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Good morning Femstreet fam, this is issue No. 154.

Many of us in the tech world are going 7+ months strong working from home. We miss seeing colleagues in person. Childcare and virtual schooling strain productivity and focus. There may be distractions galore in a home office. And there’s no clear end in sight. But how can leaders keep employees engaged and effective during these trying times?
Femstreet teamed up with Underscore Ventures for an actionable discussion around building a performance-driven culture amidst a pandemic with Alison Eastaway (VP People at Sqreen), Katie Burke (VP People at Hubspot), Vitri Bhandari (VP People Ops at Klaviyo), and Tanya Bakalov (Founder of HelloTeam), moderated by Lily Lyman (Partner at Underscore VC). Join us on October 30th.

RSVP

Here’s what you'll learn today:

What you need for your Series A pitch.
Why successful founders are made, not born.
How to develop your brand as a developer.
How to use the CURE framework to figure out who owns contract renewal.

Let’s get this started.

Insights

The former VP Sales of Intercom, Laurabeth Harvey, joined Front as their first Chief Revenue and Success Officer. Jaclyn Hester has been promoted to Partner at Foundry Group. Femstreet member Claire Díaz-Ortiz joins Magma Partners and launches an initiative to invest in female founders in LatAm. Quarterly VC funding for female founders drops to three-year low. Google is providing cash awards to 76 startups through a racial equity initiative. Lolita Taub of the Community Fund offering a Founder Mental Health mini-course for free. Women executives say the pandemic is exacerbating gender bias. Venture capital gets less diverse in 2020.

From The Investor

Mercedes Bent of Lightspeed Venture Partners on why successful founders are made, not born, and their self-development journeys are fascinating paths, rarely chronicled.
Amanda Robson of Cowboy Ventures on what top VC firms look for in your Series A pitch.

Lillian Li of Eight Roads Ventures on the shadow ware between Alibaba and Tencent.

Medha Agarwal and Urvashi Barooah of Redpoint Ventures on five key trends driving the finance technology stack.
Li Jin published an interview with Kajabi’s CPO, the secret giant in the passion economy that has bootstrapped to $1B GMV run rate.
Data shows that there is a discrepancy between founders and VCs on the latter’s perceived level of “helpfulness”. My colleague Wendy Xiao Schadeck outlines how to think differently about VC value-add.

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Become a Femstreet member

From The Founder and Operator

Isabel Nyo of Atlassian published a complete guide on how to increase your visibility as a developer via your personal brand.
Leila Nazari, formerly Dataiku, goes deep on five creative avenues for brands to engage with business buyers and create buzz around a shared vision to make your brand stand out.
For SaaS lovers: Cassie Young of Primary Venture Partners outlines how to use the CURE framework to figure out who owns contract renewal.
Maria Carmona of Liizt shares how to double your users amid a pandemic.
Tips by Misra Turp of myTomorrows about how to manage your time and stay organized as a data scientist.

Femstreet contributors

You are a startup operator or investor and publish your articles on Medium? We’d love to bring your content to our platform. Each month we will publish a select number of articles written by our operator and investor community. Our subscribers include the most important and interesting women in technology and business. Here are some of them. If you want to join this incredible group of Femstreet contributors, please reach out.

Become a Femstreet Contributor

Note: We can’t guarantee you a spot but we will always consider your articles for our Sunday newsletter.

Opportunities

VP Engineering @SkuSpring (London or Remote)
SkuSpring is looking for an experienced and passionate software engineer to take a key role as VP of Engineering. If you are keen to join a small group of fast-moving characters that will change how brands and shoppers interact, please send your CV to us.

Events

🗓️ October 14
Join me for a session on your sales playbook for 2020 at SaaStock EMEA with the code femstreet20

🗓️ October 14
Raising Cash Outside of VC

🗓️ October 15
#VCLeadLadies: Being an Effective Board Member

🗓️ October 27
All Raise VC Summit

🗓️October 30
Underscore VC x Femstreet: How to Build a Performance-Driven Culture Amidst a Pandemic

And In Case You Missed It

8 things to think of when first angel investing - for members only
5 trends in data - for everyone
5 internal processes to increase customer retention- for everyone
Tips for founder personal brand building - for members only
How to build and scale a remarkable startup without compromising on people or culture - for everyone
6 lessons from building a business in a downturn - for members only
Effects of hype and exclusivity on launch strategies- for everyone
The Athlete CEO - for everyone

That’s all for this Sunday. I’ll catch you next time 👋

Comments, questions, tips? Send me a note

Written by Sarah Nöckel, Early-Stage investor at Northzone. All things workplace tech, data and enterprization of consumer. Born in Germany. Based in London. You can find me elsewhere on Twitter, Instagram and on my phone in the ☁️.

How to build a performance-driven culture; W…

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