Cynthia Plotch

Hello, I'm Anthony and I'm looking for a A+ killer Head of Growth for Equip Foods! Here are some wild stats on Equip: 🚀 Mid 8-figures in revenue, bootstrapped, and highly profitable (no VC BS) ✌️Only 2 FTE at the moment (no micromanaging or endless meetings) ❗️Only currently focusing on one marketing channel (affiliate/influencer) 🛍️ Industry best CR, LTV, and subscription #s (clear product market fit) 🥤Real food supplement products that are clean, transparent, and of the highest-quality that people absolutely love (actually doing something important in CPG) Perfect role for anyone who gives a damn about health, wants to get their hands dirty and build out a growth process, have huge amounts of agency and autonomy, and keen to make a dent every day when they show up to work. Here's a link to why we exist: https://lnkd.in/gGb-qCA4 Here's a link to the job description and app: https://lnkd.in/gxwE7xk7 (TIP: DO NOT APPLY IF YOU ARE PLANT-BASED) Please tag anyone you think could be a good fit! (P.S. I've been a tad quiet here. Are you interested in anything else about this business? Should I share more on LinkedIn?)

74

14 Comments

Before building what became Plaid, Zachary Perret and William Hockey started out with a consumer budgeting product. What’s perhaps less well known is that they built 6 different versions of budgeting, expense management, and analyzing spend tools — that didn’t get any traction. As we were developing First Round Capital's PMF Method, we learned so much from Plaid’s early journey — so grateful Zach generously shared takeaways for other founders. 🙏 Would highly recommend watching his interview and reading our new essay in full, but sharing a few of observations here: 🔑 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗣𝗠𝗙 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗶𝘃𝗼𝘁. “A friend who was one of the early engineers at Venmo said, ‘Hey, your consumer products are not so good, but I'd like to license the backend that you've built.’ It took awhile, but eventually we decided to make this pivot. The cheat to product market fit is oftentimes the pivot because a company doesn't generally pivot into something unless it's very clear that it's a good idea. If you read anything on the internet about founding a company, they tell you to focus. And so pivoting into something new is a big decision, where you're effectively betting the entire company.” Now things have come full circle, with hundreds of consumer budgeting apps powered by Plaid. As Zach puts it: “I'm so proud of the entrepreneurs who have built great products on Plaid and saved us from the terrible product that we built early on.” 📈 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳. “The challenge for us wasn't finding a product that people would buy — the bigger challenge was that the market didn't really exist. We had to convince people to build products in this market. That was our job, more so than even building the platform itself.” It’s key to remember the timing here. This was back in 2012, before fintech even had a name. “We would do all of these crazy things to try to convince people to build fintech products. For example, when we got our first-ever office, we started doing these monthly events called ‘Plaid Outs' where we'd invite everyone we knew who might possibly want to start a company to come to our office and have beers. It eventually started to create this community, and we think that then inspired many people to actually build products on top of Plaid.” 📲 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁. “For our early customers at Plaid, we didn't consider it to be a successful customer unless they were on a texting relationship with us. When I would onboard a customer, I’d say, ‘Hey, what's your number? Can I text you and get feedback on this?’ And then even if I didn't have big questions for those people, I would find a way to reach out to them once a week or two. We wanted to create very tight relationships between ourselves and our early customers to inspire them to both give us great product feedback, but also to refer us to others.”

264

12 Comments

Someone broke down the estimated costs of a $15 Sweetgreen salad. We need these cost graphics for digital health to help future founders. Especially for tech enabled cos, the greatest cost is labor. Much of the "value created" is in curation and matching, which means the gross margins are reliant on labor arbitrage. Pay someone $X, but get paid $X+Y% per visit. The challenge with healthcare is that you often have to pick one of two business models: 1. specialized, low volume, high cost, low gross margin % 2. generalized, high volume, low cost, high gross margin % I'd argue founders should focus on gross dollars over the lifetime of the customer (like Jeff Bezos said) instead of gross margin %'s, but we'll leave that for another time. The challenge is that many tech enabled digital health cos have high cost of goods sold (labor) and moderately high product, design, and engineering budgets. We must build differentiated solutions for patients, clinicians, and clients to be out incumbents, however, we're realizing that companies are ultimately valued on the discounted value of future cash flows. And the high SG&A costs at most organizations might be inbalanced to the unit economics of the business. I'm not sure the math pencils out for everyone unfortunately. But I'm just a guy on the internet, would love to hear the thoughts from those smarter than I (you!). Comment below. --- p.s. I have no idea the accuracy of the graphic and not an investor in Sweetgreen. Cheers. Credit: David Crowther

113

27 Comments

Startups need to understand their customer, and where they reside. For example, NYC is the perfect launchpad for Hirebird due to... High demand for hourly workers: NYC's diverse economy relies heavily on flexible labor. Diverse talent pool: NYC attracts a wide range of skilled individuals seeking hourly employment. Early adopter culture: New Yorkers are known for embracing new technologies. Innovation hub: NYC fosters collaboration and provides access to resources. Thriving gig economy: Hirebird aligns with the growing trend of flexible work arrangements. To succeed as a start-up, you need to get your hands dirty. Immerse yourself in your city's culture, understand the specific needs of your ICP, and tailor your product/tool accordingly. Use this example as an exercise to understand your company's ICP and where to find them! #Startup #Startups #ICP #Marketing #TargetMarket #TAM

20

3 Comments

Founders: do you know your message-market-fit? 👀 Episode 11 of Now We Build by Forward Pursuit is a gem of an episode if you're trying to figure out your go-to-market or customer acquisition strategies. Mark Walker, former Head of Growth at Eventbrite and now the founder of RevvedUp, walked me through how he builds killer go-to-market motions and growth strategies. In the episode we covered: 👉🏽 The importance of message-market-fit regardless of how close you are to your customer. 👉🏽 Why 'distribution as a moat' is a very short term advantage. 👉🏽 How founders can build repeatable, scalable go-to-market and growth motions with limited capital. The episode is now live and you’ll find the links in the comments below 👇🏽 Proudly supported by Carta, Google Cloud, Fuelled and Seven Legal. #founders #vc #startup #growth

35

15 Comments

A little late, even though this process started in July.... Excited to share our latest investment in Heads Together Health!! We met Steve DeVrieze in October last year, and we think they are poised for impressive growth! Read more here: https://lnkd.in/ecYcqqkn #earlystagestartup #earlystageinvesting #VCinvestment #ncstartups #nctechstartups

22

Startup founders, you don't have to do it alone! Apply now to join the Techstars Boston Accelerator and gain access to our extensive network! We are looking to select 12 high-growth startups to participate in our 13-week Techstars Boston accelerator program kicking off in September -- apply now or tag a founder below who you think might be a good fit!  https://lnkd.in/gbi3hAGi #startups #founders #entrepreneurs #boston 

14