All that glitters is not gold; The sound of 2020 and beyond; How cocktails fix marketing; Work with Femstreet
Your weekly Newsletter on Women in Tech and Venture Capital
This is Femstreet, a weekly newsletter featuring must-read content by female CEOs, operators and investors. I try to make this one of the best emails you get each Sunday morning. If you enjoy the content, please like it above and share it with friends.
Welcome to issue No. 163 and the final Sunday issue of the year. We will be back with our usual cadence on January 17th. But if you’re a longtime subscriber, you know that you can expect an EOY Special.
25% of our audience say that the first thing they do when they wake up on Sunday morning is read Femstreet.
Our readers are global and increasingly more diverse, ambitious professionals, entrepreneurs, and decision-makers.
I’ve created a sponsor deck for those that want to partner with us in 2021.
Reach out to our community of young business professionals and decision-makers and tell your story through a source our readers trust through sponsored ads, job postings, and join our list of exclusive community deals.
Insights
Ada Ventures closes first fund at $50M, investing in diverse founders tackling society’s problem. Google’s Timnit Gebru was fired after refusing to retract or take her name off an academic paper. Natalie Hwang of Apeira Capital wants to bring hedge-fund-style techniques to startup investing. The pandemic is pausing years of progress for female founders in VC. Forbe’s power women. Squad, founded by Esther Crawford, was acquired by Twitter. Why Man Repeller really shut down. Julia Collins’ Planet FWD launches climate-friendly snack brand. What if Roam, Wikipedia, Substack, and Product Hunt had a baby? Sari Azout of Levels VC brings Startupy to life. Why does tech still hate women in 2020? Mar Hershenson and Pejman Nozad backed DoorDash as one of their first five deals in 2013 and turned $1.9M into $440M. Why a VC might pass on your consumer or enterprise company. Five predictions for early stage startups in 2021.
People
Anna Palmer just became the first female general partner at Flybridge.
From The Investor
All that glitters (like stars) is not gold
The monetization of open source is laying the foundation for the next set of iconic tech companies. As open source has matured from an ideology into a go-to-market motion, category-defining companies are being built on open source, like MongoDB, Elastic and GitHub, to name a few. For founders building open source companies, they must continuously and accurately assess the awareness and engagement of external developers, who adopt your product as users and some may also become contributors. Chang Xu at BasisSet Ventures on metrics that matter in OSS…Read more.
Human-Centered Finance
Millions more Americans are in financial distress today. Thriving adults have moved back into their parents’ homes and friendships have fractured as stances toward a resurgent social justice movement increasingly bear on our social standing. Millions of employees have lost their jobs due to macroeconomic factors beyond any of our wildest imaginations. A renewed emphasis on community, collaboration and change offers hope after the wreckage of 2020. Meera Clark of Obvious Ventures on why and how to rewrite the playbook for those approaching a financial cliff…More here.
Six ways new social companies will monetize
For social platforms, the traditional ad model has been dominant for decades. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter built empires on it. Today many social companies are experimenting with new monetization models, taking a page from China, the gaming industry, and early ad-adverse pioneers like Tinder, Spotify, and Venmo. Anne Lee Skatesof A16z shares more.
The rebirth of the American Dream is underway
Starting a business has never been harder. Over the past 30 years, new business creation has declined ~50%. But with new technology enabling entrepreneurship, we're now starting to see the reinvention of the American Dream. The technologies and tools that support small businesses and solopreneurship will fuel economic growth and opportunity. Talia Goldberg of Bessemer Venture Partners on the six laws for platforms that enable entrepreneurship.
Buyer personas of the finance tech stack
Finance tools will be re-imagined — and the time is now for this evolution. Medha Agarwal of Redpoint Ventures outlined the biggest pain points for CFOs and opportunities for innovation within the finance tech stack…Read more.
How does this sound to you?
Last decade, mobile apps were the remote control for the real world. This decade, voice is the remote control. Gaby Goldberg of Bessemer Venture Partners on why is this happening now.
Join the Femstreet community
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From The Founder and Operator
Effective communication
Your job as a founder is simple enough. You need to ensure there’s enough gas in the tank (don’t run out of money), make sure the right people are on the bus and make sure the directions are clear and you’re on the right path. But without solid communication, it’s impossible to do any of those tasks. Allison Kopf of Artemis on how you can communicate better with your team.
How cocktails fix marketing that stops working
How do you troubleshoot a sales pipeline that’s no longer working like it used to? It’s time to mix it up. Sophia Sunwoo of Ascent Strategy on 3 ways you can fix a marketing plan that’s no longer working (and what cocktails got to do with it).
Accelerate your enterprise sales career
From building confidence and working with partners to being thoughtful in interviews, six founders shared their real-life stories and pivotal moments of their careers in enterprise sales that helped define their success.
Why founders shouldn’t hire a VP of Sales
Sales leadership is the most difficult hire to make and any founders think they’ll save money and streamline the hiring process by taking care of it by themselves. But this is not a hire that you want to cut corners on. It’s a seven-figure dilemma if you take a wrong turn, setting your company back in a monumental way. Amy Volas of Avenue shares more here.
The brand checklist
Usual VC signals prioritize rapid financial growth and return on investment and short-term brand differentiation. Ana Andlejic introduced a qualitative checklist for defining the staying power and strength of a modern luxury brand beyond the usual metrics.
Powerful Presenting
Presentations are daunting. Some love them, some hate them. Laura Araviciute of Workday on how to embrace your audience, gain confidence, and take your presentation to a whole new level.
Become a Femstreet contributor in 2021
You are a startup operator or investor and would like to increase your reach with your blog posts? We’d love to bring your content to our platform. Each month we will publish a select number of articles written by our operator and investor community. Our subscribers include the most important and interesting women in technology and business. Here are some of them. If you want to join this incredible group of Femstreet contributors, please reach out.
Opportunities
Growth Engineers @Kindred Capital (London)
Kindred Capital is an early stage venture capital fund based in London. We’re looking to hire a growth engineer who can help us build out our digital infrastructure and use data more effectively across all aspects of our workflow. The role is perfect for a hacker who can take unstructured data from various sources, ask the right questions, and scope products and strong processes to enhance dealflow, track talent and support startups in the portfolio. Apply and ping Liz.
And In Case You Missed It
8 things to think of when first angel investing- for members only
5 trends in data- for everyone
5 internal processes to increase customer retention- for everyone
Tips for founder personal brand building - for members only
How to build and scale a remarkable startup without compromising on people or culture - for members only
6 lessons from building a business in a downturn - for members only
Effects of hype and exclusivity on launch strategies- for everyone
The Athlete CEO- for everyone
Happy holidays! See you in the NEW year 👋
Comments, questions, tips or raising a Seed capital? Send me a note
Written by Sarah Nöckel, Early-Stage investor at Northzone. Born in Germany. Based in London. You can find me elsewhere on Twitter and Instagram.