Uncovering Bookmarks #2
guess i do this now
At Airtree, we like investing at the intersection of technology and services (eg Kismet, Constantinople, Hnry, Eucalyptus), an area getting much more attention with AI. Brad Jacobs has spent decades at the forefront of using tech in traditional services businesses to drive efficiency and better customer experience through proprietary data and automation:
I agree with Parker Conrad here - not all founders will raise less money, the ones who raise as much will build more complex and capable software.
I’m a huge believer in the power of brand storytelling and product marketing in software. Ellis manages to craft compelling stories of meaning for the type of software products that usually get stuck marketing “faster, better, cheaper”:
I’m doing references this week, so highlighting the post I always come back to for reference questions when hiring:
Product of the week: Lovable, taking idea to product in hours. My latest Project:
I agree with this, it’s never been more important to consider distribution from Day 1:
I also enjoyed Ellis Hamburger on Dive Club. The repeated “why does that matter?” bit reminded me of this classic memo [1] from Stewart Butterfield at Slack, especially the para starting “Putting yourself in the mind of someone who is coming to Slack for the first time…” Being honest with yourself about whether the product actually matters to the user.
[1] https://medium.com/@stewart/we-dont-sell-saddles-here-4c59524d650d
One of the senior execs in Telstra once told me once when I was running Tigerspike "you spend $500k a year on R&D, and you think you can innovate better than Telstra who invest billions in R&D?" My answer was absolutely yes. We can out innovate Telstra on 1/10,000ths of the cost.
I hear that guy who says that the company that raises will out gun the ones that don't and I get it and I agree with it, to a point. The trick is to keep the culture right. Often money bends you out of shape.