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Finding a Technical Co-Founder, 4 Types of Product-Market Fit, and Lessons from an Experienced Operator
A newsletter for founders & friends (16th edition)
Hey š
Welcome to the 16th 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 miss last weekās newsletter about figuring out product-market fit, managing your mental health, and doing things differently? Subscribe below so you never miss anotherš
Top 3 Tweets
š„ Lessons from an Experienced Operator
I was at Amzn early '00s when we lost 95% of our market cap. Later at FB I negotiated a down-round in '09, and then in '12 our stock dropped 50% post-IPO. I was on the board of a public company that went bankrupt (Borders) and a start-up that went under (Hello). Some lessons:
— Dan Rose (@DanRose999)
May 4, 2022
š„ 4 Types of Product-Market Fit
An oldie but a goodie
Product-Market fit is often viewed as a static concept: either you have it or you donāt.
In my experience, it is better to think of fit as a dynamic state based on your progress towards your vision & know what fit you currently have.
Check out the 4 Types of Product-Market fit: http
— Shreyas Doshi (@shreyas)
Aug 14, 2021
š„ Finding a Technical Co-Founder
Some of the best responses to this tweet:
I was asking questions on @IndieHackers, and getting a lot of feedback from one developer in particular. I hired him for a small job; then a big job; and after a few months.... boom.
— Danny (@danielstedman)
May 4, 2022
Having a tech background helps. I posted an ad on Upwork for specific tasks I needed. A technical roadmap, and an MVP definition were crucial for me to move ahead.
Upwork allowed me to find @MatthewZRuiz and that progressed into greater cooperation. The next steps were easy.
— Rick Goffe (@RickGoffe)
May 5, 2022
Meet a lot of people. Talk to as many people. Use every single platform you know and send out flyers (I wrote a blog, kept posting about it everywhere). Have patience. Donāt give up.
Thatās how I met mine.
— Therese Maggie (@ThereseMaggie)
May 4, 2022
@justingordon212 Had to post in about 15 different channels, but it worked! We end up getting 36 applicants from all sources and our current CTO came from Reddit.
— Gary Campbell (@thegarycampbell)
May 4, 2022
6 months of grinding:
A lot of whiffs.
Even more āitās not you, itās me.ā
Nurtured relationships even after noās.
Eventually, one of our very 1st and very favorite candidates came back and the stars aligned for everyone.
So, a little bit of luck and lots of work.
— Jonathan Gandolf (@JDGandolf)
May 4, 2022
Read all the responses here
Resources
A methodology to size employee equity grants
Advice on hiring executives
A vision doc for starting new projects
Growing an audience on Twitter (and why itās beneficial)
The best way to find a technical co-founder
Future of Work Reads
The future of work is remote-ish (Protocol)
Navigate The Future Of Work With A Flexible And Supportive Approach (Forbes)
CEOs Give Dueling Visions of the Future of Work (WSJ)
5 traits of the workforce of the future (MIT)
The Future of Work Isn't Fancy Tech. It's Remote Work and Smarter Management (Inc.)
The World of VITALIZE
Lectrium, a VITALIZE Angels company, won first place in the 2022 Columbia Venture Competition ā BlocPower Columbia Climate Challenge
Gale was named a Top 100 Seed Investor and Top 25 Female Early-Stage Investor by Insider
This week, The VITALIZE Podcast featured Amanda Greenberg, CEO and Co-Founder of Balloon, a company unlocking the world's truest dataset and amplifying unheard voices
Gale was interviewed on The Sure Shot Entrepreneur Podcast
Open jobs at Vitalize portfolio companies
Future of Work Funding Rounds
Traceable raised a $60M Series B
Traceable is a cybersecurity startup focused on defending application programming interfaces from hackers
Top Investors: Tiger Global Management, Unusual Ventures, IVP, BIG Labs
LinearB raised a $50M Series B
LinearB is a startup whose platform helps software engineering teams with project management, analytics and automation
Top Investors: Tribe Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Battery Ventures, 83North, TechAviv Founder Partners
Accern raised a $20M Series B
Accern provides a NLP platform that empowers domain experts and business analysts to minimize time to value and maximize ROI for equity research, credit risk, M&A activity, ESG performance, insurance claims, fraud prevention, sanctions monitoring, and more.
Top Investors: gener8tor, Gaingels, Tribe Capital, Shasta Ventures, Visary Capital
Better Agency raised a $8M Series A
Better Agency is a startup that provides technology to automate independent insurance agencies.
Top Investors: Crystal Venture Partners, Teamworthy Ventures, PHX Ventures, ManchesterStory Group
Verge Ag raised a $7.5M Series A
Verge Ag is a AI-powered interactive software that enables farmers to plan, simulate, and validate the movement of equipment in the field and execute field operations efficiently.
Top Investors: Yamaha Motor Ventures, SP Ventures, Fall Line Capital, and GrainInnovate
Switchboard raised a $13.8M Seed
Switchboard is a cloud coworking space where you can work on apps, websites, or files together with your remote team, just like youāre in-person.
Top Investors: Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital, XYZ Venture Capital, Cleo Capital, and The General Partnership
Written by Justin Gordon, Director of Marketing at VITALIZE, a venture capital firm and 300+ member angel investing community for everyone investing in U.S.-based B2B software founders in the work revolution.Ā Find us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.