Seth Mazow

When you're not in the board room, you're always wondering, "What's going on in there?". I have now worked with seven companies where I'd regularly present to a board, a mixture of PE and VC-led, and it's almost always centered around a few key topics. If you're meeting your numbers: - what's your future forecast  - how are you going to continue to grow - how will you grow faster and more efficient  - update on money in the bank and spend If you're not meeting your numbers (along with the things I mentioned above): - what is your plan to turn things around and meet your numbers (this includes new logo, back-to-base sales, and churn reduction) - what resources can they offer to help - do you have the right players in the right seat This is an oversimplification because many nuances are at play, but this is generally it. While board meetings can be stressful, almost every board I've worked with wants to be helpful. Of course, their interest is, first and foremost, that the business is healthy and growing, so there's always that undertone, but overall, they want to help. After all, they are guardians of the investments they make on behalf of others and have to report back on their performance. Think of them like they are CSMs for their investors (the folks that give them money). They need to get a great return on the investment they made on their behalf.

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🚨 The former CFO of Dropbox, Sujay Jaswa oversees the investment and operating activities as a founding partner at WndrCo, alongside media vet Jeffrey Katzenberg. He joins us for VC Wednesdays.🚨 🖋️  You recently closed a $460 million VC fund. Where are you looking to deploy that? Everything we do is around the idea of the future of work and helping people optimize how they get work done. That’s why we're investors in companies like Airtable, Figma, Databricks, Deel, 1Password and others. That won’t change, but now, you'll see us really focus on the applications of AI that will meaningfully disrupt how work gets done, like in finance, HR and customer support. 🖋️  Why should founders work with WndrCo? One thing that we do that's different is starting one to two companies a year in areas that we think have the potential to yield big returns. So, when we talk to entrepreneurs, our operating experience stays current, and that angle on venture is fairly unique. The second is that each partner at WndrCo has built something, so we have the empathy that comes from that experience. Third, we do only five to seven deals a year, versus bigger firms that do hundreds. Because we have a smaller portfolio, entrepreneurs can get a hold of literally every partner within a couple of hours, 365 days a year. 🖋️ Which startup pitch sticks out the most in your memory over others and why? My favorite is one that’s not a household name yet, even though the business is absolutely on fire. It’s Aura, an all-in-one product to protect you and your family online. The idea is that unlike the physical world, you have no idea what your kids are doing on their phones and devices. Aura gives parents the tools to navigate raising a kid in our mobile-first and digital-first world. When the founder, Hari Ravichandran, walked me through how he would take it to market, it was love at first sight. He's an extraordinary entrepreneur and the best go-to-market person I've ever met when it comes to consumer products. 🖋️ What’s one investment you regret passing on and why? At the end of the day, this whole business is built on being part of monster companies as early as possible. One of the best enterprise companies of the last decade is Databricks. The founder and CEO, Ali Ghodsi, is a very good friend of mine, and for whatever reason, it never occurred to me in the early years to twist his arm to try and let him take our money. We invested in Databricks later than I’d have liked to. 🖋️  What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned working with Jeffrey Katzenberg? The biggest thing I've learned is that you can't be him, and it’s impossible to keep up with him. He's relentless, and I have never met someone who works harder than him. If he says he's going to do something, no matter how hard, if it's within his capabilities, he'll do it. He's a doer, and he just gets stuff done. I admire that so tremendously. #VCWednesdays #vc #venturecapital #startups #TechonLinkedIn

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3 years of pricing lessons at Equals condensed into one blog post. Since starting the company, we've tinkered a lot with pricing and packaging. It's one of the single most impactful levers early stage companies can pull. I think folks *don't* experiment with pricing enough, or take big enough bets when they do. We've tried free. We've tried completely sales led. We've tried not listing pricing on the site. Matt Hodges details all the plans we've had, why, and what we've learned in our latest installment on Wrap Text. https://lnkd.in/ecckEDba

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Excellent data to have when raising capital. #Automotiveindustry #electriccar #electricvehicles #automotive #electricvehicle #emobility #futureofmobility #EV #electric #electriccars #fleets #fleet #electricvehicle #emobility #futureofmobility #fleetmanagement #startup #impactinvesting #VC #angelinvesting #venturecapital #Entrepreneurs #privateequity #familyoffices

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The second-to-last episode of NY Seed Round's first season is live! This week, I'm joined by the one-and-only Alexa von Tobel of Inspired Capital. We cover... 1. Lessons learned building and exiting LearnVest 2. Common mistakes she sees from founders navigating the early stages of building their startups 3. The qualities and skills that will set great founders apart in today's ecosystem dominated by AI All this and more in the latest episode of the Rho pod. Catch the full episode below 👇 YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gRw2u3PE Spotify: https://lnkd.in/g8QZFTGG Hope you enjoy!

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CAREER ADVICE: BE A FUNCTIONAL SPECIALIST A friend messaged me: "At my startup, I’m technically a product manager but have taken on a much broader, generalist role. I’ve been juggling sales, product, engineering, ops, and more. I’m wondering if I should focus on something specific instead, like honing down into just the product role. Would love to hear your thoughts and advice!" My reply: "Be a functional specialist. As the startup grows, the top change they will make is to hire specialists. As a generalist, you'll almost certainly be sidelined and ultimately exited. You need to choose your functional path - I'd recommend product - and become excellent at it. This is the way to career success and growth." The only situation this advice wouldn't apply is if someone is transitioning from I-Banking or Consulting into an Operating role, where it will likely be into a Chief of Staff role.

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We've transitioned close to 3 dozen of our email-only clients to the "new" audience-first RevBoss*. And we've learned a lot in the process. 😬 People are surprisingly nervous to put themselves out there. Even founders that very obviously know their sh*t are hesitant to start creating trust-building content. Maybe it's imposter syndrome. Maybe it's just fear of public speaking. I get that talking into a camera comes more naturally for some than others and It's definitely feels a little awkward at first, even for the naturals. But the reality is that you don't have to be anyone other than yourself. 🦥 The hardest part is getting started. Once you can get over the nerves, you just have to go. You don't need to be perfect or polished. You really just need to be consistent and helpful. I wouldn't say I'm "good" at "content" yet, but I've gotten waaaay better from when I started. And I've got a much better plan going into 2025 than when I started. Building an audience is like planting a tree -- the best time was 10 years ago, the next best time is today. 🍇 Your first goal should be reaching the people that already know you. The non-obvious value I've gotten from a strategic content / audience effort on LinkedIn has come from preaching to the choir so to speak. The new follower growth has been nice, but the engagement, leads, opportunities, and revenue we've generated from our existing audience -- current clients, former clients, and non-converted leads -- has been the lowest hanging fruit. 🤠 It's fun to make marketing that people want. Our clients smile when they're creating this content. Their collective audiences seem to be responding in a positive way. And there is undoubtedly a hidden impact that doesn't show up in visible metrics like comments, likes, shares, etc. I know because I get text messages, DMs, emails, etc. in response to the stuff I'm sharing. And clients and prospects mention it completely unprompted on calls. 🏋️ There is so much more potential. We've just started the "activation" piece of our process with a handful of clients -- i.e. working to turn the audience into sales leads. We're experimenting with a few levers -- direct outreach via email, direct outreach via LinkedIn, LinkedIn ads, and (eventually) live events. Not going to tell you that an audience-first lead generation strategy is easy. But it's fun. And it works. :) *The new audience-first RevBoss officially launches this week. We're still emailing and we're still lead generating, just started our process from a different foundation -- audience, then trust, then leads. Leave a comment or shoot me a DM if you'd like to learn more about it. It's fun and it works. :)

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Last Friday, Vinay Hiremath, founder of Loom (USD 900M exit to Atlassian), shared on his blog about leaving Loom, leaving $60M payout, breaking up with his girlfriend, dealing with insecurities, a brief stint at DOGE, and how he is now in Hawaii self-studying physics. I, along with a few founders I know who had substantial exits at a fairly young age (late 20s to early 30s), experienced something similar. Post-acquisition, most of us underwent—and many are still going through—a self-discovery phase largely centered on finding a 'purpose' and determining the best possible use of our time at this point in life. Does it mean taking risks that nobody else can, building more companies, accumulating more wealth, reaching the pinnacle of mental and physical health, building a family, getting involved in social impact, or leaving everything behind to sit on an isolated island? Capital does give you freedom and excessive optionality in life choices, especially if you're still unmarried. However, it is difficult to find your anchor, and most of the time, the abundance of choices becomes overwhelming. I was fortunate to meet a few exited founders who had gone through the acquisition process, and they were kind enough to share what worked for them. In one of my conversations with David Haber, he said: "As entrepreneurs, we build companies, but while we do that, we can't discount life. And life is what happens outside our companies." That thought has stuck with me. Today, three years after exiting Recko | A Stripe company to Stripe, I feel there are multiple ways to make life more fulfilling. It is not just the single-minded, unidirectional professional pursuit, which more often than not is driven by a chase for external validation rather than an internal desire to become better at your craft or to do something that uplifts people around you. Until the time you find that burning desire, restlessness, or drive to pick up the shovel again, take that family trip, get in shape, try something that you always wanted but never could, embrace the nothingness, enjoy the boredom, and keep exploring!

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It's impossible to find one mentor for everything. I believe in assembling a personal advisory board. Here's what mine looks like: - [friend in strategy at F500] for work and life advice - [former Lyft exec] for execution - [3x founder] for strategy and surviving the rollercoaster - [former investor] for market landscape - [exec coach] for exec coaching stuff - [many founder friends] for specific domains - [climbing coach] for climbing, training What does your advisory board look like?

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Bootstrapping doesn't mean your long term vision product is profitable on day 1. It means you have found a scrappy way to make money, and then find smart ways to reinvest into something bigger. Most people don't know that we essentially funded Stacker in first couple years by syndicating to MSN on their rev share program, and then slowly built out Stacker as you see it today on top of that business line. Similarly, Tiny started as a design agency, now owns dozens of businesses from Aeropress to Dribbble. Ikea started with the founder buying pens in bulk, then reselling them at a profit. He literally raised $500 loan to do that, then kept reinvesting profits to build IKEA. Worry less about "is this the product." Get in the game, find something that can turn a profit, and see where the road takes you.

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Every company & every product has a name. Yet, few folks truly know how to name one. I’ve named companies and products for startups and big brands. I wrote a post this week about naming the Uber One subscription, and Paul A. responded with a request to write a post about the process. Challenge accepted! Let's start by saying that there are plenty of successful companies and products with bad names. Facebook (so lame), Spotify (what), and even Instagram (now everyone just calls it IG). But a good name is a tailwind. And building a business is all about generating tailwinds. Scrub Daddy - instantly makes it fun Shark - a vacuum that looks like a shark and a name you won’t forget Airbnb - fun and easy to remember—unlike VRBO Apple - for a computer! Love it Skims - so simple So, how do you name a company or product? Here are steps to a simple & comprehensive naming process. Step 1 - Brainstorm A well-structured brainstorm is key. You need the right people in the room, with the right prompts, in an environment comfortable enough for all ideas. The goal is to generate as many names as possible. This is a good opportunity to include stakeholders so they feel part of the input. Step 2 - Evalutation criteria Be specific about your needs, and exhaustive. Your criteria will generally have things like: Trademarking - can we own the trademark in our category? Domains available - if a company, what domains can we get? Internationalization - does this word have meanings in other languages? I recently heard about a startup named Corva, a very bad word for anyone who speaks a Slavic language. Don’t make this simple mistake! Alternate meanings - does this name have multiple meanings? Connotations test - Positive or negative connotations? Relatedness - does this communicate a key aspect of our product? Differentiated - how different is this from our competitors? Etc. Make sure your stakeholders approve the criteria! Your criteria will likely remove 90% of your ideas to help you filter. I recommend using a spreadsheet with your criteria as columns. This creates a simple tool to filter names by criteria easily. Step 3 - Picking a name The hardest part of the process is buy-in. Naming is more of an art than a science. I've generally used a voting process. Some tips: - Put the final names into a deck with the finalists used on the website, packaging, ads, etc., so your team can see it in situ. - DO NOT include the internal code name. It will always win the top votes as it is the most familiar. Even your smartest, most discerning colleagues will fall for the familiarity trap. I saw it at Uber many times. Step 4 - Sell it Unveil the name with a splash! We often did this by creating fun campaign examples with the new name. We made social media posts, billboards, and even ad campaigns to show the team how the name would bring their work to life. Happy naming!

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This market is tough. There's no big headlines about it, but everyone in the trenches is seeing it. I had brunch with a founder friend over the weekend and he shared that 30% of their pipeline got cut in the last two weeks. The writing's on the wall for folks missing annual targets. Best-in-class companies are managing to drive growth through existing accounts: they find ways to provide more value, and get rewarded for it. One of the easiest ways I've seen folks do that is by offering premium analytics or data exports. Heap famously charged 30% of ACV for data delivery directly into the customer's data warehouse. Stripe charges ¢3 per row of data. I can name at least 3 companies with under 100 employees who are driving 7-8 digit ARR from this alone. If you're not doing this already, you should ask why. You're leaving money on the table. We wrote up a guide on how to make this happen, from scratch. Comment "guide" below and I'll send it to you -- happy to answer any questions over a call too. Year's not over yet, here's to crushing the next couple quarters!

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🎧🍌 New podcast out today with Austin Rief, Co-founder and CEO of Morning Brew, WSJ for the next generation. Austin and co-founder Alex Lieberman started the company in 2016, and grew it to 6 million subscribers and $70 million in revenue in six years. We talk through the early days of Morning Brew while students at the University of Michigan, and Austin's playbook for starting a new media company from scratch today. We get into the creator economy, early stage investing math, ad based business models and how agencies work, acquiring subscribers for two cents as the first advertiser on Instagram Stories, advice for hiring, and his secret for hiring remote talent in Sri Lanka. Link to full episode in the comments!

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Batch 0 of Alif kicks off this Sunday. We've brought on some of the most talented founders/investors in the space as company advisors. This week, we're announcing the first of those: Furqan Rydhan. I met Furqan at an ETHDenver dinner two and half years ago, a few months before he brought me onto Founders, Inc. as the first growth hire. He's one of the most interesting people in SF, and the first person I reached out to when the idea of launching Alif became real. His background: - Founding CTO of AppLovin, which had a $30b IPO in 2021. - Cofounded Bebo w/ Shaan Puri, which they sold to Twitch in 2019. - Founded Founders, Inc., where we've invested in and incubated over 100 companies in the past 4 years. - Founded thirdweb in 2021, which quickly became one of the largest Web3 infra companies in the space. He'll be kicking off the batch with a talk about "ideas": what makes a good one, how to come up with them, and how to iterate through them. If you’re a founder or investor interested in advising Batch 0 companies, reach out to Shaheer at shaheer[at]alif.foundation.

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A big thanks to AI guru Nicole Leffer for taking marketing leaders from Cervin Ventures' portfolio companies through her "Harnessing the Power of Gen AI for Marketing" seminar today. Every time hear Nicole speak I come away with a dozen new AI tips and tricks -- and she delivered again by showing us how to build foundational skills in our marketing orgs. I won't steal her magic but here are a couple of Nicole's context-setting observations: 🤖 AI is a great assistant, not a replacement for marketing. AI can't do ALL of your marketing, especially in these early days. (So don't even think about taking humans out of the loop yet.) 🤖 Marketers using AI think they are further along than what they really are -- mostly because they don't know what they don't know. (Good news, if you're incorporating AI into workflows, you're still ahead.) 🤖 AI and the models are currently the dumbest they will ever be. If you can do great things with them now, think about what they will be able to do in the next 3-5 years. Thanks to all the Cervin companies who participated! cc: Christine Vidal, Daniel Kish, Crystal Mendes, Josh Dreyfuss, Jeanette Belashov, Justin Mota, Marwa Mhtar, Kristi Tutt, Tyler Fridley, MBA, LingRaj Patil, Phoebe Wang, Ashley Daniels #marketing #ai

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Amplitude Announces Third Quarter 2024 Financial Results: - Third quarter revenue was $75.2M, up 6% year-over-year - ARR was $298M, up $8M from the end of the second quarter - We now have almost 3,500 paying customers, with 567 of those representing more than $100k or more per year Q3 was all about winning the enterprise. We are starting customer conversations differently, reaching key decision-makers, and demonstrating fast value in ways we weren’t before. The result is a higher-quality book of business, with better attach rates, longer contracts, and bigger expansions (we had multiple expansions exceeding 7 figures in Q3). Consolidation is another big theme that's been playing out for several quarters. It’s clear that our customers are looking for an all-in-one platform, and they are finding that in Amplitude. And we've continued to make our platform better. In Q3, we launched Amplitude Made Easy, our completely redesigned platform experience that takes the difficulty out of analytics. We also deepened our partnership with our friends at HubSpot, launched Web Experimentation, and acquired Command AI (fka CommandBar). To our Ampliteers, partners, and customers—we couldn’t do it without you! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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Is AI going to steal your job? If you’re a dev marketer, probably not. For all the econ nerds out there, it has a lot to do with the Baumol effect. What do I mean by that? At its simplest, marketing isn’t manufacturing. Sure, AI tools that help you write ad copy or even spit out pictures and videos might mean more output with a lot fewer inputs. But here’s the catch: without human touch, those outputs lack quality. As I’ve learned building both ScraperAPI and TLDR, devs in particular really need to feel a sense of trust before they bother with your product. I’ve seen firsthand how hard ads and messaging can flop when there isn’t human emotion or knowledge feeding it from the other side (which is exactly why we hire tech experts to curate our newsletters). Marketing is a lot more like the education and arts sectors in that way — it can’t function well without skilled humans. And the stakes here are only getting higher… Anything that AI can automate is just going to become table stakes. The real value will come from all the things AI CAN’T do, raising the importance of retaining and finding marketers who can really tap into their human side, not just crank on ChatGPT all day. tl;dr: AI is great for automating the tedious tasks, but it will never replace the human touch needed to build trust with the ever-skeptical developer audience.

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I’m fascinated by the trend of public company executives going “direct-to-investor,” embracing digital tools and platforms to meet retail and institutional investors where they are. Portco Stakeholder Labs is taking this to an entirely different level by adding a tech layer to its popular business podcast and show, After Earnings (from Morning Brew ☕️). Now, in addition to host questions, verified shareholders can submit questions to shape the conversation around topics they care about most. Bravo to Affirm for leaning in.

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