, one founder has discovered a way to use AI to speed up the process without compromising on quality. ✨ On the podcast this week, we’re joined by Georgia Kirke, Founder of ClioBooks.ai, who shares some fantastic insights into how she’s using the latest AI developments to shake up the publishing world. 🌍 Tune in to find out: 📖 How Clio is disrupting the publishing world 💼 What this means for you as an investor 💡 Why you should specifically look out for tech companies that merge machine capability and human ingenuity to create value We've also got a great blog that covers this topic: https://hubs.li/Q02s-f6H0 P.S. We have now revealed our new early-stage and growth AI fund. 👀 If you want to find out more, you can register your interest here: https://hubs.li/Q02s-7P90 #EHEVentures #AIInvestment #Investors #TechFunding #FastGrowthFunding

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What is the future of Terra given Verily & MSFT ❌'ed Broad's DSP Contract? Losing $30 million / year of funding is a serious blow to the future of Terra's tech stack & platform. I've met an increasing number of researchers and PIs who are looking for better support, lower prices, and will no longer use Terra.bio. --- As the saying goes, one's loss is usually another's gain. We at MemVerge built technology that enables a lower cost "Terra" on AWS with the added benefit of resilient Spot instances...excited about future opportunities as the tech stack for cloud bioinformatics becomes less tightly controlled by a powerful few 😇. We are workflow agnostic: -We support your WDL, CWL, Nextflow, or Flyte workflows -Use SJM or another job manager? We got you. -Got custom bash scripts? Yup, we got you too. --- Many of you are coming from traditional HPC environments and need much more support than existing IT teams can provide to you in the cloud and you need more compute "on demand" than is locally available. We help researchers and PIs run their genomics analyses and workflows on the cloud and we save them a ton by using our Spot surfing solution for EC2 Spot instances. DM me to learn more or drop a comment with your questions and POV below 👇. Link to an article with more details in the comments below. #genomics #multiomics #NGS #HPC #AWS #Nextflow #Cromwell

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Proud to have supported Wander in securing their recent $1M extension seed round! 🚀 This achievement underscores a crucial lesson in startup growth: success in follow-on funding rounds demands strategic thinking and unwavering dedication to hitting key milestones. Wander's team, led by the visionary AJ Brau, has exemplified this perfectly. Their journey from concept to a global, AI-enhanced interactive mapping platform is a testament to the power of customer-centric innovation and persistent execution. It's been a privilege to guide them through our Value Creation program, helping translate potential into a robust, actionable strategy. To aspiring entrepreneurs: remember, each funding round presents unique challenges. While initial rounds often focus on your idea, vision, and promises, follow-on rounds require solid achievements and compelling arguments supporting your actual execution. Key points to consider: 1. Expect your initial plan to evolve; investors understand that perfect 1:1 execution is rare. 2. Be prepared to showcase your decision-making process and how you've adapted to challenges. 3. Governance and operational mechanics will be scrutinized more closely in later rounds. 4. Focus on creating tangible value, hitting your targets, and effectively communicating your progress and learnings. Remember, each round is an opportunity to prove your ability to execute and adapt. The capital will follow well-executed strategies and demonstrated results. Congratulations to AJ and the entire Wander team! Your hard work is paying off, and I'm excited to see where this new funding takes you. Read more about Wander's journey and innovative approach here: https://lnkd.in/dE-9n8_2 #StartupSuccess #VentureCapital #TravelTech #Innovation #ValueCreation #Utah #Advisor

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Mark "Z" Zmarzly 🦄 substack brings all the startups to his yard. And the startups are like, it's better than yours. And Mark's like "Damn right it's better than yours ... I can teach you, but I have to charge." Good thing he's got access to plenty Amazon Web Services (AWS) credits. See you in Melbourne at Intersekt next Wednesday and the AWS Financial Services Symposium in Sydney on Thursday. #AWSStartups #CloudInnovation #StartupEcosystem #AWSActivate #ScalableSolutions #TechForStartups #CloudForStartups #AWSGrowth #BuildOnAWS #StartupSuccess #AWSPartners #CloudFirst #FounderSupport #StartupJourney #TechInnovation #AWSCloud #ScaleWithAWS #StartupResources #AWSFunding #EntrepreneurSupport #AWSStartupsAccelerator

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Exciting Growth at AskCory.ai! 🚀 Consistency and strategic moves can really make a difference. Here’s a snapshot of our recent weekly new sign-ups, showing two significant spikes with 78 and 134 new sign-ups in each week. So, what did we do? 1️⃣ First Spike: Simply by existing consistently 😅, we got featured in a huge AI Tool Report (newsletter with +500k readers). 2️⃣ Second Spike: A small test with a Brazilian tech influencer paid off. We did a paid feature to see the results, and it worked (in terms of new trials, so far)! Kudos to Murilo Battisti! Consistency and leveraging the right opportunities can drive impressive growth. What other strategies have you found effective for boosting sign-ups? #Marketing #Growth #Newsletters #InfluencerMarketing

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With big name agencies like WPP and Publicis investing heavily in their own AI systems, it’s easy for agency leaders to feel pressure to either build their AI systems. At a minimum it would be natural for them to be wondering how much should they be investing in building something proprietary. But take a step back – instead of rushing to build, consider these steps: Get educated and proficient with generative AI: Invest in training to understand AI’s varied applications and identify where it can add real value for your agency. Establish governance and ethical guidelines: Create governance frameworks to ensure AI is used responsibly or an set-up an internal AI council to oversee ethical standards and pilot projects. Leverage Existing AI Platforms: Work with AI as a strategic partner to guide strategy and operations. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel – the real race isn’t about building the biggest AI system but about using AI effectively to deliver value. Don’t let FOMO drive your strategy; let’s be smart, but also strategic. Thanks @Adweek for featuring my thoughts on this topic. More below: https://lnkd.in/gUiFj6xp #AIFirst #AI #Forum3

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A founder's perspective on Founder Mode: It's about craftsmanship and soul Last week Brian Chesky and Paul Graham ignited the tech startup world with a discussion around "founder mode", which Paul summarizes in this post - https://lnkd.in/gC7swj59 This comparison of founder mode vs. manager mode and stream of bad advice around it really resonates with me as a multi-time founder. I find there are two areas in particular that get systematically eliminated in the process of moving from product-market fit to "building the machine" and scaling up an organization. 🔮 🛠 Craftsmanship: Early days require a lot of craftsmanship - as if you're designing and building custom homes for a small set of early customers. You need to inspire them with your vision, co-create with them, and make constant decisions about how to iterate, where to influence, and how to listen - all shaped with a view to repeatable and scalable patterns you can leverage to scale. This requires a lot of top-down intuition and hands-on crafting to get right - it also benefits from strong and fast decision making from the founder(s). As companies grow, this founder craftsmanship is easy to see as an enemy of scale that needs to be removed in favour of proven process. While it is true that this is not easy to scale, it is possible and worth it to figure out. I saw Zuck do this at Facebook as we scaled, shaping high impact initiatives and role modelling his craftsmanship to high potential people in his "Zuck reviews" for important new products and key initiatives. Combine this with a clear set of values and entrepreneurial people and you can keep the founder's touch on key initiatives without giving in to manager mode. 💙 🙏 Soul: A founder-led business can be felt much easier than it can be described. There is a passion, a set of values, a purpose that gives the company indescribable depth when done right - that feels magical and gives the company soul. This is the part of founder mode that enables people in the company to embody the same values, act with the same standards, and channel the inner purpose and passion of the founder. It attracts people that are entrepreneurial and secure in their abilities. People who see a founder's touch as a secret ingredient to add, not a box to be checked or worse to be avoided. My former Meta (at that time Facebook) colleague Fidji Simo wrote a great perspective on founder mode for non-founders in the information today, which I also see as possible. Founder mentality is a mindset and combined with an ability to imprint a sense of craft and soul into a company. I think founder-led companies like Meta and Shopify have shown a pattern to study and replicate in scaling startups, they have also produced a talent pool to mine for leaders that can operate in founder mode as the company scales. What do you think? Curious to hear your thoughts on founder mode... it's been a fun one to think about over the weekend. 🤔 #foundermode #founders #yc

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Here's a provocative claim. "Southeast Asia doesn't exist" Andrew McGlinchey explains why Southeast Asia is just a business construct created by big tech companies. https://lnkd.in/gDPifVqW Full episode link in comments section. #southeastasia #productmanagement #productplaybooks

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Props to the Airbyte team for their v1.0 milestone! 🎉 Data movement is *painful* at the best of times, and given the importance of clean data for training AI on proprietary LLMs, that pain has never been more pronounced. 😬 Airbyte's tackling this in a way that's really close to my heart... through open source development, ecosystem partnerships, and nurturing their massive community across multiple channels. https://airbyte.com/v1 #opensource #ai #datamovement

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Absolutely stoked to kick off the 2nd season of ‘The Modern DevGTM Brew’ podcast with the OG of Developer Marketing - Adam Frankl, Ex-JFrog, Neo4j, Sourcegraph as the first guest. We spoke about a topic close to my heart - 'Why developer focused companies need to adopt intent-based selling'. Adam is a trusted advisor to Reo.Dev and is a firm believer in Reo.Dev’s thesis that traditional SaaS GTM strategies simply don't cut it when selling to developers, given their unique intent signals. I had a blast chatting with Adam, and this episode is just overflowing with knowledge nuggets for anyone selling to developers. We covered a lot of ground, including: ✅ How the developer buying funnel differs from the traditional SaaS buying journey. ✅ The common mistakes that dev marketers and sellers often make with developers, and how you can steer clear of them. ✅ The strategic advantages of setting up a Technical Advisory Board (TAB). ✅ The compelling role of storytelling in selling to developers. If you’re someone who sells to developers, you can't afford to miss this episode. I promise it's packed with insights and strategies that will really make a difference in how you connect with developers. Link to the full episode in comments below.

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Venture-backed founders sign up for a binary outcome: Go Big or Go Home. Which is why it is so puzzling to see so many of these founders pivot away from growth to "sustainable" low-growth profitability, according to Tim Doyle, founder of Eucalyptus. Low-growth, sub-scale venture-backed companies have no future -- even if they are able to turn a small profit. Don't waste your life force building a zombie company! -- It was heaps of fun getting some of Tim's hot takes in today's BONUS episode of The Startup Podcast, with me and Chris Saad.

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Since launching Ariglad (the first AI tool of its kind) we've discovered a few use cases where it really helps to have a tool like Ariglad 👇 ▶ Creating a new knowledge base from scratch. Anyone that's done this before knows how much time this takes - some of our customers were about to outsource this to consulting firms and invest a huge amount of money. ▶ A huge, bloated knowledge base that customers can't navigate. It has lots of duplicate articles and most of it is outdated. ▶ Complex products or a platform that changes often. These makes it hard to keep a knowledge base updated / much harder for customers to find answers. ▶ Data is stored in many different places. For example, a customer might use Zendesk for ticketing, Notion for release notes, Slack for key updates etc. It's difficult to keep channeling all this important knowledge into your help center. Did I miss any other examples of companies that would benefit from a tool like Ariglad? (We didn't end up using the below ad, but I spent way too much time photoshopping this sloth to not share 🚀) #customerservice #customersuccess #clientservice #clientsuccess #customerexperience #ai #aitechnology #aitech #founderjourney

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“Do things that don’t scale” is advice that sticks with many Y Combinator founders, but it means more than simply rolling up your sleeves. Early on at Simplifine (YC S24), we chose to work directly with researchers—getting on calls, testing workflows, and uncovering their specific challenges. Those hours spent in detailed conversations and hands-on support weren’t efficient, but they gave us insights data alone couldn’t provide. This approach may seem counterintuitive, yet it’s helped us understand the deeper, often overlooked needs that drive our product direction. Taking this non-scalable route has led to surprising breakthroughs. By focusing on direct feedback and support, we’ve identified critical patterns and quickly adapted our platform based on real-world use, rather than assumptions. This clarity in direction means we aren’t investing in features or workflows that don’t have real impact. Instead, we’re building exactly what researchers need, helping us keep Simplifine focused and practical. Ultimately, our commitment to “doing things that don’t scale” is more than just a startup tactic; it’s our way of staying aligned with our users. The temptation to grow fast is real, but by choosing to engage personally with researchers, we’ve grounded Simplifine in what truly matters. These early, authentic connections have shaped our product and guide us as we scale—ensuring that Simplifine continues to serve the research community in ways that are both meaningful and impactful. #dothingsthatdontscale

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