If Steve Martocci could give everyone a fortune cookie with a customized saying inside he’d write: “Lost cookie. Please Return” with his name and address. “Imagine if I managed to reach the billions of people in the world. I’d love to see what kinds of letters I’d get back if I gave them a feedback loop,” he says.
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When Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Founder of Joyus, announced theBoardlist- a hand-selected marketplace of qualified female board members - in July 2015 I sent her an email thanking her for inspiring me to serve on the board of a public or private company. Specifically saying, “I can’t wait to be on that list.”
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In a talk to Stanford’s graduating seniors DFJ Investor Heidi Roizen advised the students to leave space for good and random things to happen to them. I witnessed the insight come to life in Philip Winter and his team at Nebia as they pioneer a movement to change the way we experience and think about water.
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If you walked into Koru’s Seattle office, you’d likely see the team pasting brightly-colored sticky notes on the wall. “We stand up and do sticky note brainstorms on a whim,” Co-founder Kristen Hamilton explained. “When there’s a problem, everyone comes in and brainstorms ideas.”
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There is a critical shift for every team when they transition from functioning like a family to operating like an organization. The turning point is a make it or break it for startups; Either you scale the mountain, or you crumble trying. Nick Narodny recently experienced this undercurrent at his company Grovo where he grew the five-year-old startup’s engineering team from eight to 30 individuals in 2015.
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As someone who suffers from over 50 food intolerances, the convenience of meal delivery and planning services has yet to become a reality for me. While its impossible to accommodate circumstances like this at scale, my family and I are are equally in search of a service to streamline our meal planning efforts.
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Rewind two decades and Matt Williams is sitting in an advisory meeting, his company LiveBid didn’t have an official board yet, listening to assertion after assertion that he should close down the business.
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From our experiences as teenagers to the intimate conversations we have as adults, the moment someone mentions the words “periods” or “fertility” most of us blush and look away. Despite “reproduction being the core of our human experience,” we remain embarrassed to discuss the different elements of the process.
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As emerging businesses disrupt antiquated industries like healthcare and insurance revolutionary ideas will only prevail if their execution is precise, impactful, and driven by authentic values. Often, execution is a young startup’s most difficult challenge. In the words of Adam Liebman; “It’s what separates the best from the very good.”
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Since speaking with Mo Koyfman, Spark Capital’s New York Partner, in October, I’ve become increasingly intrigued by venture capitalists’ gut instincts. During our interview, Mo surprised me by debunking my assumption that process trumps gut when it comes to making investments.
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