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.
“Community is the new moat” - You’ve heard it many times. It’s been the secret source to success for many brands such as Nike, Rapha, and Glossier. The fundamental premise ofproduct-led growth is that product is the main driver of a go-to-market journey that pushes users to find, adopt, and use your product. Community-led growth acts as a multiplier on top of product-led growth. By actively facilitating user interactions, and providing value past the product itself.
Kim Johnson, the Head of Community at Geneva, an all-in-one communication app powering the future of online groups & communities - was an early employee at Glossier, where she led the strategy and execution for all community engagement initiatives, as well as the strategy for product co-creation. Join us for a Q&A on Substack with Kim on Building a community-first producton February 18 at 5 PM GMT. RSVP here.
Public.com is an investing platform that makes the stock market social. Here’s why I like it: I can buy any stock for any amount of money, share ideas with my network, it's free to use, $0 fees on standard trades, and no minimums. The Public community is 40% women and 45% people of color. Public also just announced that in order to better align their business incentives with their members, they will no longer be taking revenue from the controversial practice of Payment for Order Flow (PFOF), and will instead route trades to the changes directly.
Sign up with my link and get a free $10 slice of stock in your favorite company: **Get the app**.
Offer valid for U.S. residents 18+ and subject to account approval. See Public.com/disclosures/
From The Investor
Let’s talk about ambition
Are you born with it? Can you develop it? Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund says "helpful ambition" is driven by product-market fit…More here.
The third-party API economy and pricing framework
The best API companies bring their users superpowers. But what’s the best way for an API-first company to monetize? Grace Isford of Canvas Ventures took a look at the initial business models of API-first winners and shared her API Pricing framework. Read more.
Facing fear as an emerging Investor
Do you sometimes find yourself chasing the Series B of a “hot” company in a sexy category for a nice 3x paper markup in a few months? Are you doing enough? and Who are you to X? Emerging investors in today’s venture capital ecosystem are facing a lot of pressure and are being encouraged by their environments to follow the crowd. Meera Clark of Obvious Ventures on why courage should define the next generation of venture capitalists…Read more.
Three ways to activate your army of investors
Activating your army of investors is a tangible strategy to acquire more customers, source and close candidates, and hit significant company milestones ahead of the next financing round. Brianne Kimmel of Work-Life Ventures shares a few examples of how you can create an engaged community of early believers and build a defensible moat around the business…Read more.
Talent mixing and domain hopping
How many investors have spent time operating and building? How many regulators have spent time building tech companies? Our world is multi-faceted and it requires increasing levels of human coordination and communication to solve just about anything. Ann Bordetsky of NEA on why we need more context switchers and sector “hoppers”…Read more.
Our members are entrepreneurs, young professionals and decision-makers working in startups in product, sales, ops & strategy roles, and investors. While this newsletter will always be free, the membership for $100/year includes access to our private community network on Slack, monthly video networking sessions, exclusive savings on software tools, and an additional weekly Member Briefing.
Join now and attend our Femstreet Meet and Greet on February 10th.
From The Founder and Operator
What kind of leader are you?
Being a good leader doesn’t mean being a jack-of-all-trades. Instead, you can put your time and energy towards your strengths, and encourage your teams to do the same. Keji Mustapha of Connect on how to use your strengths to focus your leadership style and cultivate emotional intelligence above intellectual prowess…More here.
3 inspirational lessons from SDRs turned AEs
Moving from an SDR to an AE requires a level of training. Kira Colborn of Work-Bench talked to women at high growth enterprise startups that recommend you build your own training program and don’t wait for others to build one for you.Read more.
Take care of you
Rather than beating yourself for not “crushing it” consider acknowledging how hard this moment is and be proud of yourself for navigating through it. Play offense, not defense. Change how you define success. Protect your energy. Remind yourself you were never in control. Read more.
A primer on Sales Ops
Amy Liu shares key learnings based on her experience working at Box, Anaplan, Framer and Uber, and a template job description for your first SOPs hire…Read more.
The team of Public.com is currently on fire and in hyper-growth mode after announcing their Series C funding round, led once-again by Accel and Greycroft. Join them on their journey to change the culture of investing.
🔥 Product Manager, Social (NYC) If you have experience as a Product Manager and a love for social platforms, join the team on their mission to make the stock market more collaborative, fun, and diverse.Apply here.
🔥 Marketing Manager at Public (NYC) If you have experience working at a high-growth company, an editorial eye, experience in running social media channels, and are an energetic generalist Apply here.
🔥 Investment Associate & Analyst @Cavalry (Berlin) Cavalry Ventures just raised a new 80M€ fund and is looking to hire an Associate and Analyst. If you’re hungry to learn, fluent in German & English, and analytical by heart, apply here.
🔥 Director, Marketing & Content @Coa (SF, NYC/Remote) Coa is a venture-backed startup building the modern mental health and emotional fitness experience the 21st century needs. You’ve worked in early-stage startups before, love to build content strategies, and have an appreciation for meaningful brand experiences? Apply here.
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