Lucas Fada

We. Are. Hiring! Hiring is a team sport - this is a super high bar but so worth striving for 💪 If you're based in NY or LA, and cannot wait to do your best Biz Dev work ever growing a native VoiceAI startup, see if you fit the bill ... BD Manager with - Deep expertise in Sales Dev, or Biz Dev - You've read Play Bigger. You understand the opportunity for a vastly different category creation strategy in the Voice Automation space - Do the Hard Work to get Dialed In, Answer the Call, and Don’t Hang Up Major plus point - you get to work with Radz, Alfredo, myself & other mission-driven Flippers ... can there be anything more motivating or game-changing? Miles is taking submissions or referrals - hit him up with something that cannot be ignored 🌟 Plus point 2 - you'll work with & across our Outbound, Partner, Ambassador, and Event channels - a front row seat connecting & working daily with CX decision makers & innovators in the eComm & Retail space. Does this driver's seat have your name on it? 🏎️ #hiring #flippers #talent #flipcx #voiceai #voiceautomation #customerexperience #ecommerce #retail

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HITRUST chose Vanta as the first pre-built HITRUST e1 solution, which means Vanta comes "out of the box" with the necessary controls, documents, and policies for an e1 assessment and eliminates the manual “do-it-yourself” approach that other platforms require. Up to 80% of requirements are automated by: *️⃣ Guidance around requirements: 44 new controls and 72 automated tests to ensure comprehensive and continuous compliance. *️⃣ Documents and policy templates: 80 new documents and 10 policy addendums to outline practices around managing sensitive data. *️⃣ Automated evidence collection: With over 300 integrations, Vanta automatically and continuously collects evidence from an organization’s technology stack. Our platform also applies overlapping, implemented controls from other supported frameworks, including up to 50% of SOC 2 and ISO 27001, to eliminate duplicative work across compliance programs. Coming soon, our partnership with HITRUST will expand into an integration with their audit portal, MyCSF, so customer evidence is transfered automatically from Vanta to MyCSF, further streamlining the HITRUST validation process Really excited for this collaboration!

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Make something people want. This phrase is repeated over and over in YC circles. You can even get t-shirts and swag with it printed right on it in bright orange & white colors. But don't founders get it by now? Do they really need a sign to remind them? They definitely don't get it, and they do need reminders. Myself included. Soooo many people want to tell you what you should be thinking about and how you should execute. They mean well, but it's honestly exhausting at times. Even more exhausting, it's very easy to convince yourself what you think you should be building. After two years of building Depot, I can clearly say what our "product strategy" is... Build the things people want. Period. If you opened our product roadmap today, you would find nothing that doesn't directly relate to what Depot fans are asking for or needing.

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We are thrilled to announce that TurboDocx has successfully closed its Angel funding round, raising $75,000. This significant milestone marks a leap forward in our journey to revolutionize smart and modular document and slide deck creation, accelerated by AI. A heartfelt thank you goes out to our friends, family, early supporters and everyone that believes in our vision. Your support is not just appreciated-- but a strong vote of confidence in our mission to innovate and transform how business document creation is created. What does this mean for TurboDocx? We're reinvesting it into the business: - Focusing on Partner/Client Needs - Understanding and addressing the evolving needs of our users remains our top priority. We're here to build not just a product but a solution that truly makes a difference. - Enhanced Solutioning - We're more committed than ever to developing solutions that set new benchmarks for efficiency, re-usability, and innovation has never been stronger. - Innovation, Partner, and Channel Growth - Our investment team and advisors primarily consists of go-to-market (GTM) and implementation professionals that have already provided invaluable guidance on scaling our overall growth. Looking ahead: As we celebrate this achievement, we're mindful that fundraising is not the end goal but a milestone --a means to an end-- to build out a well oiled machine. We're excited to leverage this opportunity to further our mission, drive innovation, and exceed the expectations of our users and partners. With this said - If you'd like to be part of this exciting journey, please reach out! Stay tuned for updates, join our growing community, and let's reshape the future of document and slide deck creation together. -Nicolas https://lnkd.in/e4CGrUVB

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⌛ The deadline for YC’s S24 batch is April 22! I get a ton of requests for application feedback, so I’ve consolidated my advice here: 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐦 > 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐚 + 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬 Your idea will change; that’s what it means to be pre-product-market fit. A bet on an early-stage company is a bet on the team to iterate rapidly and figure it out; think of your idea and your progress as useful evidence. Don’t be discouraged if you feel like you haven’t made enough progress, because the amount of progress you’ve made is not nearly as important as how fast you made it. In other words: “slope, not intercept”. 𝐁𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞. 𝐁𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭. Explain your idea clearly in 1-2 sentences: who are your users and what problem do you solve? Avoid jargon, marketing-speak, technical intricacies, or an exhaustive list of features. Tacking on “...with AI” or “...with blockchain” is not any more helpful than “...with computers”. Bad: “We are transforming the global software development industry with a revolutionary AI platform that streamlines the SDLC for tremendous efficiency gains using cutting-edge LLMs.” Better: “We’re a developer tool that automatically reviews code and fixes bugs.” 𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐬 You should feel like an expert on your users, and have some unique/contrarian insights about them. You’ve hopefully identified a “hair-on-fire” pain they have, and you’re building a product to fix their problem. It’s hard to spend too much time talking to your users. Interviewing 50-100 people seems like a good place to start. If you’ve talked to less than, say, 10-20, it might be hard to know you’re solving a real problem. 𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲 What’s your path to $1B in revenue? Keep it simple. You don’t need a 5-tier pricing strategy and a multi-year product roadmap, you need to know roughly how many potential customers you have and how much they’re likely to pay (bottom-up analysis), and how big the overall market is (top-down). Reasonable estimates are OK. Remember, the VC model is based on a power law of startup returns, where one huge exit makes up for all other investments going to zero. This makes a tiny chance at becoming a $10B company quite valuable, and a high chance at becoming a $50M company surprisingly useless. 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐲? Emphatic yes! YC was an awesome experience for us and every YC alumnus I’ve asked so far - it changed the trajectory of our startup. Even if you don’t get in, we found the application process itself was valuable and forced us to think deeply. If you’d like some eyes on your application, send me a message - I’m happy to help!

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It turns out, the Long Island Sound IS water. For these and other insights, check out this post about our seed funding round. 😬 #startups #fundraising #newyork

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Product leaders: if you want valuable feedback, you’ll have to “farm for dissent.” Farming for dissent is a technique popularized by Reed Hastings at Netflix to seek out criticism of new ideas. In the world of product feedback and customer discovery, this means intentionally seeking out those interactions where a customer will push back. The end goal is to find the moments where they’ll challenge you, giving you honest insights that drive improvement. But farming for dissent is harder than it sounds. Most people tend to be agreeable - either because they don’t care deeply enough to engage in a meaningful conversation, or because they like you and don’t want to offend. This means they might hold back on the constructive feedback you actually need to serve them better. Remember, feedback is a gift. People wouldn’t offer it if they didn’t care about your product’s success. So keep digging, ask the hard questions, and don’t take surface-level approval as confirmation that you’re on the right path.

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⚡ ion design is now live! And we’re already saving teams hundreds of hours ⚡ We turn designers into design engineers—without learning how to code. ion is the first AI app builder built for designers, transforming Figma designs into clean, production-ready code. Generate, iterate, and ship in seconds. Our goal? To create 1000x more design engineers who can: 🚀 Handle the first round of frontend development ✏️ Make design fixes, copy edits, and updates without involving engineering 🛠️ Work directly with your Git repositories ________________________ Here's how it works: 1️⃣ Design in Figma just as you always do. 2️⃣ Generate & iterate: Ion leverages your existing components, styles, and structure. Prompt it to build a working app and iterate as needed. 3️⃣ Ship faster: Create GitHub pull requests directly from ion or hand off seamlessly to engineers. We're here to empower designers, not replace them. While good design can't be automated, ion ensures you can accomplish much more and see your creations come to life—on your own terms. This means achieving more than ever without hiring additional resources. 💡 Let's make 2025 the year of the design engineer!

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Why we're leaving 70% of potential revenue on the table. And why it might be the smartest business decision we've made. After our $130M exit with Olapic, we had a choice to make with Remotely. The traditional playbook was clear: - Optimize for maximum margins - Scale rapidly - Raise significant capital - Keep pricing opaque Instead, we chose a radically different path with Remotely. We did something "irrational": showed our customers exactly how much developers make. In an industry where companies typically pocket 70% of what customers pay, we decided to charge a transparent flat fee (that effectively makes our take rate at 18%). Everyone said we were crazy. "You're giving away margin!" But here's what happened: → Customers started referring us to other customers → The best developers chose us over higher-paying competitors → We grew entirely through word-of-mouth while others spent heavily on sales 4 years in: - 300+ developers placed - $37M paid directly to developers - $25M in annual GMV - Small, profitable team - Still charging a flat fee And we’re just getting started :) We’re publicly documenting our journey and sharing our metrics on our newsletter, you can subscribe here - https://hubs.ly/Q02-mH5S0

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Great design is a competitive edge. I've been reflecting on some Y Combinator companies that put craft and design first. Thinking of: Raycast: Thomas and his team are building productivity tools with unmatched elegance and precision. Cron: Raphael Schaad is completely reimagining calendars through seamless UX and design. Resend: Zeno Rocha's team is crafting beautiful email infrastructure developers actually want to use. Index (yours truly!): Our goal is to make data more accessible through intuitive design. Honorary mentions previously in YC: Superhuman: Rahul Vohra's team with the fastest email experience ever, obsessively designed. Linear: Karri Saarinen is truly raising the bar for design in project tracking and management. Who did I forget? Share your product and how you approach design, too!

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#CASE_STUDY: AI-Powered Lead Generation Solutions for Ketamine Therapy Clinics by #Harison Mbiseh This case study is one of the best use cases of automation in AI and LLMs right now. With AI assistants becoming more common, it’s not too far off when we’ll all be talking to them to get things done instead of searching online or clicking through lots of web pages. AI assistants probably won’t replace websites and search engines entirely, but they’re becoming a big part of how we use the internet. This case study is about how I created an AI assistant for a Ketamine Therapy clinic. It helps visitors to the website find what they need, get answers to their questions, figure out if Ketamine treatment might be right for them, schedule a free appointment, and leave their contact info. This makes the website easier to use for visitors and brings in more leads and conversions for the clinic. #Problem Statement & Objective Description of the core problem(s) we are addressing Website visitors struggle to find the right information, particularly when their intent and needs vary. Whether they’re looking for treatment, want to collaborate, or need to refer someone, it may be confusing and time-consuming for them to navigate the site and find what they need. Plus, people interested in treatment don’t have the self-assessment tools to know if the treatment is suitable for them or if they should schedule a free consultation. Notes that understanding the core problem and pain point faced by an organization and its audience is very important in defining the best AI use case. I will continue with part two in the next post, where I will share the objectives, the solution, and the tools I used to build and deployed the solution. Follow (#Harison Mbiseh) for more AI use cases and also repost this to help other aspiring AI consultants to learn and grow.

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I finally had time to write the second post about early-stage product design mistakes that startups make. This post is about the mistakes we made at Ackcio, wherein we incorporated every single client request without considering broader market requirements. Please take a look and let me know your thoughts. If you found this post helpful, please share it and spread the love. If you like to stay informed about future posts, please subscribe!

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The # 1 reason customer education and product marketing teams hesitate to make videos is the fear they'll go out of date. Clueso (YC W23)'s new trim & stitch feature makes updating out-of-date product videos a breeze. No need to re-record the entire video from scratch. Simply trim out the outdated footage, swap in new clips from your updated product, and click the generate button. Clueso will work its magic, producing your final video with an updated voiceover. #customersuccess #marketing #customereducation

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Attention founders or founders in the making. Michael Ho always has great insight on a lot of topics. Check out this one on navigating from Seed to Series A.

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The only podcast you might not have to listen to at 1.5X speed 😂 . Thanks for having me, EXPLORE84! I appreciate you sharing the latest and greatest of what we have been up to!

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Spicy take: How to decide between venture-backed or bootstrapped: Would you rather be force fed or forced to feed yourself? And yes, it’s a black-or-white, no middle ground, decision. If you’re debating this question and feel uncomfortable with either option, you’re probably not ready to be a founder. Founding anything—venture-backed or bootstrapped—is extreme. It demands a commitment to a philosophy and the willingness to live with its trade offs. The most freeing (and honest) truth is entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone—and that’s a good thing. Entrepreneurs are, frankly, masochistic, “black-or-white” thinkers touched with madness. Not choosing either path doesn’t make you a failure. It makes you healthy.

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TL;DR: STARTUPS + THE LITTLE TECH AGENDA 🙏 Andreessen Horowitz & Marc Andreessen, July 5, 2024 ☀ American tech leadership thrives on a 150-year foundation of pioneering spirit, work ethic, rule of law, capital markets, education, and government investment, with startups at the core. 🔊 Startups face challenges from incumbents who use regulatory capture to stifle competition, causing stagnation. Supporting startups is crucial to prevent this. 🌱 Little Tech (tech startups) contrasts with Big Tech. Bad government policies threaten startups, making their defense essential for tech supremacy. Our efforts focus on protecting Little Tech, supporting politicians who back them, and ensuring their freedom to innovate. "THE LITTLE TECH AGENDA Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz July 5, 2024 Little Tech is our term for tech startups, as contrasted to Big Tech incumbents. Little Tech has run independent of politics for our entire careers. But, as the old Soviet joke goes, “You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.” We believe bad government policies are now the #1 threat to Little Tech. We believe American technology supremacy, and the critical role that Little Tech startups play in ensuring that supremacy, is a first class political issue on par with any other. The time has come to stand up for Little Tech. Our political efforts as a firm are entirely focused on defending Little Tech.[1] We do not engage in political fights outside of issues directly relevant to Little Tech. But we will fight for Little Tech – for the freedom to research, to invent, to create jobs, to build the future – with all of our resources. We find there are three kinds of politicians: * Those who support Little Tech. We support them. * Those who oppose Little Tech. We oppose them. * Those who are somewhere in the middle – they want to be supportive, but they have concerns. We work with them in good faith. We support or oppose politicians regardless of party and regardless of their positions on other issues. We are in this for the long haul." via https://lnkd.in/gdMqvvni

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Getting into YC changed our company's trajectory I wrote a blog post a few months ago about how YC transformed our trajectory (link: https://lnkd.in/gNuSkYPN) It can't be overstated enough. If you're a pre-product-market-fit company, just filling out the application is a worth its weight in gold If you get an interview.. you get a taste for what each office hours in YC is like And if you get in.. There are 3 surprising benefits to YC: 1. YC helps you create a peer-group of founders in the same position as you, which can be an incredibly motivating force 2. Bookface, YC’s internal social forum, is a trove of high quality discourse, and acts as an implicit source of warm intros to other YC founders 3. YC’s Launch pad is great for getting your product in front of lots of startup-minded people And there are 2 things that ended up mattering a little bit less than I thought: 1. Fundraising — it turns out that building a great product and generating revenue far outweigh YC’s brand when raising money 2. YC’s Brand — while useful as social proof, it doesn’t replace the need to have a great product / solve a real problem

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