I’m Sarahand this is the 184th edition of Femstreet, a weekly newsletter featuring must-read content by female CEOs, operators, and investors. If you enjoy the content, please like it above and share it with friends. You da best!
ICYMI: Last week, we launch a new member-only perk: Deals! Paid Femstreet subscribers now get access to an exclusive collection of curated discounts from 75+ companies including Stripe, Airtable, Brex, Carta, Bubble, and many more.
Within three days of launch, we saved members over $120k(!) in SaaS spend.
To commemorate the occasion, get 20% off annual plans until EOD June 6th.
Left to right: Laura Behrens Wu of Shippo, Maria Raga of Depop and Rachel Carlson of Guild Education
Unicorn alert: Guild Education led by Rachel Romer Carlson is now valued at $3.75B. Shipping startup Shippo co-founded by Laura Behrens Wu is now valued at $1B with $50M in new funding. Depop led by CEO Maria Raga joins the Etsy Family for $1.6B.Ex-Goldman’s Kathy Matsui startsan ESG venture capital fund. Talking about your insecurities.How to Marie Kondo your packed calendar. Meet the different breed of VC.Lolita Taub of The Community Fund launches the GP-LP Matching toolto introduce underestimated and underrepresented emerging fund managers to LPs. Feeling overwhelmed? You need an MVD (Minimum Viable Day). Is collective belief the new free cash flow?Julie Bell joins Emergence Capital as the VC firm’s first COO.
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by…
Propel: Grow into your leadership potential alongside peers who are doing the same.
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What founders, startup operators, and investors are talking about…
How y’all feeling?
Naomi Osaka, the fastest rising star in all of tennis, unexpectedly withdrew from the French Open earlier this week — taking to Instagram to poignantly detail her little-known battles with anxiety and depression. What ensued in Paris last week was a breakdown in empathetic leadership.“While burnout is often portrayed as something exclusively internal (like a pot of boiling water, its temperature slowly getting hotter and hotter until it boils over… and eventually, boils away!), society needs to stop thinking of it that way.“ Setting better professional boundaries and practicing self-care is no longer enough to prevent burnout. Irina Stanescu, formerly Google & Uber, on how psychological unsafety manifests in our day-to-day and how bad management is a huge contributor to burnout…Read more.
Hacking your first round of funding
Fundraising, especially for the first time, can feel daunting. What should I optimize for as I build the round? What investors should I go for? Why this one over the other What round size? and structure? and valuation? Carmen Alfonso-Rico of Blossom Capital on why you should DD the conversion rate from Seed to Series A in your lead investor’s portfolio and prioritize personal fit…Read more.
The ideal customer profile made easy
As a founder of a SaaS company, one of the most crucial challenges for the company is to identify the right companies to target and sell to. Having a laser-sharp focus on key prospects and a clear understanding of your ideal customer profile increases your likelihood of winning. Karolina Kukielka of InReach Ventures shares a six-step process to create key characteristics of your ICP to such a level of detail that it’s easy for a marketeer to generate a list of target prospects…Read more.
Tech spin-outs
China-based JD.com recently span out of JD Logistics and raised $3.1bn from its IPO. Why would a firm spin out and let their former business unit flourish as standalone businesses while Western tech has trembled at the idea of separation? Are Chinese tech's spin-outs a sign of things yet to come for Western tech? “I have a theory about the spin-outs. They are often in the dead zone of products — too revenue generative to kill outright, too significant to be taken under a general manager’s wing, too cash hungry to keep plowing resources into, and too strategically insignificant to be prioritized.“ Lillian Li got you covered… Read more.
Overcoming product-led growth roadblocks
Product-led growth is not a new phenomenon. While the benefits are well-known, what is less talked abt are challenges associated with this strategy. Janelle Teng of Bessemer Venture Partners shares a playbook of eight proven strategies to convert unpaid users, expand accounts, and push upmarket…Read more.
Mrs. procrastination
Are you procrastinating often? Until you’re clear on what you need to do and believe in your ability to do it, you will struggle to focus and therefore procrastinate. Ellen Donnelly of The Ask on why procrastination tendencies show up so much when first building a business and your remedy to counteract them and get clarity…Read more.
💥 Find your next big gig or post a role to our Job Board
Hiring continues to be the hardest part for young companies. This is where Femstreet wants to help. The Femstreet job board makes it easier for everyone to recruit from and find their next big gig within our global community. Explore 100+ opportunities across VC, product, marketing, sales & design at companies such as Pitch, Carta, Public, Tessian etc.
Want to get in front of Femstreet’s finest? Featured job posts sit on top of the feed, get promoted in our newsletter, and will be tweeted. New jobs drop every Friday!
👉 VP Marketing @SwagUp (Remote): SwagUp is an interesting combination of B2B SaaS, ecom, and an API platform. Got 7+ years of experience in performance marketing? Join SwagUp as VP of Marketing to lead their Marketing / Growth department. Apply here
👉 VP Eng @SwagUp (Remote) SwagUp is also looking for its first VP of Engineering. You will be working directly with their CTO and lead a team of developers and engineers. Up for this ride? Apply here
👉 GTM Lead @Livepeer (NYC/Remote) Livepeer’s mission is to build the world’s open video infrastructure, enabling instantly scalable, reliable, and affordable video streaming. You're excited about the challenge of leading the Go To Market function at an early-stage start-up disrupting the video streaming industry? Apply here
👉 Senior Lead Product Manager @Livepeer (NYC/Remote) Livepeer is also looking for a senior lead product manager for their video streaming API product. Apply here
👉 Sales Lead @Supercritical (London) Venture-backed Supercritical is on a mission to help businesses get to net-zero and to scale carbon removal technologies. Fancy joining Supercritical as their first sales hire and working alongside the CEO Michelle? Apply here
Check out all of the open roles or post your own here.
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