Pianpian Xu Guthrie

Ever wondered where the perfect balance between tranquility and innovation lies? For me, it’s Seattle. Unlike the Bay, Seattle has a more serene environment that’s perfect for focusing on building products and businesses. The city’s vibe encourages deep work and creative thinking, free from the overwhelming hustle. But let’s be honest, Seattle’s founder and investor communities aren’t as vibrant as those in SF. Yet, this city holds a special place in my heart – a blend of my love for startups and the charm of Seattle. I believe in Seattle’s potential and I’m on a mission to help ignite its startup community. From connecting with fellow founders to engaging investors, let’s come together to build something extraordinary here. Seattle has all the ingredients to be a startup hub – talent, innovation, and a supportive ecosystem. What it needs is a spark. Let’s be that spark.

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I remember chatting with Steve Jobs when he would come to our office at IDEO with his most intractable design problems. He was so much more than the co-founder of Apple. He was the man who truly merged technology and design. The man who raised consumer expectations for thoughtfully made products. The man who gave users not what they asked for, but what upon seeing it, is what they wanted all along. His influence still looms large more than a dozen years after his passing. Even the staunchest critics of Apple can’t deny he helped shape the modern design and business world. We often ask: “What does it take to make the next Steve Jobs?” I interviewed dozens of designers, design scholars, entrepreneurs, and CEOs on the role of design in Silicon Valley. My research led me to identify five traits (what I call ‘Jobsian’ traits) that could shape the next great design-tech leader. If you want to be the next great leader in design-tech, this is *all* you need.

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Hello my amazing community! I have become selective with programs for founders. I notice that to some of these programs, founders are the product. Our interests are not necessarily aligned. Some of these programs charge fees when early stage founders can't afford them. A good example is Newchip Accelerator that went bankrupt. Read more here https://lnkd.in/dmzVXsRd. ⏭️ founders be selective when you choose a program to help you. Remember, it's not always a guarantee for your success. #founder

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✨🚨 Another Make Cents post is live! 🚨✨ In this post, "AI & its Impact on Vertical SaaS: The Gates of Distribution have Flung Open", I explore how AI is impacting vertical SaaS workflows and its implication for distribution and defensibility. We defy.vc are more excited than ever to invest in vertical SaaS because we believe there's tremendous value leveraging AI to enhance human productivity across tasks like 1) structuring data, 2) analysis, 3) recommendations, and 4) taking action. I also walk through why customer acquisition costs are at an all-time low, attributed to more than just AI-driven product functionality. Read more ⬇ and share your thoughts and feedback in the comments! https://lnkd.in/gRVcJASH

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Hiring a Founding AE with 2-3 years of experience? Without clarity, face a great honeymoon but miserable marriage.  In a recent discussion with a coach of B2B sellers, she shared that the boom of 2020-2023 saw many sellers become order takers and lose their skills. The need to prospect went down and sellers working with eager buyers forgot how to create the momentum early in the sales process. Another trend is job openings for Founding AEs looking for 2-3 years of experience. This seems to be motivated by investor instructions to “keep things lean.” I’m all for lean, but make sure to look for some key AE traits to make sure you’re getting full value out of your precious cash. Simple things to look for: -Startup experience. Be extremely cautious of hiring sales reps who have only worked in enterprise companies. I hired a rep once who fit this profile who was talented at getting people on the phone but couldn’t build his own prospecting lists in salesforce given he was use to having someone do it for him. Not a good match. Ask for details around how they would setup their day to prospect, have they created their own decks, how would they run a POC, etc. Listen for the details and ask for examples. -Domain knowledge. Look for AEs who have sold to the ICPs you are targeting. If you have a product for developers, find someone who’s sold into that persona. If you have a RevOps tool, Marketing, etc. Ask for them to explain what’s unique about the persona they have experience with. -Company size experience. Early stage startups buy from each other. That’s part of the fun of a startup - the community and supporting each other. It’s a fast-paced transactional selling environment easily managed through PLG or an SMB sales motion. If you want to sell to enterprise, you need someone with that experience. It’s totally different momentum and skillset of navigating enterprise. Examples are powerful here. Ask them to describe a deal from start to finish and highlight what actions they took and who on their team was involved. Founders are busy. This list is simple and obvious but it will help you quickly screen for the skillset you need before you interview. I’d suggest even including questions on your job application. Looking at LinkedIn it seems each open role is getting hundreds of applicants within days so to save your sanity take an extra 10 min and include some open ended questions about this stuff on the submission form. Too many founders hire inexperienced sellers who are the wrong fit in terms of skillset -  prioritizing budget over effectiveness. As a result they hire someone who is cheap but does not perform. Think about other creative ways to hire an experienced sales executive or GTM leader and compensate more on commission percentage and equity than base salary. Al Rey and I are talking about this topic and other GTM challenges faced by Seed Founders at our event in June. Check it out here:

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Had fun conversation with Sean Li 🎙about entrepreneurship and building products.

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I've returned to writing and sharing my insights, now on Substack! 📚✨ If you're interested in product development and compelling startup stories, be sure to check out my new Substack. The upside? It's going to be very opinionated and inspiring. The downside? It might push your thinking. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/dZnUgJj5 Stay tuned and feel free to subscribe. #Tech #ProductDevelopment #TechTrends #StartupStories #Substack

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Great to see another Seattle success story. Acquire featured in Ben Cohen's WSJ column. "A single episode requires hundreds of hours of research, which is why they release only 12 a year. In fact, the podcast is so unconventional that Gilbert and Rosenthal don’t even think of it as a podcast. They describe their shows as “conversational audiobooks.” One listener described them to me as “business porn.” It’s a wonky podcast about business history and strategy with four-hour episodes that drop once a month. And people from Silicon Valley to Wall Street are completely obsessed with it.   Gilbert and Rosenthal have become known for their comprehensive analysis, clear storytelling and overall craftsmanship. They focus on quality. They embrace scarcity. They want to do less, better. The hosts refer to Acquired as “the Hermès of podcasts,” which is a valuable brand to have. They now charge between $400,000 and $600,000 for four-episode sponsorships. (The current presenting sponsor is a unit of JPMorgan Chase.) It costs $40,000 a month just to advertise on the podcast’s archives, since the back catalog generates one-third of the show’s downloads. [link to full story below]

If you have a YC interview coming up - reach out and our team of YC Alumni can help set up some mock interviews

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I had such a great time chatting with Lenny Rachitsky in this week's podcast! We talked about some of the lessons I've learned over my career, like getting my hands deep into execution, using storytelling and metaphors to build stronger products, and leading with curiosity so I can constantly learn from everyone (and, as a side benefit, stay focused in meetings 😀 !). So many of these tactics I've learned from the brilliant and generous people I've been surrounded by throughout my career -- thank you all! And of course, you can find more about these lessons in my "Hard Parts of Growth" series about product, leadership, and scaling, at amivora.substack.com.

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How long should it take you to get to product market fit? Here’s an overview of how long it took 24 of today’s top B2B startups to get to (1) a live product, (2) their first customer, and (3) their first feeling of PMF: Yep, 2 years is the median average. As someone who spends a lot of time talking to founders about PMF, I thought I would share this article as it should help calm people down that this is not a 5 minute process!!! Credit to Lenny Rachitsky for the research 🙌 link to the full article here 👉 https://lnkd.in/ettzB3gf

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Kids Care Finder is now a #semifinalist for this year’s Pepperdine Most Fundable Companies List! There are less than 100 companies that have moved into the semifinals in the entire country! So glad to see #childcare is getting noticed by investors. Now let’s get to the finals!! #startups #fundraising #womenintech #angelinvesting #childcare #parenttech #famtech #femalefounders #investing

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I funded an important study by Dr. Ashley Mason at UCSF that involves sticking thermometers up people’s rectums. ​ ​Sorry, that was the only way I could guarantee to keep you reading. But seriously, keep reading, this is really cool. ​ If you’re a Tech Bro™ type or have ever listened to Huberman Lab or Dr. Rhonda Patrick, then you’re well versed in the benefits of saunas and cold plunge, but it turns out that high temperature saunas may treat severe treatment resistant depression. ​ Researchers have long known that depression is often accompanied by a slight but consistent increase in body temperature. The question that intrigued scientists was whether changing that temperature could, in turn, alter the course of the depression. ​ Enter the sauna. Anecdotal evidence has suggested for years that regular sauna use can boost well-being, but only recently have researchers begun to look seriously at its potential to treat depression. ​ In the study, for 8 weeks, participants with major depressive disorder were fitted with a rectal thermometers (unfortunately the most accurate way to measure body temperature when in a sauna) and exposed to extremely long (140 minute) weekly sauna sessions that raised their body temperature to a feverish temperature of 101.3 F. ​ What was incredible was that participants saw their symptoms significantly improve after just a few weeks of regular heat sessions. The effect was so pronounced that nearly all of them no longer met the criteria for major depressive disorder at the end of the trial. ​ This isn’t to say that saunas are a silver bullet for depression—far from it. The studies so far have been small, and much more research is needed to confirm the results and understand the mechanisms at play. But the early findings are promising enough that researchers are calling for more attention and funding to explore this avenue further. ​ To date, we have committed over half a million dollars to this project, with more to come. If you’re interested in donating alongside us, please donate here (and make sure you specify you want the money to go to Dr. Ashley Mason): https://lnkd.in/dRHPvdej ​ ​If you’re curious to learn more, check out: - Interview on Found My Fitness‍: https://lnkd.in/dcqQCBG9 ​- Talk at BrainMind Summit: https://lnkd.in/dutdhHQg

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👉 Attention Pacific-Northwest founders ✅ Are you building in B2B SaaS/AI? ✅ Have you raised less than $250K? ✅ Had one-too-many VCs tell you you’re too early? I’d love to chat. The Pacific Northwest is home to two of the magnificent seven, the birthplace of some awesome companies (Slack, Outreach, Remitly, Redfin, Auth0 to name a few) and a magnet for great AI/technical talent. Forum Ventures, will be doubling down in this awesome ecosystem and writing more checks into B2B SaaS/AI founders for $100K+ admission to our pre-seed accelerator. Our pre-seed program is highly personalized - not your generic startup school. Here’s what you can expect: 🤝 Hands on GTM and Sales support to get you to $200k+ ARR 🌎 A community of B2B founders who have raised $1B+ in follow-on funding 🚀 An awesome Managing Director who will work alongside your team as a fractional senior operator / co-founder. They’re all former founders and have lived 0-1. 💸 No-bs investors who will help quarter back your seed round and show up through the good and the bad. 👋🏻 PNW founder? Pitch us here: https://hubs.ly/Q02tdP_r0 🙏 Not a founder? Please share with your network or tag a founder below ⬇️ cc Simon Chou Dominic Lau Richard Kerby Casey Van Maanen Ryan Holmes Adarsh Pallian Paul Irving Scott Barker Sara Lindquist John Eng Sarah Studer Jacob Laes Marius Ciocirlan Chris DeVore Brendan Wales Sheila Gulati Jen Haller Kirby Winfield Andy Liu Matt Wang Sanford W Spivey Amy Sallin Erik Benson Annie Luchsinger Lauren Glatter Bryan Hale Brian Glaister Kristopher Alford Jeffrey Manner Julian (Jay) Rhind Connor Edwards Daniel Baraghoush Kaylee Lieffers (Astle)

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Founder Mode for Product Managers ... and my takeaway from the internet buzz on "Founder Mode". Context: Y Combinator founder Paul Graham shared a post where the founder of Airbnb spoke about two types of leadership styles - the "Founder Mode" and "Manager Mode". The original post: https://lnkd.in/g7A9bnjz was followed by many reposts - if you rather listen in https://lnkd.in/ge37Q8Y7. The All-IN didn't miss chiming in, with Chamath Palihapitiya posting on X. And talking about it in this week's podcast: https://lnkd.in/gnx9QwPs Here’s my perspective for product managers: Stay relentless in your pursuit of solving the problem you're passionate about. Be prepared to navigate challenges, break through layers of management, and take full ownership of the content. Your passion and belief should fuel your drive until you achieve product-market fit and gain the buy-in you need to succeed.

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PMF Daily Dose # 12: An iteration to Y-Combinator's Essential Startup Advice👩‍🔬🔄🚀 I’ve edited and re-framed it specifically for B2B software startups w/ some revenue, some customers, and some PMF. I hope the bucketing and edits are helpful, but my one big push is this: The advice from Y Combinator is focused on startups going from 0-1 and my push is that these same practices are absolutely necessary to go from 1-10, it’s just that the context and way in which you execute them changes as your company grows. Don’t lose your startup DNA while going from 1-10 while honoring your current stage as a larger, slower moving, and more complicated organization. I’ve created 3 buckets: 1/ Everything is Handmade the First Time 2/ Simplify 3/ Be Empathetic to Yourself and Build Meaningful Relationships I’ve made edits/additions to many of the YC bullets based on my experience building startups over the last 18 years. ⚡️1️⃣ Everything is Handmade the First Time⚡️ ➡️ Do things that don't scale. When you find value scale it while remaining small and nimble to build the next wave of features in a fast, iterative, and handmade way until you validate your decision to build/scale or trash. Dual-track agile is a necessary tool for startups going from 1-10. You must balance discovery and delivery to win. ➡️ Find the 90 / 10 solution. ⚡️2️⃣ Simplify⚡️ ➡️ Find 10 then 50 then 100 customers who love your product. Stages matter. Don't get too far ahead of yourself. ➡️ Startups can only solve one problem well at any given time. ➡️ Don’t scale until you have built something people want. And don’t be afraid to gracefully exit team members that no longer fit within the constantly evolving strategy of your org. Be kind to them. Give them notice and severance. But it is a disservice to everyone to keep them if it’s not a fit. ➡️ Only enter into long negotiated deals with big customers if you can engage them for their time -> reputation -> money along the course of the negotiation ie get them on your product and giving you feedback while you negotiate. ➡️ Avoid big company corporate development queries - they will only waste time, unless you can engage them for their time -> reputation -> money along the way. See above. ➡️ Ignore your competitors. ⚡️3️⃣ Be Empathetic to Yourself and Build Meaningful Relationships⚡️ ➡️ All startups are badly broken at some point ➡️ Be careful but not avoidant with conferences. In B2B SaaS you may need to go to conferences to build relationships with customers. Go with a giving mindset and a relationship mindset. Engagement and sales will come after that. ➡️ Sometimes you need to fire your customers (they might be killing you) ➡️ Get sleep and exercise. Take care of yourself and your family/community. ➡️ Founder relationships matter more than you think. ➡️ Be nice! Or at least don’t be a jerk. Karma is real. Here's the original post from YC. https://lnkd.in/g6ftdjtZ

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Despite being in charge of "messaging,"  we product marketers are PRETTY SLOPPY when it comes to definitions. I cannot count the number of times this conversation has played out: "Is this a feature or a benefit?" "In this case... the feature really IS a benefit!" If all the words are interchangeable, then everything means everything! And as a consequence... everything is meaningless! The best way to approach product marketing messaging is to strictly divide three core concepts: 1️⃣ Features The feature is the THING you're talking about. It should be a word or a phrase (not a full-blown sentence). 2️⃣ Capabilities Capabilities are literally what you do with the features. These are INPUTS (not outputs). 3️⃣ Benefits Benefits are the output of the capability — or the outcome. Usually, there is a state change that occurs (i.e. less of something bad, more of something good.) If you keep these three concepts separate, everything gets a lot clearer... and you can start making smarter messaging choices! Check out the example below with Apple's famous first-gen iPod slogan:  "1,000 songs in your pocket" #productmarketing

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When I first met Notion's team two years ago, they were revolutionizing productivity while grappling with complex global operations. Today, they're showcasing how tech can transform the finance function. "Anrok allowed us to put more predictability in reporting and into planning," says Katya Ewing, Notion's Head of Tax. This perfectly captures our hopes at Anrok.   Notion's journey from tax complexity to clarity is a masterclass in scaling and operational excellence. It's a privilege to partner with Katya Ewing, Nate Pinsky and the entire Notion team. See how Notion conquered global tax challenges in this 3-minute video.

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