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Finding the Perfect CEO, Advice for First-Time Founders, and an Important Sleep Reminder
A newsletter for founders & friends (9th edition)
Hey š
Welcome to the 9th edition of Re:Vitalize, a newsletter with tactics, strategies, and stories on building companies plus cool things weāre seeing in the future of work.
Did you missĀ last weekās newsletter about rethinking time management, founder mistakes, and investor updates? Subscribe below so you never miss anotherš
Top 3 Tweets
š„ Finding the Perfect CEO for Your Company
Great thread by All Raise on their process for bringing Mandela Schumacher-Hodge Dixon on board as CEO
Our new CEO has arrived. Welcome, Mandela Schumacher-Hodge Dixon (@MandelaSH).
ā a thread š§µ— All Raise (@AllRaise)
Mar 15, 2022
š„ An Important Sleep Reminder
Not getting sleep does not make you "tough," it makes you tired.
Task speed, mental quickness, mood, attention, focus, and endurance all tank.
Be a Beast & Go to Bed.
— Dr. Julie Gurner (@drgurner)
Mar 18, 2022
š„ Advice for First-Time Founders
Some highlighted responses from this tweet:
-choose 1 cofounder with complementary skills, shared vision/values
-make sure you love the problem (and have felt the pain youāre solving)
-customer discovery first, then build
-get a good attorney
-turn revenue model on ASAP
-go easy on yourself when things go awry (itās a š¢)— Gale Wilkinson @VITALIZE (@galeforceVC)
Mar 15, 2022
@galeforceVC@rubenharris@MacConwell@ArlanWasHere@Bosefina@HeatherHartnett@RomeenSheth@eva_ho@changds@irrvrntVC@startupstella@lpolovets@chudson@garrytan āIf youāre any good, about 1/3 of your ideas will be right. What sets you apart is what you do about it.ā
Corollaries:
Product: validate lots of ideas w customers
People: hire people smarter than you for most things
Growth: find compounding advantages
— Deon Nicholas (@dojideon)
Mar 15, 2022
Find a co-founder. Itās crushing to go at it alone the first time.
Donāt get too caught up in dilution. Optimize for the partner and raise enough to dictate terms later. Know market terms.
Raise more than you think youāll need.
Build something hard thatās worth building.
— Peter Liu ā”ļø (@NewOrleansVC)
Mar 15, 2022
@galeforceVC@rubenharris@MacConwell@ArlanWasHere@Bosefina@HeatherHartnett @dojiboy9 @RomeenSheth@eva_ho@changds@irrvrntVC@startupstella@chudson@garrytan Advice for 95% of co's:
Invest time in hiring. It's harder than you expect, even when you expect it to be hard.
Don't compare your funding round to others.
Create a good deck. Use it for pitches.
Avoiding hard co-founder chats is the harder road long-term, not the easier one.
— Leo Polovets (@lpolovets)
Mar 15, 2022
Resources
How to leverage community-led growth like Notion
A tool for creating code-free automations and data extraction
A platform to search, engage and convert over 220 million contacts at over 30 million companies
A platform for brand marketers to manage and scale influence campaigns
Tips and resources for startups & founders
Future of Work Reads
Atlassianās work futurist says itās time to spring clean your musty work habits (Protocol)
The Future of Hybrid Work: 5 Key Questions Answered With Data (Gallup)
Hybrid Will Be The New Work Style, But 72% Of Businesses Lack A Strategy, AT&Tās āFuture Of Workā Study Shows (Forbes)
Global Study By Staffing Giant Adecco Reveals If Workers Are Ready For The Future Of Work (Forbes)
Navigating the future of work? People ops platform Lluna just rolled out an employee-focused product for that (technical.ly)
The World of Vitalize
Alembic, a Vitalize portfolio company, was named one of San Franciscoās 101 Best Business Intelligence Startups!
MarginEdge, another Vitalize portfolio company, launched their new mobile app for restaurant owners and managers
This week,Ā The Vitalize PodcastĀ featured Max Zamkow, Partner at Third Act Ventures
We had 4 more amazing founders pitch our Vitalize Angels community this week
Our Managing Partner, Gale Wilkinson, will be among the trailblazers discussing the opportunity for innovation & tech to transform the FOW, deliver equitable pay, and redefine access to care at the Rogue Women V Financial Empowerment event
Gale was also recently featured in an interview with Kauffman Fellows and joined Lolita Taub in her Twitters Spaces Show
Weāre hiring a CFO / Controller at Vitalize
Open jobs at Vitalize portfolio companies
Future of Work Funding Rounds
Cowbell Cyber raised a $100M Series B
Cowbell Cyber offers cyber insurance for small and medium-sized enterprises. In its unique AI-based approach to risk selection and pricing compresses the insurance process from submission to issue to less than 5 minutes.
Top Investors: Nyca Partners, Global Insurance Accelerator, Holmes Murphy & Associates, Anthemis Group, Permira
Rutter raised a $27M Series A
Rutter develops a universal API that integrates with every commerce, accounting, and payments platform. It enables users to connect to any platform and get a holistic view of any business.
Top Investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Liquid 2 Ventures, Y Combinator, Haystack, The Chainsmokers
SafeBase raised a $18M Series A
SafeBase helps B2B SaaS companies close enterprise deals faster by streamlining the security assessment process.
Top Investors: Y Combinator, New Enterprise Associates, UpHonest Capital, NFX, Comcast Ventures
Twelve Labs raised a $5M Seed
Twelve Labs is a machine learning solution for summarizing and searching video that could make quicker and easier work for both consumers and creators.
Top Investors: Index Ventures, Techstars, Radical Ventures, Expa, Fei-Fei Li
Honest Jobs raised a $1.5M Seed
Honest Jobs helps people with criminal records find employment.
Top Investors: Stand Together Ventures Lab, Techstars, Matchstick Ventures, Caruso Ventures
Written byĀ Justin Gordon, Director of Marketing atĀ Vitalize, a venture capital firm and 300+ memberĀ angel investing community for everyoneĀ investing in U.S.-based B2B software founders in the future of work.Ā Find us onĀ Twitter,Ā LinkedIn, andĀ YouTube.