Greg Castle

Great time on the Embracing Erosion podcast w/Devon O'Rourke! We talked about: 🚀 How to scale a company from concept to 9-figure exit 🔄 How to break away from the traditional consulting model and apply product approaches ⏩ Why it’s important to iterate quickly and often with messaging 💸📈What signals are important to pay attention to when investing in startups and much more!

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🔥 🔥 🙌 🙌 🎆 🎆 I'm *fired up* to share this. #VentureIQ by the 9point8 Collective is officially live. We've heard from investors of every size and type that it takes too long and costs too much to evaluate deal flow; this limits the scale and speed at which these capital allocators can operate. To address this problem, we've created an innovative solution which delivers high fidelity diligence information near instantaneously. From a time and cost perspective, VentureIQ immediately creates leverage to look at more deals - and creates space to focus deeply on the most meaningful opportunities. To learn more, you can reach out to me directly or visit VentureIQ.ai. I'll close with some thoughts on my team, to whom I'm so grateful. Blair Merlino, Neal Ghosh and Evan Allen don't just talk about interesting concepts, point out problems or pontificate on what could be. Instead, they identify a problem, frame and validate the solution, and do the work to bring it to reality. VentureIQ is the best example I've seen of this, to date. #VentureCapital, #FamilyOffice, #PrivateEquity #CorporateDevelopment #Startups

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What do you do when a radical new technology puts your main product right in the crosshairs of disruption? Listen to David Okuniev — co-founder of Typeform | Ask awesomely — discuss the challenges of innovation within existing structures. David shared a game-changing insight: Radical innovation is really, really difficult to do inside your own product. He emphasized the need to break free from the constraints of familiarity and embrace change from outside the box. Henrik Werdelin and I have both seen our fair share of this in our respective careers. What struck us most was how David leveraged structure to overcome the innovator’s dilemma. By creating a culture of experimentation and providing space for bold ideas, he propelled Typeform beyond incremental improvements. What other hacks have you seen or employed to help your organization overcome the innovator’s dilemma? Share your stories below! 👇 And if you want to dive deeper into our conversation, click the link in the comments to catch the full podcast episode!

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Some highlights from last month at Hof Studio ✨ Highlights:  - Completed 8 design projects in 1 month - Brought on Dymension as a new client. Dymension has raised $6.7 million in funding to build its blockchain platform that enables team to quickly launch app chains. - Offered a new web development service with dedicated frontend and backend engineers.  - Live projects (8): Subsquid, Twin, Kodiak, Vase, Dymension, David, Hodl, Mande Notable projects - Designed a blockchain explorer for Dymension - Redesigned Vase’s pitch deck, resulting in increased booked meetings and closing 50% of its target raise in one week. - Designed a dashboard for compliance product for tokenized funds - Rebranded Mande network and redesigned their new website Team growth - Added 2 new UI/UX contract designers to manage the increased workload Asks - Referrals for experienced account managers to help manage increased project load - Portfolio introductions to Web 3 seed/pre-seed startups in need of app design, web design, and branding services. - Introductions to VCs in need of design partner for their marketing initiatives. Need design help? Let's chat!

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Tether, the company behind the world's largest stablecoin USDT, announced its commitment to invest $1B through its venture capital arm next year. Tether Investments aims to back startups in alternative financial infrastructure, AI, and biotechnology domains. Over the past two years, Tether has already deployed around $2B into these areas, of which about $1B was invested in the AI segment alone. Tether generated $4.5B in profits in Q1 2024 from its USDT reserves after USDT's market cap exceeded $112B. Recent investments include data center operator Northern Data Group, a $18.75M investment into cross-border payments startup XREX Group, and a $200M funding into brain-computer interface firm Blackrock Neurotech.

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