The internet’s 3% difference; When to hire and how to judge a CMO and VP Engineering
Where women in tech lead, shape and fund the future.
Welcome to the new year with Femstreet. I’ve missed you! I’m Sarah and this is the 212th edition of Femstreet, a weekly newsletter featuring must-read content by female CEOs, operators, and investors. If you like the content in this newsletter, please like it above and share it with friends.
Insights
Blossom Capital founded by high conviction investor Ophelia Brown closes a brand new $432M fund for Series A deals in Europe. The art of knowing your worth. The Stack World launches a new creator platform. The fight against the numbers when fundraising. Woah Danielle Washington and Ciara Imani May are working on plant-based hair extensions. How Jenny Gyllander of Thingtesting scaled her Instagram following and built a thriving business. The best managers don’t fix it, they coach. Why words matter. Gatekeeping, pattern matching…are LPs judging first-time fund managers wrong? WoW Pixies NFT, the first venture DAO to invest in women and diversity-led ecosystem.
People
Accel US hires Sara Ittelson, formerly Faire & Uber, as its newest Partner.
Maria Tangarova joined Chapter One.
Serena Williams is now Board Advisor at the NFT startup Sorare.
A message from Launch House
Where founders and engineers go deep and big.
Haven’t heard of Launch House? You’re in for a treat. Imagine an exclusive community of 300+ founders that offers fundraising support, partnerships with top creators, and thousands of dollars in SaaS discounts to help members build their companies… Now stop imagining.
They’ve built it. And starting February 27th, they are doing something special by hosting a Female Founders exclusive month in Beverly Hills! But wait, it gets better. Launch House is giving one Femstreet reader a free grant for a program of their choice AND $500 off to everyone else. Simply mention Femstreet in who referred you!
To apply for an upcoming cohort, click here.
What founders, startup operators, and investors are talking about…
Web3 is distinct in that it gives people the choice to be owners on the internet—that’s its 3% difference. And if everything in the world is exactly the same, then 3% progress is substantial and the impact will be remarkable.
The internet’s 3% difference
We can pontificate about the tech and biz model changes from Web1 to Web3, but they were made possible by builders who were optimistic we could do better. Web3 gives people the choice to be owners—that’s its 3% difference and worth fighting for. A wonderful must read essay published by Holyn Kanake…Read more.
When to hire and how to judge a CMO for your company
CMOs are notoriously one of the quickest roles to churn out of companies as everyone wants to grow, and they want it to have happened yesterday. Seedcamp’s Natasha Lytton shares her experiences as a CMO and covers some of the typical questions, that sometimes people are too embarrassed to ask, around all things marketing and when, and how, to hire a marketer for your startup.…Read more.
Shooting for the moon? Here’s how you scale your GTM engine
Before $10M ARR, the role of a sales leader or founder is to sell a product in the absence of any collateral—sometimes even in the absence of product-market fit but then you have to step up with data and quantified metrics of your sales and marketing funnel. Bridging the transition phase between founder-led sales and a scalable, sales-led go to market engine is the trickiest part of scaling a software business. Mary D’Onofrio and Janelle Teng of Bessemer collected 10 best practices on how to successfully navigate this stage…Read more.
Deciding which stage of VP Engineering you need
Looking to hire a VP Eng who can scale from 8 to 800, meaning that they want a VP Eng who has managed hundreds but who’s also happy writing code all the time? Those VP Eng candidates do exist, but you might need to wait several quarters and battle numerous other companies to hire one. Niniane Wang of Basis Set on the pitfalls to avoid when hiring for a VP Engineering, and how to judge profiles coming your way…Read more.
Future Films
The way we consume content is fundamentally changing. New models for shared ownership and content monetization have emerged through Web3 that represent new ways for creators to fund larger-scale projects and monetize on those projects. Bessemer’s Alexandra Sukin on future content monetisation models in a world where consumers prefer participatory online experiences and creators gain control over their own creative projects, distribution and monetization…Read more.
👀 it’s January, there’s never been a better time to explore new job opportunities
Whether you’re seeking your dream role or dream employee — Femstreet Jobs has you covered. Check out all the new opportunities 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 on Twitter!
Featured Jobs this week (remote if not stated otherwise)
👉 Analyst @Founders Intelligence (Berlin, London)
👉 Senior Product Manager @Gigs (Berlin, London)
👉 Product Designer @Passionfroot
👉 Founding Creator @Passionfroot
👉 Full Stack Developer @Passionfroot
👉 Senior PM @Gigs (Berlin, London)
👉 Head of People @Gigs (Berlin, London)
👉 Community Manager @First Round Capital
👉 Pre Seed Investor (VP/Principal) @Flash Ventures (London)
👉 Investment Analyst @Columbia Lake Partners (London)
Check out all the open roles or post your own here.
In case you missed it
Femstreet's Top Highlights of 2021 - for everyone
Community-Led Growth Nirvana - for everyone
A straight-talking deep dive into the equity terms that matter for founders. - for everyone
Me, My Teen Self and Instagram - for everyone
The future of media, community-driven knowledge networks, and the ownership economy - for everyone
How to set up a modern GTM motion for a SaaS startup. - for everyone
Are sports cards the future of retail investing? - for everyone
How to hack media messaging and effectively bootstrap PR - for members only
8 things to think of when first angel investing - for members only
How to build and scale a remarkable startup without compromising on people or culture - for members only’
See you next Sunday, my friends👋
Comments, questions, tips or raising your Seed round? Send me a note
Written by Sarah Nöckel, Investor at Northzone. Born in Germany. Based in London. You can find me elsewhere on Twitter and Instagram.