Josh Haas

Talk to Buildstash and Robbie Cargill if you want to manage your game or app binaries.

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In my conversation with Lauren Treasure she had one piece of advice really stuck with me. Lauren's been in the trenches as a product leader working with founders before becoming one herself at Higa, and she shared something crucial—Empathy. When you're working with a co-founder, it's not about battling for control. It's about building trust. Show them that they can rely on you to steer the product in the right direction. That’s where real collaboration happens. Empathy first, everything else follows. Watch the video to hear more details from Lauren. #ProductManagement #Leadership #StartupLife #FounderTips #TrustBuilding #ProductLeadership #Entrepreneurship

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I enjoyed this conversation on the Shift podcast talking about how the Embodied AI and automotive industry's roadmaps are colliding! Thanks Pete Bigelow!

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We all know the struggle of constantly reminding clients to send those essential documents. That's why we created Uncat's document request feature! Now you can set recurring requests for W-9s, 1099s, bank statements, and more. Uncat will automatically send reminders to your clients, so you can focus on what matters most – growing your business. Try it for free today and experience the difference! #Uncat #bookkeeping #accounting #automation #productivity #documentrequests

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Many of today’s startups are making the exact same messaging mistake I made a few years ago. Here’s the messaging test that failed to attract developers and (hopefully) you can learn from. At ScraperAPI we had messaging centered around managing proxies and CAPTCHAs. But that wasn’t what people were buying our product for. What they were buying was the major pain point ScraperAPI solved - being able to scrape any page with a simple API call. This is the exact same mistake AI startups are making today with talking too much about LLMs and not enough about the things customers actually care about. tl;dr: Messaging should focus on the benefits, not the implementation or features.

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So pumped to host Kate Brodock of W Fund on the podcast. She's an amazing human and a great thought leader. We talked about Takeaways Supporting early-stage tech founders, particularly women and underrepresented founders, is crucial for making the world a better place. Empathy is an important skill for founders and investors to have in order to create a more inclusive and supportive startup ecosystem. Fundraising for a fund is different from fundraising for a startup, as it involves investing in the GP and their decision-making capabilities. Knowledge around fundraising, self-awareness in leadership, and effective hiring practices are key areas of improvement for founders. A strong track record and compelling storytelling are important factors in raising a fund. Raising funds as a founder can be challenging, especially in the early stages of a startup. Investors look for qualities like founder-market fit, a compelling story, and a clear money story in pitch decks. AI is expected to have a significant impact on venture capital decision-making, but investors need to be cautious and thoughtful in their approach. Startups should focus on metrics and milestones that demonstrate progress and a clear pathway to profitability to attract venture capital investment. Watch the full episode now. https://lnkd.in/djPkha_5

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My cofounder twisted my arm to join a "B2B Product-Market Fit" bootcamp. I was skeptical, but it wound up being insanely useful - probably the highest ROI thing we've ever done. Here's why: WHY I WAS SKEPTICAL: Yes, product-market fit is "the only thing that matters." But it's a vague concept. It's a vague, ethereal thing that nobody seems to understand. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing you can teach or learn. I'd also tried all the "best practices" out there (ideation exercises, customer interviews, experimentation, etc.) and found that they... didn't really work. So a bootcamp about product-market fit seemed like the best way to incinerate money and time. WHY I DID IT: My cofounder and I met with Rob Snyder, who's got founder experience and started this weird Product-Market Fit bootcamp... geared towards MBA/consulting/i-banking as well as product and developer types. In our first 30-min meeting, Rob didn't try to sell us on the bootcamp... he just helped us make a TON of progress in our business. I was still skeptical… But we decided to do the bootcamp & schedule weekly 1:1s with Rob. Why not -- it was more affordable than a sales coach, and Rob actually speaks at a founder level WHAT HAPPENED: The bootcamp is insane, like nothing else I've experienced. It approaches product-market fit from first principles, but is highly actionable. So we made a bunch of progress on our business, but I also built mental models about product-market fit and scaling that help me feel confident that I'm focused on the right things. It also didn't take a ton of time, maybe 2-3 hours per week. Not at all a distraction, with a very high signal:noise ratio. My favorite part has been getting a ton of feedback from Rob and from other founders in the program. We review each others' sales decks, sales calls, outreach messages... and debug things to get closer to "pull", vs "push." It was cool to see that there were pre-revenue companies all the way to companies with $2M+ ARR... each trying to find repeatable pull and deepen their understanding of product-market fit. SO WHAT: Our startup feels different now. We're getting a lot of traction, our sales conversations are smooth, and I know exactly what matters & doesn't. We feel pull in sales calls, customers say, "we're cutting budget... Konko is the only thing we're investing in." This is energizing to hear, and a lot of this comes from the work we've done as part of this bootcamp. If you're a B2B startup, $0-$2M ARR, and customers aren't pulling the product out of your hands... you should apply to the next Product-Market Fit bootcamp. We're coming back for our second round, it starts July 8, DM me for an intro to Rob! (Or just DM Rob Snyder)

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A post from Rob at Balderton Capital pointed me at this piece from TechCrunch, and it perfectly aligns with what I've seen in the market: When things (aka: building businesses) are getting harder, founders seem to be more aware of how to structure ownership within their team. I've recently seen a few transactions where mostly experienced founders insist on longer vesting schedules for them and their team (👋🏻 Mario from Enpal revealing this week the whole company runs on 7y vesting schedules). Avoiding dead capital on the cap table is one of the key priorities we try to make founders aware of when raising rounds - be cautious with part-time, non-operative 'co-initiators', professors, accelerators or angels that don't add much value beyond the very initial stages, or co-founders that decide to move on. Enforcing strong (read: long) vesting mechanisms including cliffs (no need to stick to the 1y cliff market standard either) can be a simple mechanism to align interests for the long-term.

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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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Wei D. (Founder and CEO of unicorn Clipboard Health) dropped some major 💎 gems of wisdom during her fireside chat with PearX founders at Pear VC SF Studio yesterday. These really resonated: 💎 PMF isn't something you achieve once - staying relevant to your market is an ongoing pursuit 💯 (Wei shared that to date she still LOVES talking with customers and - even at 1000+ employees and with all the success already achieved - she continues to chase unlocks for the business and recently obtained her nursing assistant certification in order to stay close to users and unlock new insights with them 🥇) 💎 If you're scared of sales, don't think of it as sales -- you're just talking to someone who you're trying to help. Approach your customers with care and listen to them as you would a friend. The moment it's an actual conversation with a friend, that's probably where you're going to get your first sale. If it feels "salesy" you're probably not doing it the right way. 🤝 💎 Do whatever it takes to get in front of your customers! (For Wei this meant driving around at 8 months pregnant and walking up to DMs at nursing homes!) 🚗 💎 The users you speak with in your market will give you the key jargon you need to use to speak back to your market. Listen intently and adopt their language! 🗣 💎 There is little you decide that can't be undone. Be smart, make calculated decisions, but don't overthink things --- err on the side of action and quick decision making. 🏃‍♀️ 💎 Iterate until your users feel passionately about what you're doing (ie. they get angry when the product is down or doesn't work). You want your users to care A LOT about the problem you're solving. 😡 Wei's resilience, grit and work ethic are off the charts. What an inspiration! 👏 #femalefounders #inspiration #techfounder #unicornfounder #hero

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📈 Curious about the startup scene in Massachusetts? Explore our detailed funding list featuring startup names, HQ locations, and investor info. Perfect for investors and entrepreneurs alike! Check it out: https://lnkd.in/dAp3xj-Q #startup #startups #venturecapital #funding #vc #managementconsulting

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Parker just posted Rippling's new fundraising memo. It's the manifesto for compound startups and one of our initial inspirations for building Atlas. Here's a nugget that I really liked that summarizes how we feel about the competitive advantage of all-in-one startups over vertical startups (in customer support especially): "When we build corporate cards, we're not innovating on the way we issue corporate cards (through Stripe issuing or Marqeta) or the way we scan and extract metadata from receipts (which is mostly a vendor relationship for us today). We're going to win on the capabilities we have that are common to all Rippling products—the integration with the rest of Rippling and with employee data, the platform capabilities, and the common UX described above." Here's the full doc: https://lnkd.in/gYH59HVZ

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💰 Attn: Are you a founder or CEO prepping for fundraising? Or a GTM pro who works for one? You’ll want to check out our (2) new templates: 📚 Interactive fundraising deck: https://lnkd.in/eCECjnG5 📚 Executive summary: https://lnkd.in/e7SfggGf Even though AssetMule was designed to help GTM teams better engage prospects with interactive sales assets, we’ve started to see an influx of founders signing up to build their fundraising assets. And it makes total sense. Just like buyers, investors are overwhelmed with the amount of pitches coming their way and are harder to reach than ever before. Founders need new ways to rise above the noise and earn their attention. And that’s exactly what AssetMule is designed to do. Not only will these templates help you pull your core fundraising assets together in a fraction of the time & with less effort, but they’ll help you engage investors in a more meaningful way and book more pitch meetings. Check out Justin Dorfman's demo below & sign up for AssetMule to get started for free: https://lnkd.in/efkfwj7i #startups #ceos #founders #fundraising #saas

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Synthflow AI recently raised a chunky seed round of $7.4M. Their pitch is that their no-code platform makes it easier than ever for SMEs (which usually have low tech capabilities) to deploy voice agents for a multitude of use cases. And they do have a pretty good flow builder. At Hooman Labs, we too are striving to make voice agents as simple as possible to deploy. But we believe that while self serve is important to enable users to play around with voice agents, it is more critical to build a suite of plug and play agents (including necessary integrations) which don't need a lot of tinkering by the user. To do this, a voice agent provider needs to go deep into a vertical and understand the workflows of their user, end to end. We're doing this for e-commerce and building agents which solve calling needs of brands across the life cycle of the customer, from pre-sales to post. Some of the use cases we're working on are consultative selling, delivery updates, abandoned cart conversion, return requests and warranty claims. If you run an e-commerce brand and are looking to automate your calling function, would love to talk to you and understand how we can help. Tarun Rathore #voiceai #conversationalcommerce #ecommerce

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I’m so excited to announce the new name of the vetted community for startup founders I'm building: Village Lane Village Lane connects ambitious early-stage startup founders, both in-person and online, who have at least $100k in ARR or $250k in funding. The name Village Lane is deeply personal to me... It's the street I lived on after business school, in an apartment with my friend Andrew - the kindest, most welcoming, supportive person I’ve ever met, who sadly passed away suddenly a few weeks ago at only 31 years old. It’s also the place where I went full-time on Just Go Grind for the first time when it was a daily podcast and then joined VITALIZE Venture Capital. It was a special time and place and where I took a giant leap in my career. I envision Village Lane (the community) being similar - a special place filled with kind, supportive members looking to take a giant step forward with their businesses. Several experiences have led to the creation of Village Lane: - A transformative MBA experience at USC - Working at VITALIZE Venture Capital for 2.5 years - Growing my social media audience to 40,000+ followers - Building this newsletter to 21,000+ subscribers - Hosting 400+ podcast interviews with founders & investors - Creating an angel investing community with hundreds of members Now I'm focused on helping founders connect, build their personal brand, and create more successful businesses. Village Lane's in-person events will include things like: - Co-working - Social activities - AMAs - Retreats The online component of Village Lane will include: - A member directory - Slack group - Vendor suggestions - Tech stacks - An investor database - Media exposure and amplification - Personal branding assistance We'll also phase in monthly digital peer groups as membership grows. This will all be built around our members and their needs. I’ll share more details as this evolves. Interested in joining? Learn more and apply below.

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It's been a little while since I last posted here. I know. I know. It's not the way to build up a "thought leadership persona" or "LinkedIn Top Voice", but hey, I've been busy. Busy building after a pivot, speaking to customers, and having conversations for our first institutional fundraising round, which feels a lot different than the 'friends and family' angel raise that I got used to. I realized that as I prep, the most helpful and most honest feedback I've gotten about the actual pitch deck and presentation has been from other founders or *operational* folks in the tech ecosystem, like marcom leaders, sales geniuses, public speaking experts, etc. Of course there's all of these "share your pitch to a panel of investors" meetups here in Tel Aviv, but often, I realized as an audience member at lots of these events, we founders don't really walk away with 'tachlis' (the Hebrew version of 'get shit done') action items... But when I pitched to other founders or smart friends in general, I really got a lot of really good and super helpful critique – not just about how I am framing Folio itself, but about how fast/slow I spoke, how I stood, how wordy my slides were, how defensive I got when answering questions, etc. So, thanks to the amazing support of the Intel Ignite team, Alon Leibovich, Maya Zimerman, and Amit Gorin, where myself and my team are currently working from and where the event will be hosted, and to Nevo Network, a network that I'm part of for Olim in tech and are providing the snacks, I'm excited to invite Israel-based early-stage founders to a "Founders for Founders" practice pitch night in two weeks, on August 28th, that I'm co-hosting with two early-stage founder friends Matias Sigal and Joel Liurner. If you're a founder looking to get *real feedback* on your pitch without the stress of impressing investors or decision makers in the room or you're a founder that's pitched in the past, a marketer that knows words, a communicator that knows how to stand, or tech-lover that simply wants to meet others and support the founder ecosystem from the inside, please join us! For pitchers:  - 7 founders will be chosen to pitch - each one will have the option to have their pitch recorded on video and shared with them after - in addition to opening each pitch up to 3 public feedback responses, every audience member will get a "scorecard" to fill and space to give written feedback for each pitcher For audience members: - willing to give real feedback - not an investor - wanting to drink, snack, mingle, and learn The pitch-slots are going fast, so if you want to pitch, get in on it! See you there! ❤️🚀

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There are two main things we did to give ourselves more runway with Harlow while bootstrapping the business: 1. Cut costs so that we operate at break-even, which extends our business runway infinitely to give us more time to do focused tests to figure out PMF and which growth channels will work for us. 2. Brought on consulting clients so we could make money, which extends our personal runway infinitely by allowing us to feel more safe and comfortable while building. How are my other bootstrapped founders making it work?

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BBG Ventures gathered their founders, funders and network last week for the Accelerate Summit and it did not disappoint! As a founder it's inspiring and important to hear from those who’ve scaled, who’ve taken the big swing at it and get some tactical advice on how to build. Here were some of my highlights: 🔥 April Koh of Spring Health and Toyin Ajayi of Cityblock Health discussed their remarkable contributions to the healthcare field. During their conversation, I was particularly struck by their insights on scaling their businesses, their impact, and their leadership. They emphasized the importance of staying curious, questioning everything, and maintaining humility and intellectual honesty about both the business and the team. 🔥 "Does every start-up need to be an AI company?" was a lively panel led by Matthew Hartman. The resounding answer was YES! Whether your business is AI-enabled or AI-native, integrating AI is now essential for both new and existing brands. Jaclyn Rice Nelson noted for established brands, AI can deliver significant, differentiated value that enhances the customer experience in both B2B and B2C contexts. My favorite part of the panel, however, was Holyn K.'s perspective on how AI is transitioning from midcult to masscult. She provocatively questioned whether websites will still be necessary and noted AI Bots are likely to become our next muses. We also heard from Sal Rehmetullah of Stax Payments and Danielle Cohen-Shohet of GlossGenius on what it takes to scale. Danielle emphasized the importance of being a "painkiller" on the road to product-market fit; it's not just about your solution, but how effectively it addresses the customer's problem. She also highlighted that customer acquisition strategies evolve year over year, necessitating continual discovery and iteration. Sal stressed the importance of being scrappy at every stage of the business and noted, "Cool is not a business." Georgina Gooley of Billie talked about brand market fit alongside PMF and thinking through what is happening culturally to resonate with your audience. Neil Blumenthal of Warby Parker talked to different strategies that help de-risk decisions like setting up a shop in his apartment to gain learnings as they developed their Brick and Mortar strategy. The keynote from Queen Martha Stewart was BEYOND! Her most productive and successful years in business started at 50 yrs old. She understood being omni-channel before it was a buzzword - meeting her audience where are they “readers are readers and watchers are watchers”, to paying the creative team as much as the biz team. Martha shared things to live by such as living on a farm, getting up at 5am, say no to lunch dates, avoid cocktail parties, learn something new everyday, go deep on a single subject and stay relevant - her Sports Illustrated cover shoot garnered 108 billion impressions. All hail Martha who made backyard husbandry popular and was the first true creative entrepreneur.

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