Month: March 2018

One key step in effective influencer engagement: A good system for seeing opportunities



When it comes to cultivating long-term relevance and quality relationships with industry thought leaders, showing up is key.  Here’s my advice on how to make that easier to do.

I’ve been engaging with influential people online, building relationships, learning from them, and collaborating when it makes sense, for more than a decade. The number one tactic I always recommend is this: set up a really easy way for you to see the updates that your people of interest are publishing throughout the course of your day.  Not all of them, just some of them, regularly.

This should be something you can’t help but trip on as you’re looking at your email inbox, or you’re visiting Twitter, or when you’re opening a new tab in your browser. I have a VIP Twitter list I’ve organized and I’ve dragged the link to that list’s tweets down to my browser toolbar. Whenever I want to visit Twitter, that’s where I start. That’s pretty casual, for my heavyweight business needs I use enterprise software from Sprinklr of course, and it is the best interface for influencer monitoring I’ve ever seen. But the point is, you’ve got to have the opportunity to engage right in front of you.

Now once you’ve walked past your email folder full of influencer newsletters, or your Facebook Group you use as your Facebook landing page, or your awesome social media listening dashboard, don’t just rush (Read more...)

160. Better Diversity, Better Outcomes (Elizabeth Galbut)



Elizabeth Galbut of SoGal Ventures joins Nick to discuss Better Diversity, Better Outcomes. In this episode, we cover:

  • Her involvement in creating the first VC investment group at Johns Hopkins
  • What the focus is at SoGal and why that creates their edge
  • How she and her partner divide responsibilities
  • How the establishment has reacted to her and her firm
  • We talk about her experience as a design professor and how that impacts her approach
  • she gives an example of a design-centric investment
  • she discusses her thinking when evaluating an early stage business
  • we review their dealflow and sourcing strategy
  • and we wrap up w/ Elizabeth's advice for a younger version of herself if she had the opportunity to give it

 

To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes.

Also, follow us on twitter  for updates and more information.

160. Better Diversity, Better Outcomes (Elizabeth Galbut)



Elizabeth Galbut of SoGal Ventures joins Nick to discuss Better Diversity, Better Outcomes. In this episode, we cover:

  • Her involvement in creating the first VC investment group at Johns Hopkins
  • What the focus is at SoGal and why that creates their edge
  • How she and her partner divide responsibilities
  • How the establishment has reacted to her and her firm
  • We talk about her experience as a design professor and how that impacts her approach
  • she gives an example of a design-centric investment
  • she discusses her thinking when evaluating an early stage business
  • we review their dealflow and sourcing strategy
  • and we wrap up w/ Elizabeth's advice for a younger version of herself if she had the opportunity to give it

 

To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes.

Also, follow us on twitter  for updates and more information.

If you like podcasts, you should try the Breaker app



Discovering a great new podcast is a real thrill and a relatively new app called Breaker makes it easy to do. It uses your friend list from Twitter or other social networks to tap you into a stream of podcast listening activity. And the interface is beautiful.

The social discovery is awesome – I’m finding new shows and new episodes to listen to that I really enjoy. It also prompts me to listen to popular things I’ve never bothered to listen to before, like The Daily from the NYT. Everyone likes it and so it was easy for me to give it a try once. There are far more shows and specific episodes being published now than anyone can listen to, it’s really overwhelming, and this is a good way to filter.

This is what sharing your social data like your list of friends with third party apps can do for you, by the way. This is the upside of that kind of capability, ways it can improve democratic values for a change.

I’ve used Huffduffer for years for podcast discovery but it’s web based, nerdy, sparse, and not nearly as popular. It’s still cool though, as is the HuffDuffVideo bookmarklet that strips audio from YouTube videos and puts it on AWS for 30 days, then pushes those audio files over to HuffDuffer to listen to on my phone or Sonos. Biggest bummer at Breaker? My Huffduffer feed didn’t get imported, for some reason.

Also disappointing about Breaker: I don’t (Read more...)

Playing To Win with Blend’s CEO Nima Ghamsari and Greylock’s Jerry Chen | Greymatter


This post is by Greylock Partners from Greymatter


Poker is a game of variants and probability. You can be dealt the best cards and play every hand perfectly until the river, the final card dealt in a poker hand, is played and shifts the game completely to the opponent. Similarly, startups constantly manage and learn from unpredictable experiences. Scaling a startup requires quickly learning from the wins and losses, focusing on the long term goals, and having a framework in place to help you make educated risks.    This episode of Greymatter isn’t your typical discussion around building enterprise startups. Greylock Partner Jerry Chen and Blend’s CEO and co-founder Nima Ghamsari discuss the similarities between making educated risks in startups and playing poker. The two also share “The 5 Whys”, a framework to learn from your mistakes and successes, and what it takes for your company to move fast.

Playing To Win with Blend’s CEO Nima Ghamsari and Greylock’s Jerry Chen | Greymatter


This post is by Greylock Partners from Greymatter


Poker is a game of variants and probability. You can be dealt the best cards and play every hand perfectly until the river, the final card dealt in a poker hand, is played and shifts the game completely to the opponent. Similarly, startups constantly manage and learn from unpredictable experiences. Scaling a startup requires quickly learning from the wins and losses, focusing on the long term goals, and having a framework in place to help you make educated risks.    This episode of Greymatter isn’t your typical discussion around building enterprise startups. Greylock Partner Jerry Chen and Blend’s CEO and co-founder Nima Ghamsari discuss the similarities between making educated risks in startups and playing poker. The two also share “The 5 Whys”, a framework to learn from your mistakes and successes, and what it takes for your company to move fast.

Investor Stories 81: What’s Next (Pascucci, Wallace, Kaden)



On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured:

  • Vic Pascucci
  • Brendan Wallace
  • Rebecca Kaden 

Each investor discusses sectors, drivers and/or trends that may have significant impact in the future and are potentially positioned for outsized-returns.

 

To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes.

Also, follow us on twitter  for updates and more information.

Investor Stories 81: What’s Next (Pascucci, Wallace, Kaden)



On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured:

  • Vic Pascucci
  • Brendan Wallace
  • Rebecca Kaden 

Each investor discusses sectors, drivers and/or trends that may have significant impact in the future and are potentially positioned for outsized-returns.

 

To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes.

Also, follow us on twitter  for updates and more information.

159. The Pioneer of Post-Seed (Paul Martino)



Paul Martino of Bullpen Capital joins Nick to discuss the emergence of the Post-Seed round. In this episode, we cover:

  • Why Paul passed on joining Mike Maples at Floodgate in order to start Bullpen
  • The product/market fit algorithm he developed for Mike
  • If the stages of funding are moving out or if there are just more of them
  • How Bullpen is differentiated
  • The metrics they require to engage with startups
  • How his quant background has helped make this subjective discipline more objective
  • The hardest aspect of developing new, young VCs
  • We discuss lack of innovation in the asset class
  • Why herd mentality is pervasive
  • Other contrarian principles he and Bullpen embrace
  • If it's harder to get A or B round funding for the non-traditional founders or industries that he invests in
  • How Private Equity is impacting exits the differences in sourcing at post-seed and we wrap up w/ Paul's thoughts on how branding and investment focus helps drive opportunity for Bullpen

 

To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes.

Also, follow us on twitter  for updates and more information.

159. The Pioneer of Post-Seed (Paul Martino)



Paul Martino of Bullpen Capital joins Nick to discuss the emergence of the Post-Seed round. In this episode, we cover:

  • Why Paul passed on joining Mike Maples at Floodgate in order to start Bullpen
  • The product/market fit algorithm he developed for Mike
  • If the stages of funding are moving out or if there are just more of them
  • How Bullpen is differentiated
  • The metrics they require to engage with startups
  • How his quant background has helped make this subjective discipline more objective
  • The hardest aspect of developing new, young VCs
  • We discuss lack of innovation in the asset class
  • Why herd mentality is pervasive
  • Other contrarian principles he and Bullpen embrace
  • If it's harder to get A or B round funding for the non-traditional founders or industries that he invests in
  • How Private Equity is impacting exits the differences in sourcing at post-seed and we wrap up w/ Paul's thoughts on how branding and investment focus helps drive opportunity for Bullpen

 

To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes.

Also, follow us on twitter  for updates and more information.