I’m Sarahand this is the 189th 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!
One of the biggest regrets early-stage founders have is that they give away too much ownership of their company, too early. In a multi-part series, Femstreet collaborates with Pulley, a cap table platform for growing startups, to break down all things equity: what it is, why it matters, and how a founder should think about parting with it.
Read the first part of the series below, and stay tuned for the rest in the coming weeks. Members will have continued access to the unabridged versions:
We are going on our annual summer break for two weeks and will be back as usual on August 1st. However, if you fancy joining our private community for a hang on July 21st - sign up for our July Community-Check in here.
Insights
From the left: Renata Quintini and Roseanne Wincek of Renegade Partners, Sarah Friar of Nextdoor and Emily Weiss of Glossier
Glossier, led by CEO Emily Weiss, raised $80M in Series E funding, valuing the beauty brand at $1.8B.For those that didn’t know yet: Popshop Live raises about $20M at a $100M valuation for its livestream shopping platform for hipsters. Nextdoor, led by CEO Sarah Friar to go public in $4.3B SPAC merger. Renegade Partners, co-founded by veteran VCs Renata Quintini and Roseanne Wincek, rolls out its debut fund with $100M.MAGIC Fund raises $30M to scale its global founders-backing-founders fund. Clearco raises $215M from Softbank. A guide on ESG investing.Everyone on the DAOnce floor.You're a founder, not a female-founder.The LEGO analogy.Are we oversubscribed?
People
Instacart hires former Facebook executive Fidji Simoas new CEO ahead of its expected IPO. Dating app Hinge promoted Michelle Parsons to CPO. Mina Mutafchieva was promoted to Partner at Dawn Capital. Netflix hires ex-Apple executive N’Jeri Eaton to lead oodcasting operations.
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by…
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What founders, startup operators, and investors are talking about…
Chasing investor money isn’t for everyone
Jaime Schmidt bootstrapped her startup to $25M in revenue and a $100M+ acquisition. Bootstrapping requires recycling all profits back into the biz. Have a plan for getting more cash quickly in case you need it. Here’s how you can build from nothing, too…Read more.
Why the next wave of startups will be community-led
Move over marketing; if your product has a community first you’ll find word-of-mouth is all you need. Entrepreneurs, creators, and businesses are finding that having a community first is the fastest way to launch and sell their content and products. Ritika Mehta of The Visualist on the concept behind building a community…Read more.
Why your cap table is a crap table
During fundraising, most founders should optimize for speed, but not at the expense of getting the wrong people on your cap table. But should work to get equity ownership as “right” as possible in the beginning. Holly Liu, formerly Kabam, on the best way to build the strongest cap table to avoid mistakes…Read more.
Anti-burnout strategies for recovery and prevention
Naturally, designing an anti-burnout strategy should focus on: Reducing unhealthy stressors, creating a sustainable workload, improving recovery, and recalibrating your environment. Irina Stanescu, formerly Google & Uber, on why it’s good to break the cycle of overachievement and set boundaries…Read more.
Good vs. great interview answers
When building something new, turn months of work into mere hours through shortcuts (e.g., meet customers directly where they hang out, make narrowly focused prototype). When interviewing, walk through your sequence for solving a question to show you have a proven system, not just blind guesses. Linda Zhang on turn one month into 3 days when building and validating your product…Read more.
A basic product thinking framework
What makes a tech or solution a product? Meaning something someone will buy. Eva Nahari of DNX Ventures & formerly Cloudera, on the common pitfalls that could easily be avoided with a basic framework for how to separate technology from product…Read more.
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Within the first week of launch, we saved our members over $200K+ in SaaS spend on Airtable, Stripe & Mercury etc. In addition to the discounts, for $10 per month or $100 per year, you as a Femstreet member get:
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👀 Looking for a fresh start after summer? We spy some fresh new jobs on our Job Board
The Femstreet job board makes it easier for everyone to recruit from and find their next big gig within our global community.
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!
Check out all of the open roles or post your own here.
Reach out to our community of young business professionals and decision-makers, tell your story through a source our readers trust through sponsored ads, feature job postings on our job board & newsletter, or join our list of exclusive community deals.
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 Q4. We got a few slots left from October.
