Hi, I’m Sarah and this is the 171st edition of 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. We celebrate women every week but since this week is special with IWD coming up tomorrow, you can get off 21% for our annual membership.
Mary Meeker expands her empire and closes Bond Capital’s second fund of $2BN.Twin sisters Anna and Mizuki Nakajima score Japan’s hottest IPO by making games for women. Maria Salamanca makes Partner at Unshackled Ventures. The explosive (and inclusive) potential of NFTs in the creative world.And how to create and sell your first NFT.Some hard truths about being a VC.First Boulevard raises $5M for its digital bank aimed at Black America. The ‘Post Pandemic’ brand. What VCs really mean when they pass on a startup due to a very crowded market.Thasunda Brown Duckett will become the second Black female CEO currently in the Fortune 500. Kristen Sonday announces LongJump VC to back underrepresented ideas and founders. Yep, the era of audio creators has arrived. A nice story of the Girl & Computer.
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From The Investor
Fundraising without YC
The key to any successful fundraise is to build momentum among investors. You don’t want to get a lot of meetings lined up but not have figured out how much you want to raise or at what valuation cap.Holly Liu tells you how you can be best prepared in a step-by-step guide…Read more.
The "Chinese Shopify"
Can you name it? Youzan, with a current market cap of $6.4Bn, is at the intersection of several Chinese tech trends right now; the rise of private traffic in e-commerce, getting Chinese enterprises to pay for software and how to own the funnel. Lillian Li goes into its product offering and why Youzan is strikingly similar to Salesforce..…Read more.
Niche communities and spaces are here to stay
Our social lives are going from IRL to URL and every virtual platform is becoming a social community. Creators are moving away from ad revenues and instead are focusing on their most engaged audiences through VIP memberships. Cecilia Manduca of Talis Capital is exploring the different places where people socialize online and why we are witnessing the legitimisation of niche communities and spaces…Read more.
The founder, CEO scorecard
What are the signals investors look for when assessing a first-time founder early in their career? Magnetism, Git & hustle, Command of the facts & more. Ann Bordetsky of NEA on what she’s looking for in a founder or CEO without judging the company logos on their Linkedin…Read more.
Femstreet IWD Speical
We celebrate women every week but since this week is special with IWD coming up tomorrow, you can get off 21% for our annual membership.
The importance of putting users first when building community
“A lot of this mindset also applies to other interactions with your users, crossing over into the world of “developer experience” (i.e. how easy it is for a developer to be successful with your product) — by putting your user first, you’ll still create a lot of virtuous cycles.
No matter what your mission is, I encourage you to ask not what your community can do for you, but what you can do for your community.”
Claire Carrol shares how she built the very successful Dbt community and the number one reason for success - be on a mission!…Read more.
Product myths that hold you back
“Market > product”, “Competition can be positive sum”, “Retention is underrated” Linda Z, former Group PM at Faire will hopefully change your mind on at least one thing about building products.…Read more.
Diagnose with data. Treat with design.
Typically, we humans run on intuition, a rudimentary kind of pattern-matching. This is insufficient in many cases. Data can tell you what is happening, but not what to do about it. Treating it with design means that once you understand what is happening in detail, you can craft a solution. Julie Zhuo of Inspirit on why builders are designers…Read more.
7 reasons not to join a startup and 1 reason to
Are you graduating and thinking about joining a startup or leaving the corporate world behind you? Chip Huyen, formerly NVIDIA & Netflix gives some pointers to those trying to decide whether to take the leap.…Read more.
“There are no bad ideas. There are only early ideas… They’ll all happen. I’ve become convinced...Every smart person that comes in here with a crazy idea, it’s all going to happen at some point. They will all happen. It’s just a question of when.” - Marc Andreessen
Why now? The existential startup question, applied to life
As a founder, the Why now?”question is important to nail. Mika Reyes explains how you can de-risk your company’s “why now” and what to consider when you “why now”-ing your life…Read more.
Diem, the new platform for women-centric communities & live conversations has a whole series of events throughout the day. Join subject matter experts changing the status quo (incl. Dr. Katy Cook, Kirsty Godso and Jenny Fielding).
Events range from live guided meditations to candid convos on raising your first round.
Product Manager @Graphy (Remote) Graphy is on a mission to reimagine how teams work with data. If you have 3+ years experience as a product manager with a proven track record of shipping impactful products, apple here.
Talent and Portfolio Development @Northzone (NYC and London) Founded in 1996, Northzone has to date raised nine funds and invested in more than 150 companies, including category-defining businesses like Spotify, Hopin, Klarna and Kahoot! We are looking for two superstars that help us build out our talent and operator network. Apply here for the role in NYC or London.
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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.
