Every Sunday, I send a newsletter with ideas on business and life. You can sign up below and read this edition from February 14, 2021.
Hey my friend,
Welcome to The Grind, a newsletter sharing the best ideas and insights on business and life I’ve learned each week.
Let’s dive in.
Ideas and Inspiration
Some critical questions for investors to be asking (and founders to keep in mind when raising capital), from this Tim Ferriss blog with Jason Calacanis:
- Why has this founder chosen this business?
- How committed is this founder?
- What are this founder’s chances of succeeding in this business—and in life?
- What does winning look like in terms of revenue and my return?
There is some food for thought in this thread by Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund on how ambition is tied to product-market fit.
In this thread, Yohei Nakajima of Untapped Capital and Scrum Ventures broke down the step-by-step process to build a target investor list using Crunchbase. Super helpful!
Check out these tips on how to succeed as a Creator on any platform—thanks for sharing, Joma!
Lead by example. Thomas Edison did it. Elon Musk has done it. It’s one of the marks of a great leader. Don’t ask of your employees what you yourself wouldn’t do.
Know how to answer the question, “how can I help?”
Asking for help is hard. Even when someone offers without you having to ask, accepting the help doesn’t come easy to most of us either! Being a founder requires vulnerability and forces you to be humble. Make it a little easier on yourself by being prepared and specific—at any stage, know where your gaps are and where you could use a boost.
Opportunities from this Week
Harlem Capital is looking for part-time, remote interns for Summer 2021! Application deadline is February 17th, so don’t wait!
Looking for women VC’s to invest in? Check out this list of 111 VC partner-level women from around the world.
Just Go Grind Podcast Guest News & Updates
Innovative wellness company Beam has launched its new powdered stick hydration mix, Elevate, after raising their Series A! Co-founders Matt Lombardi and Kevin Moran came on the Just Go Grind podcast in October last year:
Add it to your Calendar
On Monday, February 15th, check out The Community Fund’s event, co-hosted by Melissa Moore and Cheryl Campos, as they discuss: building an audience vs a community, how to get started, and how to grow a movement.
A Quote I Enjoyed
“Declaring our uncertainty in our beliefs to others makes us more credible communicators…by saying, ‘I’m 80%’ and thereby communicating we aren’t sure, we open the door for others to tell us what they know.”
–Annie Duke, Thinking in Bets
This Week’s Just Go Grind Episodes
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts
Krish Subramanian is the Co-Founder and CEO of Chargebee, a recurring billing and subscription management tool that helps SaaS and SaaS-like businesses streamline Revenue Operations. Chargebee integrates with the leading payment gateways like Stripe, Braintree, PayPal etc. around the world to let you automate recurring payment collection along with invoicing, taxes, accounting, email notifications, SaaS Metrics and customer management. Chargebee handles all your crucial workflows from lead to ledger with power-packed integrations that include Salesforce, Xero, Quickbooks, Avalara, Slack, among others.
Nicole Clark is the Co-Founder and CEO of Trellis, a state trial court legal research and analytics platform with AI-based insights on judges, opposing counsel, motions, dockets, and legal issues. They make state trial court data searchable and analyze it to give law firms insights into the way judges are ruling. Legal teams are able to “Google” search state trial court records and uncover key intelligence on opposing counsel, motions, rulings, dockets and other legal issues.
Prior to founding Trellis, Nicole Clark was a business litigation and labor and employment attorney who handled litigation in both state and federal courts. She regularly represented multinational corporations in claims ranging from high-profile trade secret disputes to complex class-action litigation. Frustrated by sending internal emails and collecting anecdotes on judges in order to make strategic case recommendations, she built Trellis to solve her own need for access to data, information, and analytics at the state trial court level. Prior to law school, Nicole attended Bard College, beginning her college coursework at the age of sixteen. She graduated with honors from University of Massachusetts Amherst with a BA in Journalism, and received her Juris Doctorate from Rutgers School of Law in Newark, NJ. Nicole sat for the Bar Exam in California, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and remains licensed to practice law in all three states.
Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter and I’ll see you next week Sunday. Have a wonderful day!
Much love,
Justin
P.S. Who am I? I’m the founder of Just Go Grind, host of the Just Go Grind Podcast, and the Director of Marketing & Community at Vitalize Venture Group.
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