How Lorenzo Thione Is Scaling Support For Diverse Founders With Gaingels

Lorenzo Thione, Managing Director of Gaingels

We sat down with one of the most influential people in tech, Lorenzo Thione, who shares his very inspiring journey and how that led him to be where he is today.

Lorenzo grew up in Milan, Italy and had a technical background at an early age. He completed his studies at the University of Texas at Austin, from which he holds a M.S. in Computer Engineering.

He is now the Managing Director of Gaingels, a leading LGBTQIA+/Allies investment syndicate and one of the largest and most active private investors in North America. He is also the co-founding Chairman of StartOut, Chairman of the Board at Social Edge, and previously co-founded Powerset, a natural-language search engine startup sold to Microsoft for $100 million in 2008.

Lorenzo is named one of the most influential LGBT people in tech in 2014 and 2018 and his dedication in supporting and elevating leaders of the LGBTQ+ in the venture startup is amazing.

As the Managing Producer at Sing Out, Louis! Productions, he is also a Tony-Award winner (Hadestown, The Inheritance). He produced and co-created the Broadway musical, Allegiance starring George Takei and Lea Salonga. He is currently working in a new original musical, Indigo, as well as The Elephant Whisperer.

We covered a lot of ground in this episode, including:

Topics Discussed:

• Where his passion comes from and how Lorenzo found entrepreneurship.

• Helping others to build a diverse company by providing more than just funding.

• The different companies that he had a part in building.

• His mark on Broadway.

• How your descent can make a difference in your future and your thinking.

• How the model of angel groups is evolving to syndicates and SPV’s.

• The role of a “Platform” strategy to help Gaingels portfolio companies.

• What does Lorenzo think about the future of Venture Capital.

Quote of the Episode:

“Strategic Value, what is all being brought to the table”

The Greatest Piece of Advice:

His mentor told him to, “ be obsessive, about how you can add value, to your own network and relationships”

Links & show notes from this episode:

• Lorenzo Thione on Bio

• Lorenzo Thione on LinkedIn

• Lorenzo Thione on Twitter

• Gaingels

• StartOut

• Shearshare

• Bryan Janeczko episode

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Ambition Today Is Proudly Independent & Supported By:

Finta - Finta’s end to end fundraising management platform enables you to manage your investors throughout their entire lifecycle in a single streamlined flow.

A-List: After every episode of the Ambition Today podcast we record an exclusive bonus clip, where we ask each guest to tell us the best advice they have ever received. Hear first-hand stories from over 30 entrepreneurs and investors in these exclusive bonus clips.

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Listen to Ambition Today now: 

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Thank you for listening! 

Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going! 🤗

43North's $1 Million Investment Opportunity

Being born and raised in Buffalo, NY, I have always loved my hometown city. If you are curious about why, I recommend you check out “The Incredible History of Buffalo, NY In 5 Minutes”, which I shared in the Huffington Post a few years ago.

Scott Wayman of Kangarootime, after winning 43North in 2017

In 2014, Buffalo started 43North, investing $5M per year to attract and retain high-growth companies in Buffalo, NY. Fast forward to 2017, and after meeting Scott Wayman, the founder of Kangarootime, at a Founder Institute event in Silicon Valley, I recommended the company to 43North. Kangarootime ran with it and crushed it. First, securing an initial $500k investment from 43North, and then subsequently more follow on funding. They have since grown a significant presence in Western New York and continuing to build a great company! 

Then in 2018, one of my Founder Institute New York portfolio companies, Teddy Mozart, received a large purchase order from QVC. A massive break, but they needed help financing the inventory to fill the QVC order. Carlton, the founder, told me he found Kickfurther, which secures inventory funding via their marketplace of investors. Through Kickfurther, Teddy Mozart managed to get the funds needed to fill the QVC order in less than 72 hours! I told this story while helping to deliberate the final investment decision in 2018, and I like to think it helped play a role in Kickfurther joining the 43N portfolio that year! 

Now in its seventh year, the competition offers eight new startups a chance to secure up to $1 million in funding and land a spot in 43North’s next cohort. I have joined the team to help select this year’s companies, and we are currently accepting startup applications for $500k to $1m in investment until July 19th! Investing in founders with deep domain expertise and early traction for their high-growth startup! 

If you or someone you know might be a good fit, visit 43 North to apply, or feel free to text me at +1 (646) 907-6669 if you would like to connect directly about the opportunity!

Crafting A Killer Startup Story For Your Fundraising Pitch

Co-Authored with Ryan F. Salerno, Technical Co-Founder at Equity Token.

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Earlier this year, in response to the question “What are the most common mistakes founders make when they start a company?”, Justin Kan, the Founder of Twitch & Atrium, responded with the following:

“Mistake 1: Underestimating the importance of narrative when fundraising:

I firmly believe that investors invest in (and employees join, and journalists write about) compelling stories, and your pitch deck is really just a vehicle for telling the story you want to tell. So, start first with the narrative and build the deck after you have it nailed.”

Finding Your Killer Company Narrative:

You need a killer company narrative for your startup pitch. Wether you are telling your family about your company or speaking with investors while fundraising, how you communicate your company’s narrative matters.

From a pure story perspective, how do you do that? Let’s quickly introduce two frameworks we will be using.

Framework 1: Story of Stories

With this question in mind, I was recently reading a series of new posts called The Story of Us from one of my favorite authors, Tim Urban. In it, he breaks down the specific characteristics required for a normal story to become a story virus. Those characteristics are:

• Simplicity

• Unfalsifiability

• Conviction

• Contagiousness

• Accountability

• Comprehensiveness

Framework 2: Startup Focus

Jonathan Greechan, Co-founder of the Founder Institute, has a presentation on Startup Focus. According to Jon, your startup must do the following:

To arrive at your killer company narrative, you need a startup story that is simple and unfalsifiable, while also fitting the “Solve One Problem for One Customer” framework. 

Here’s an example company narrative if Stripe were to go through this exercise. 

Securely collecting credit and debit card payments is hard for developers. With the Stripe Checkout Product, developers can embed a payment form that costs $0.30 per transaction. 

Your narrative is hiding inside the walls of your company’s brain, it’s a matter of drawing it out. Now let’s outline the steps, including all of the specific techniques used to arrive at a killer company narrative.

Step 1 - Prepare:

Over the course of a few days start brain dumping any and all talking points you currently associate with your company into your notepad.

Schedule a “Narrative Day” with your whole team. Find a conference room and book a day on the calendar with no other meetings, so you can focus on this project.

Buy the following supplies before the meeting and be sure to bring them with you:

• Post-it Super Sticky Wall Easel Pad, 20 x 23 Inches ($30 on Amazon)

• Different Color Sticky Post It Notes ($6 on Amazon)

• Color Coding Stickers ($5 on Amazon)

• Markers

As I mentioned above this process was inspired by Tim Urban’s “Story of Stories” framework. I highly recommend having your team read this post in advance of your company’s narrative revision meeting.

Step 2 - Brainstorm:

Stick up five sheets of the sticky wall easel pads around the room. Going left to right label each of them as follows:

1. Original Company Vision

2. Current Narratives

3. Goals For New The Narrative

4. New Potential Narratives

5. Target Customers

Hand out the sticky post-it notes to your team. If you want, you can give each person their own color so you can later easily see who contributed what ideas. 

Start with the first board “Original Vision” by having each person on your team write down a sentence (small enough to fit on a sticky note) that describes your company’s original vision. Originally, when your company was an idea over beers, what was the initial pie in the sky dream for the vision? 

Each person should write as many as they can think of in a few minutes. After time is up, everyone puts up their stickies on the wall and someone reads them out loud.

Step 3 - Vote & Sort:

Next, use the dot sorting technique. Give each person on the team a bunch of the green and red dot shaped stickers. It is now time to upvote and downvote the Original Vision board to determine which company narratives are resonating with your audience / customers.

Each person should place a green sticker on the ideas they want to upvote as resonating with your audience / customers.

Each person should place a red sticker on the ideas they want to downvote as resonating with your audience / customers.

Now rearrange the post it notes so the ideas with the most upvotes are on top, and the idea’s with the most downvotes are on the bottom!

You now have a clear and glanceable look at what is working and what is not with regard to your original vision for the company.

Step 4 - Repeat For Each Section:

Repeat this process for the remaining boards. Letting every team member contribute ideas and then helping to vote them up/down.

• Current Company Narratives

  • What does the website say right now? If you asked someone else to describe your company back to you, what would they say? Write down an honest depiction of the current narrative. 

• Goals For New The Narrative

  • What do you want to achieve, given this new narrative? Hiring more employees? Signing up more customers? Getting more revenue? Getting more funding? A better brand? Whatever it is, write out all the goals. 

• New Potential Narratives

  • Brainstorm as many new potential narratives as you can think of. At this point there are still no wrong answers, so don’t filter yourself. Let the ideas flow and allow the dot voting take care of bringing the strong ideas to the top.

• Target Customers

  • Who are going to be your initial target customers? Get as specific as possible. E.g. Startup founders running companies from Seed to Series A. 

With the completion of each board, you will see a pattern start to emerge. Granting you a more focused and evolving clarity into how you need to structure your communications going forward.

Step 5 - Forcing Focus:

Remember those frameworks we introduced above. We are now going to apply them as filters to the narratives we just defined.

Sharing two more slides from Founder Institute Co-founder Jonathan Greechan’s presentation around focus for startups:

Put another sheet of the sticky wall easel pad on the wall and add the following to it, with room to write in answers under each:

• One Problem

• One Customer

• One Product

• One Killer Feature

• One Revenue Stream

This template may seem obvious at first but as any founder can attest; the large magnitude of possible product features you can build, conflicting feedback, and more can sometimes feel burdensome. No body wants a bloated startup pitch. This structure is going to help you focus in on your specific startup’s niche.

Step 6 - The Story of Stories:

In Step 5 you defined your Focus, and now in Step 6, make sure your focus fits all of the criteria of being a killer company narrative.

This is where we come back to the Story of Stories. In the post Tim defines few necessary characteristics of a viable story virus:

• Simplicity. The story has to be easily teachable and easily understandable.

• Unfalsifiability. The story can’t be easy to disprove.

• Conviction. For a story to take hold, its hosts can’t be wondering or hypothesizing or vaguely believing—the story needs to be specific and to posit itself as the absolute truth.

• Contagiousness. Next, the story needs to spread. To be spreadable, a story needs to be contagious—something people feel deeply compelled to share and that applies equally to many people.

The story, once believed, needs to be able to drive the behavior of its host. So it should include:

• Incentives. Promises of treats for behaving the right way, promises of electroshocks for behaving the wrong way.

• Accountability. The claim that your behavior will be known by the arbiter of the incentives—even, in some cases, where no one is around to see it.

• Comprehensiveness. The story can dictate what’s true and false, virtuous and immoral, valuable and worthless, important and irrelevant, covering the full spectrum of human belief.

Some great examples of strong story virus include Santa Claus and Catholicism. It is important you have an understanding around these characteristics as we are going to apply them as filters in the next step.

I recommend writing these characteristics down on another sticky wall easel pad so everyone in the room can clearly see the criteria that needs to be met.

Step 7 - Fill In The Blanks:

So we know have all of the following information at our disposal:

• Original Company Vision

  • A understanding of what our company set out to do in the first place.

• Current Narratives

  • What is currently working and not working.

• Goals For New The Narrative

  • How we want to improve the company’s narrative pitch.

• New Potential Narratives

  • The best candidates for our startups’ new story.

• Target Customers

  • Defined segment of target customers.

• Knowledge around what makes a good story in the first place

• A solid template to force focus.

The next step is to fill in the blanks on the Problem, Customer , Product, Killer Feature, Revenue Stream template board.

The key here is to keep your answers for each to only a few carefully chosen words and to ONLY fill in the blanks with words that meet all of the requirements of the story virus.

String each of the answers together to form one sentence! Just like that Stripe example above.

Securely collecting credit and debit card payments is hard (PROBLEM) for developers (CUSTOMER). With the Stripe Checkout Product (PRODUCT), developers can embed a payment form (KILLER FEATURE) that costs $0.30 per transaction (REVENUE MODEL). 

You now have your company’s new narrative!

Step 8 - Go Spread The Gospel

Start pitching your new startup story and see if it is resonating better than before. This process can help immensely when your company is fundraising. If you are like any of the companies I have seen use this process so far, then you should immediately start to see the benefits from this one day team exercise. Remember:

“Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Other Founder Guides you might find helpful:

• How To Send Monthly Updates To Investors

• How To Pay Delaware Corporation Taxes

• How To File 83(b) Election With The IRS

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More on Tim Urban: 

You may know Tim Urban from his famous TED Talk “Inside the mind of a master procrastinator”. On his website, Wait But Why, his articles tend to break down complex topics such as Artificial Intelligence, Elon Musk’s Neuralink, Religion, E-mail, Marriage, and so much more, to very simple explanations. So when Tim didn’t publish anything new for 3 years, many readers wondered what he was possibly working on. The answer was a new series of posts titled “The Story of Us”. If you have read and loved Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, then I recommend you check out The Story of Us: Full Series!

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How To File 83(b) Election With The IRS

In the last five years I have helped almost 150 founders through the incorporation process. Time and time again I keep seeing one step of that process, create mass confusion for founders and early employees. Filing the 83(b) Election with the IRS within 30 days of receiving a stock grant or stock options.

I will keep it short on why you might want to file a 83(b) Election with the IRS and focus more on how to file it, since that is likely why you are reading this. This article from Cooley Law does a pretty good job explaining in much greater detail why making an 83(b) Election with the IRS can be beneficial, as well as this explanation from Wealthfront.

In short, an 83(b) election means you will be taxed on the value of your stock at the time of the grant, rather than as it vests. For founders & early employee’s of new company’s, whose stock is usually priced at $0.0001 per share at incorporation, it can make a lot of logical sense to pay upfront tax while the price of the company is still very low. Now on to the how to file your 83(b) election instructions.

IMPORTANT 83(b) Election Deadline: You must file your 83(b) Election with the IRS within 30 days of receiving your stock grant or stock options! The filing is officially deemed to have been made on the date the 83(b) is mailed from the post office; i.e. the postmark date.

If your stock is not subject to vesting, then you can ignore this process and move on with your day. 83(b) Elections are not required for those without a vesting schedule.

Steps To File Your 83(b) Election

1. Start with gathering the required 83(b) form documents:

   • If your lawyer has provided you with 83(b) election forms you may use those. If not, then print four copies of page 9 from the 83(b) Election IRS form here.

   • You also need to include a cover letter to the IRS, a template of which can be found here: IRS Cover Letter Template.

   • Complete and review all four copies of the 83(b) election form, review, date, manually sign and insert the taxpayer identification number for the taxpayer (and spouse, if applicable).

2. Look up where to send the completed forms by finding your state on the "Where to File Paper Tax Returns With or Without a Payment” page of the IRS website.

3. Enclose the following in an envelope to be mailed:

   • Two copies of your completed 83(b) election.

   • Completed cover letter.

   • A return self addressed envelope with stamps. The IRS will keep the first copy of your election and stamp the second copy. The self addressed envelope will be used to mail back to you the second stamped copy of your election, so you can keep it on file in your records.

4. Mail the enclosed envelope with 2 completed copies of your 83(b) election & cover letter to the IRS via USPS certified mail and request a return receipt.

5. Send another completed 83(b) election to your company.

6. Keep another completed 83(b) election for your personal records.

Thats it! Be on the lookout in the mail to receive that second stamped copy back from the IRS. And as always, be sure to keep your records someplace safe like a fireproof lock box.

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Other Founder Guides you might find helpful:

• How To Send Monthly Updates To Investors
  

• How To Pay Delaware Corporation Taxes

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Disclaimer: I offer this post only as helpful guidance as I am not a lawyer or certified accountant. You should still research on your own and consult your accountant or lawyer if you are uncertain of the process.

If You Could Automate One Thing In Your Business?

Building a company is hard, and honestly that can be a great thing! It is the very reason why you will be able to build something that numerous other people will simply give up on out of difficulty. That being said, the amount of tools and resources available to startup teams has grown dramatically over the past decade. Much of what used to be hard manual work, can now be automated.

So I started to wonder if it was possible to take a pulse of where the biggest difficulties still exist for startups in 2019 and came up with this little experiment I would love for you to participate in.

I want to know your answer to one question:

If you could wave a magic wand and automate one thing in your business, what would it be?

It’s up to you if you want to answer anonymously or not. And completing this questionnaire should take no longer than one minute. If you are interested in the results, simply let me know when asked below and I will be sure to share them with you!

powered by Typeform

Terry Young's Sparks & Honey Is Mapping Culture To Forecast The Future

Terry Young, CEO of Sparks & Honey

From a small town in Western Kentucky to becoming an entrepreneur on Madison Ave, Terry Young joins us on this episode of Ambition Today. Terry is a successful advertising entrepreneur and the CEO of Sparks & Honey, a company identifying and mapping emerging cultural waves through the use of machine learning systems, algorithms, and human insight.

After earning his Master’s Degree in advertising, Terry started working in the digital advertising industry in 1995, when digital marketing was just getting started. A short two years later, he was running the company. Terry got the opportunity to live in China and help start-up initiatives while working for McKinsey. He also lived in Kazakhstan while in the Peace Corp where he helped small business shops with their financing and starting their businesses. Terry brings a great perspective on culture and new trends. On this episode, we also discuss:

• Growing up in a small town in Kentucky

• The impact of joining the Peace Corp

• Rebuilding the traditional advertising model

• The intersection of being gay and an entrepreneur.

• How Sparks & Honey maps culture

• Why predicting the future matters

• Defining micro signals and macro trends

• What is happening in the space industry

Ambition Today Question of the Day™ :
“How do you best recommend that people in organizations ride the waves in a trend?”

The Single Greatest Piece of Advice Terry Has Ever Learned:
Join the Ambition Today A-list to listen now!

Quote Of The Episode:
“I say to every person who was here … that has left, you are also leaving your shape and your mold on the company, because it is a reflection on them too.”

Links from this episode:

• Sparks & Honey

• Sparks & Honey Facebook

• Terry Young on Twitter

• Now, Next App

• Peace Corps

• WeWork

• Founder Institute

Listen to this episode now: 

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Join the shows A-list backchannel for exclusive access to additional Ambition Today content, deeper guest insights, a community of fellow fans, and much more. Plus, Learn the single greatest piece of advice this guest has ever learned! 

Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…

You can find the full transcript of this episode here. 

Be sure to listen and subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform.

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Ambition Today Episode Sponsors:

Founder Institute

WeWork

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Anthony Pompliano Is Going Full Tilt To Invest In World-Class Blockchain And Crypto Asset Ventures

Anthony Pompliano, Managing Partner at Full Tilt Capital

Anthony Pompliano is the Managing Partner at Full Tilt Capital, an early stage venture capital firm. Full Tilt Capital focuses exclusively on investing in world-class companies in the blockchain and crypto asset space. 

"Pomp" was raised in Raleigh, NC, and is one of the first south easterners that we have had on the Ambition Today podcast. He is the oldest brother of five and during his junior year of college, he was deployed to Iraq. During his deployment, he gained a unique perspective on life. His world traveling allowed him to learn about new cultures all around the world in order study human behavior. Once he returned from duty, he jumped into the world of Silicon Valley. He built two small technology businesses and worked for large tech companies like Facebook and Snapchat before starting Full Tilt Capital. Anthony brings us his knowledge, unique insight, and more on this episode of Ambition Today: 

• Life lessons from being deployed to Iraq
• Building and selling his first technology business
• What it was like working for Facebook
• Full Tilt Capital's investment thesis
• How important a founders self-honesty is 
• Why GPU will beat CPU's in the future
• The story of Standard American Mining
• Why Full Tilt is going all in on blockchain companies and crypto assets
• How to build a successful Angel List Syndicate

Ambition Today Question of the Day™ :
"How do you think about and manage your personal brand, and also find time to get your day to day operations work done and build Full Tilt?

The Single Greatest Piece of Advice Anthony Has Ever Learned:
Join the Ambition Today A-list to listen now!

Quote Of The Episode:
"You don't have to be honest with me. I want you to be, but you don't have to be. You have to be honest with yourself." 

Links from this episode:

• Full Tilt Capital
• Anthony’s Twitter
• Syndicate on Angellist
• Audible
• WeWork
• Founder Institute

Listen to this episode now: 

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Join the shows A-list backchannel for exclusive access to additional Ambition Today content, deeper guest insights, a community of fellow fans, and much more. Plus, Learn the single greatest piece of advice this guest has ever learned! 

Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…

You can find the full transcript of this episode here. 

Be sure to listen and subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform.

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Ambition Today Episode Sponsors:

Founder Institute

WeWork

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EO Global Chairman Brian Brault On Investing In Community And Yourself

Brian Brault, Chairman of the Board at Entrepreneurs' Organization

Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Brian Brault; a successful entrepreneur that has been recognized twice in his career by the Inc. 500 for building one of the fastest growing companies in America. Currently Brian is the Global Chairman of the Board at Entrepreneurs' Organization.

He is also the founder of Advanced Facility Services and Pure Rooms which was deemed one of the best companies to work for in western New York and was awarded best entrepreneurial company in western New York.

A graduate of the University of Buffalo’s School of Business, Brian is very active on community boards. Being the Global Chairman for Entrepreneurs’ Organization Brian helps grow their network of 12,000 entrepreneurial members in 54 countries. He believes in surrounding yourself with strong people because your success is a product of the five people that you spend the most time with. Today Brian talks about:

• What got him excited at a very young age to be an entrepreneur

• How he build Advanced Facility Services & Pure Rooms

• Why he supports Entrepreneur’s Organization globally

• Do you need to be in a major market like NY to be successful?

• His speech at the United Nations

• The importance of community for founders

• His 10/10/10 morning routine

Ambition Today Question of the Day™:
"What routines have you built in your life that contribute most to your success?"

The Single Greatest Piece of Advice Brian Has Ever Learned:
Join the Ambition Today A-list to listen now!

Quote Of The Episode:
“Everyone has a little bit of entrepreneurial spirit inside them it's just your tolerance for risk and how that is nurtured in your life will really determine how much you will pursue and build on that entrepreneurial spirit.”

Links from this episode:

• Brian Brault LinkedIn

• Brian Brault Facebook

• Entrepreneurs' Organization

• EO + UN

• Pure Rooms

• These Precious Hands - Book

• WeWork

• Founder Institute

Listen to this episode now: 

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Join the shows A-list backchannel for exclusive access to additional Ambition Today content, deeper guest insights, a community of fellow fans, and much more. Plus, Learn the single greatest piece of advice this guest has ever learned! 

Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…

You can find the full transcript of this episode here. 

Be sure to listen and subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform.

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Ambition Today Episode Sponsors:

Founder Institute

WeWork

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How Peter Shankman Thinks "Faster Than Normal" And Built Help A Reporter Out (HARO)

Peter Shankman 

On this episode of Ambition Today we explore Peter Shankman’s journey. Peter is the perfect example of what happens when you combine creativity with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Peter shows us how ADHD can be a gift and a strong advantage in business. He is not only an entrepreneur, but an author and a notable public speaker. Many know him for founding Help A Reporter Out, (HARO). He is also the founder of ShankMinds Business Masterminds and he is the Host of the Faster Than Normal Podcast.

Peter was born and raised in Manhattan, and was a New York City public school kid. After graduating from Boston University and going to Graduate school in Santa Barbara, CA, he started his professional career launching AOL Digital Newsroom. Peter is most well known for founding Help A Reporter Out, also known as HARO, which is the worlds largest public group of journalistic sources. In this episode, we talk about how Peter’s ADHD had a great impact on his many successes:

• Growing up in New York City
• Launching AOL Digital Newsroom
• The importance of having incredible mentors like Steve Case 
• What is happening to the media industry today
• How Peter built Help A Reporter Out, (HARO)
• Using ADHD as an advantage
• How to create life rules to optimize your time
• Importance of self-awareness 
• Value of asking everyone "How Can I Help" 

Ambition Today Question of the Day™:
"How do you think about attention management and how do you best optimize your life for it?"
 

The Single Greatest Piece of Advice Peter Has Ever Learned:
Join the Ambition Today A-list to listen now!
 

Quote Of The Episode:
"You have to put out 10 times the amount of help into the universe that you ask for."
 

Links from this episode:

• Faster Than Normal Book - Out Now!
• Faster Than Normal Podcast
• FasterThanNormal.com
• Help A Reporter Out, (HARO)
• Shankman.com
• Peter Shankman on Twitter
• Peter Shankman on Facebook
• WeWork
• Founder Institute

Listen to this episode now: 

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Join the shows A-list backchannel for exclusive access to additional Ambition Today content, deeper guest insights, a community of fellow fans, and much more. Plus, Learn the single greatest piece of advice this guest has ever learned! 

Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…

You can find the full transcript of this episode here. 

Be sure to listen and subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform.

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Ambition Today Episode Sponsors:

Founder Institute

WeWork

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Why Sean Ellis, Co-Author of Hacking Growth, Optimizes For Reputation And Learning

Sean Ellis

In 2010 Sean Ellis coined the term Growth Hacking and now he joins us on Ambition Today. Sean is the Co-author of Hacking Growth with Morgan Brown and currently the CEO of Growth Hackers.

Sean has had quite an impressive career both as a marketer and as an entrepreneur. He was the first marketer at Dropbox, Lookout and Xobni and he has taken companies LogMeIn and Uproar from launch to IPO. Sean is also known for popularizing the term product/market fit. We cover some of Sean's best practices for growing your company, as well as how he thinks of Growth Hacking as it continues to grow into the future. The story of Sean's entrepreneurial journey unlocks numerous insights along the way, including: 

• What is "Growth Hacking"
• The role of family entrepreneurship on Sean
• The value of spending time abroad
• Being the first marketer at Dropbox, Lookout, & Eventbrite
• How pushing through the fear of failure has lead to success  
• Making the leap from employee to entrepreneur
• Optimizing for reputation and learning over money
• How business teams need to be thinking about Growth
• The value of having a chip on your shoulder

Ambition Today Question of the Day™:
"What excites you? What motivates you to keep going?"            

The Single Greatest Piece of Advice Sean Has Ever Learned:
Join the Ambition Today A-list to listen now!

Quote Of The Episode:
"For me, the two big motivating factors were reputation and learning. I wanted to build a reputation because that would open the door to the best learning opportunities." 

Links from this episode:

• Growth Hackers 
• Hacking Growth Book
• Sean on Twitter
• Founder Institute
• WeWork

Listen to this episode now: 

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Join the shows A-list backchannel for exclusive access to additional Ambition Today content, deeper guest insights, a community of fellow fans, and much more. Plus, Learn the single greatest piece of advice this guest has ever learned! 

Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…

You can find the full transcript of this episode here. 

Be sure to listen and subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform.

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Ambition Today Episode Sponsors:

Founder Institute

WeWork

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How Adeo Ressi Empowered 2,700+ People To Become Startup Founders

Adeo Ressi

Over the summer we sat down with Adeo Ressi, the CEO of the Founder Institute, a startup accelerator program that operates in nearly 200 cities worldwide. Throughout his time as a founder, Adeo has pioneered innovations in the protection of founder rights, the raising of early-stage capital and the scaling of new businesses.

Previous to the Founder Institute, Adeo has helped to create nearly $2 billion in shareholder value by founding or running nine businesses, including TheFunded, Game Trust, Xceed and Total New York. Adeo previously served on the Board of the X Prize Foundation to pursue his interests in space exploration and techniques to motivate human achievement. Throughout this episode it is clear that Adeo is passionate about mentoring Founders, space exploration, inspiring people to achieve their greatness, and more which includes: 

• The personality traits of the best founders

• How The Funded improved transparency in the VC industry

• The role fluid intelligence plays in entrepreneurs

• How Adeo helped 2,700 plus founders grow through the Founder Institute

• Managing your investors and protecting your equity

• How to build startup ecosystems

• Why maintaining focus and avoiding distractions is mission critical

• How do you give meaning to your life's work

Ambition Today Question of the Day™:
"What is the end game? Where do you see Founder Institute and all your life’s work going?"            

Quote Of The Episode:
"There are a lot of shiny things in the sand, that look very appealing to you and may be a cause for you to think about pivoting or adjusting the business model. I can tell you that most of the shiny things in the sand are not diamonds, they are knives waiting to kill you. You have to be very, very, very diligent to remain focused on your core mission" 
 

Links from this episode:

• Adeo Ressi on Twitter

• Adeo Ressi on Linkedin

• Founder Institute

• Founder DNA

• AdeoRessi.com

• The Funded

• Toptal

Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…

You can find the full transcript of this episode here. 

Be sure to listen and subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform.

Listen to this episode now: 

Join the shows A-list backchannel for exclusive access to additional Ambition Today content, deeper guest insights, a community of fellow fans, and much more. Plus, learn the single greatest piece of advice this guest has ever learned!  

Ambition Today Episode Sponsors:

Founder Institute New York

Toptal

From Israel to Silicon Valley, Niv Dror's Journey To Conquer Social Media

Niv Dror, Shrug Capital

Season Two of Ambition Today is happy to welcome Niv Dror, head of social media for Product Hunt. Niv boasts an impressive resume in both startups and finance, stemming from his education at UC Santa Barbara.  After moving to Silicon Valley at a very young age, Niv had surprisingly little involvement in the tech world. It surrounded him entirely and thus he never noticed it, as water to a fish.  However, after auditing a few hedge funds and VC funds as a CPA, he knew where his skills truly belonged.

Niv Dror’s taste of the tech community flourished very quickly, landing non-engineering jobs at DataFox, Meerkat, and Product Hunt. He aspired to add value without asking anything in return, and was rewarded with the experience and skills to climb the ranks at multiple organizations, currently aiding the curation of the world's most cutting-edge technology on Product Hunt. Kevin and Niv explore what's behind this drive, the man he gives credit to involuntarily kickstarting his success, and much more:

• Growing up in Israel and moving to the U.S. at a young age.

• Pursuing a finance degree and applying it to the startup world.

• Getting exposure to the tech industry by auditing a successful VC.

• Building an engaging community around a product.

• What changes we can see in social in 2017.

• The war of pronunciation for “gif”.

• We why all love gifs and how Twitter is the perfect platform.

Ambition Today Question of the Day™:
"Should people optimize for learning or for earning?"

Quote Of The Episode:
"Community is everything. Without the community, Product Hunt wouldn't work."

Links from this episode:

• Niv Dror Twitter

• Product Hunt

• Niv's Tattoo in TIME Magazine

• Shrug Capital

• Kevin's Product Hunt Live Chat

• Founder Institute New York

• Audible

• Toptal

Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…

Be sure to listen and subscribe to Ambition Today in the iTunes Store for iOS, on Google Play Music or Stitcher for Android. 

Listen to this episode now: 

Ambition Today Episode Sponsors:

Toptal

Audible

Founder Institute New York

Startup News Essentials

At the start of every new cohort of Founder Institute New York I like to share some of my favorite news sources with the new founders. For many founders starting out, consuming the right news from the right sources can really help to plug you into the global startup and tech community.

If the old saying, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” is true, then one of the incredible advantages of the internet is the fact that you can customize whose opinions and knowledge you decide to spend the most time with.

The below list could easily be hundreds of links, but for the sake of simplicity I am going to focus on the core recommendations of what I read everyday. I am also going to focus mostly on news sources. I might do another post on the topic of specific blogs and which individuals to follow in the future. Feel free to add any more news sources that you love in the comments below and up vote the best ones! 

For Everyone: 

Nuzzel - This is my favorite news source! Nuzzel's algorithm finds trending articles from your personal network. And even better, they make it really easy to see the trending articles in influencer's networks as well.

Techmeme - If you want to know what the whole industry is talking about on any given day, then this is your one stop! The essential tech news of the moment curated by a mix of editors and an excellent algorithm. 

Launch Ticker -  Efficient tech news broken down to the most important three sentence summary of the original article. Really good at extracting the most important, essential, and relevant information from news to save you time. 

Hacker News - Social news website focusing on computer science, tech and entrepreneurship. 

Axios Pro Rata - Dan Primack's daily newsletter breaks news about deals and dealmakers from Wall Street to Sand Hill Road.

Fortune Term Sheet - Fortune's daily newsletter about venture capital deals and dealmakers.

Product Hunt - Because it is one of the most fun sites on the internet! And because Product Hunt is a curation of the best new products, every day. You will almost always leave the site with something new and exciting to check out. 

Angel List - It is quickly becoming the case that if you want to "exist" in the startup world then you need to be active on AngelList. You can find trending companies, make a hire, invest in a syndicate, connect with other founders, and more. They recently acquired Product Hunt too! 

 

For New Yorkers: 

Digital NYC Voices -  Tips and thoughts from the leaders in NYC business and government. 

AVC - The only blog on this list because Fred Wilson's insightful posts have become daily reading. The comments from the community are often just as good as the original content. 

NYC Innovation Collective - A semi-monthly newsletter that is the byproduct of over 70 NYC startup accelerators, incubators, innovation programs coming together to share resources and news! 

Gary's Guide - Weekly collection of all the startup and tech events happening in New York. Gary does an excellent job curating the information each week, and oh by the way he wears a red tie you can advertise on IRL! 

Charlie O'Donnell's Weekly Newsletter - A curated list of NYC innovation community events each Monday morning.

Gothamist - Never miss a NYC meme again. From breaking news on the cronut, to mayoral soda tax scandals, to changes in the subway system, to Banksy's central park popup stand, the Gothamist constantly has you covered! 

How Matt Rodak Plans To Fund Every House Flip In America with Fund That Flip

Matt Rodak

Any amount of research into the seemingly eternal-growing market of real estate investment will almost surely make one familiar with Matt Rodak. The 2007 John Carroll grad is the founder and CEO of Fund That Flip, a company which allows anyone to apply for fast and affordable funding in the rehabilitative real estate investment business. The New York based startup had already raised $2 million by April 2016, shortly after graduating from Manhattan's Entrepreneur Roundtable Accelerator in the summer of 2015 and Founder Institute New York prior to that. Fund That Flip finds its niche by bridging the gap between accredited investors and vetted real estate rehab projects in the U.S.

On this episode of Ambition Today, Matt Rodak discusses his seemingly inevitable entrepreneurial roots (despite his "best efforts") as the son of a business owner. He explains how his relationship with his father, and him owning his own company before and during college, led to Matt's on-again, off-again kinship with business ownership. Today, Matt capitalizes on the experiences of his youth by taking action to solve the problems he notices in his industry, such as streamlining the loan application process for prospective "flippers".  We hear about his journey to where he is, his advice on how to get there, and much more:

• Maturing in an entrepreneurial-spirited family.

• Paying for college by advancing a teenage lawn-mowing gig to a profitable business that he was able to sell during his sophomore year at JCU.

• Being introduced to the real estate market through his early exposure to landscaping.

• What to study in college vs. what to leave to education via real-world experience.

• Bringing an entrepreneurial spirit to a non-entrepreneurial position at a large business.

• Using lessons from upper management to implement starting a business.

• Creating a business to streamline and eliminate the fallacies of market norms.

• Employing the JOBS Act to capitalize on a brand-new industry.

• Ownership vs. Accountability in life.

Ambition Today Question of the Day™:
"How do you align the ambitions of your team with the ambitions of the company?"

Links from this episode:

• Matt Rodak on Twitter

• Matt Rodak on LinkedIn

• Fund That Flip

• Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator

• Founder Institute New York

• Audible

• Toptal

Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…

Be sure to listen and subscribe to Ambition Today in the iTunes Store for iOS, on Google Play Music or Stitcher for Android. 

Listen to this episode now: 

Ambition Today Episode Sponsors:

Toptal

Audible.com

Founder Institute New York

The Spectacle Of Snapchat

Snapchat has come a long way to become the spectacle it is today. As the oldest brother of four I still remember when Snapchat was known exclusively by my youngest brother who was still in high school at the time. 

Snapchat in Times Square.

When Facebook offered Snapchat $3 Billion to be acquired founder and CEO Evan Spiegel surprisingly declined the offer. Overnight the company was a household name.

From there the growth continued. I watched from New York as they secured offices in the old New York Times building, one floor below where I was working at the time. A few months later most of the Times Square billboards were taken over by iconic white ghosts on yellow backdrops.

Around this time I started using Snapchat on a daily basis and so did a lot more people. Brands started to take notice. Snapchat started selling ads for more money then YouTube was charging for its famous homepage banner ad.

The company kept iterating on its mobile first platform without adding unnecessary distractive features. Like all great companies they made complex things feel simple. Adding augmented reality as face filters, gamification through badges, publicly accessible geotagging called geo-filters, QR codes rebranded as snapcodes and more. 

After fundraising millions and rebranding as Snap Inc they are now doubling down on their new mission to be a camera company. Their first hardware product, Spectacles, is slowly being released around the country by a surprisingly cool popup vending machine called "Snapbot". One of which just showed up in New York City! 

The line for @Snapchat @Spectacles in NYC is 3 hours long & wraps around the block along Central Park 👀 😎 pic.twitter.com/chUfQpqdMc

— Kevin Siskar (@TheSiskar) November 21, 2016

For me Snapchat has replaced Facebook as the way I stay in touch with friends and family. If you don't currently have some Snapchat streaks with your friends and family or know what they are I suggest you start some today. They are fun and effective for making sure you communicate with people each day. 

And recently the company has filed for an IPO. I have to say Snapchat, or Snap Inc. as it is now called, has become a company I am very fond of. They have come a long way from "that app where your photos delete themselves after 10 seconds". Snapchat has stayed true to the mission of making a great product that helps people connect. I am excited to see the company IPO and watch what they do next.

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Epilogue: If you want to check out my Snapchat adventures around New York City and the rest of the world you can add me by clicking here!

Lessons Howard Love Learned While Sitting On Both Sides Of The Table

HOWARD LOVE

Over the last 30 years Howard Love has founded 15 companies and invested in over 50 early stage startups. His new book "The Startup J Curve" organizes his experience into the 6 phases startups go through as they grow. Howard also is the Founder & CEO of LoveToKnow, a digital publishing firm with over 30 million monthly visitors.

With coal magnates and aviators as his ancestors, entrepreneurship has been in Howard's bloodline for generations. In this episode, Kevin speaks to Howard about what he has learned from sitting on both sides of the table, both as a founder and an investor. We also discuss the 6 phases all startups go through according to Howard's new book The Startup J Curve. We also hear about the value of getting a formal education versus learning directly from the real world and much more:

• Growing up in a family that encourages and breeds entrepreneurial spirit.

• Dropping out of college to get real world experience.

• Being resourceful in the startup space.

• The grit it takes to get your company off the ground.

• The knowledge and insight gained from writing a book.

• Advancing the dialogue of startup culture through understanding of the J-curve.

• The phases of a company: create, release, morph, model, scale, and harvest.

Ambition Today Question of the Day™:

"When you think about the younger version of yourself, how do you reconcile where you are now, and where you thought you would be?"

Links from this episode:

• Howard Love on Twitter

• Howard Love on Facebook

• HowardLove.com

• The Startup J Curve

• Founder Institute New York

• Audible

• Toptal

Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…

Be sure to listen and subscribe to Ambition Today in the iTunes Store for iOS, on Google Play Music or Stitcher for Android. 

Listen to this episode now: 

Ambition Today Episode Sponsors:

Toptal

Audible.com

Founder Institute New York

Pioneering The Social Media Frontier With Jonathan Abrams, Founder & CEO of Nuzzel

Jonathan Abrams

The godfather of social media, Jonathan Abrams, joins us on this episode of Ambition Today. He is now the founder & CEO of Nuzzel, a new platform to discover the top news from your friends and influencers. Letting users cut through the muddle of content on social media to emphasize only their most relevant content. Previously, Jonathan has founded several other companies; Socializr, HotLinks, Founder's Den and most notably Friendster. He is also a top-rated mentor at The Founder Institute and has been extensively involved in the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial community for over ten years.

After growing up in Canada and working for Nortel he became an employee at Netscape during it's prime. Abrams went on to found Friendster in 2002 before the wider adoption of, at the time newcomers; MySpace (2003), Hi5 (2003), Facebook (2004) and other social networking sites. Friendster was one of the first of these sites to attain over 1 million members. In 2012, Abrams recognized a fallacy in the market of social news readers, when the programs of the time weren’t what he was looking for: fast, easy-to-use, and social. Today Jonathan talks about his solution to this problem with his new company Nuzzel, his appearance on Chelsea on Netflix, and much more:

• Navigating the seemingly minuscule Canadian computer science marketplace.

• Being a first-time entrepreneur during the dot-com boom and bust.

• How Friendster competed with Facebook in the developing market of social media.

• Using social curation to launch Nuzzel.

• Trying to reach a wide audience with relevant information.

• The future of Nuzzel.

• Why e-mail remains king in the world of social media.

• Surviving in Silicon Valley by not getting ahead of yourself.

• The future of the social landscape.

Ambition Today Question of the Day™:

"What does Ambition mean to you and how do you satisfy your personal ambition each day?"

Links from this episode:

• Nuzzel

• Jabrams.com

• Jonathan Abrams on Twitter

• Jonathan Abrams on Nuzzel

• Kevin Siskar on Nuzzel

• Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure

• Jonathan Abrams at TEDx

• Founder Institute New York

• Audible

• Toptal

Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…

Be sure to listen and subscribe to Ambition Today in the iTunes Store for iOS, on Google Play Music or Stitcher for Android. 

Listen to this episode now: 

Ambition Today Episode Sponsors:

Toptal

Audible.com

Founder Institute New York

Paul Polizzotto Transforms Advertising Into Real World Positive Social Change With CBS EcoMedia

Paul Polizzotto (Eric J. Smith / CBS EcoMedia)

From the CBS EcoMedia office’s in New York City, Serial Social Entrepreneur Paul Polizzotto, who is one of the most passionate and dedicated entrepreneurs I know, joins us for episode 19. Paul is the founder and CEO of CBS EcoMedia, which harnesses the power of advertising and transforms it into a powerful engine for positive social change. 

Paul’s personal philosophy and actions around social entrepreneurship over his lifetime have created an incredible story thus far. His journey started in California when he was younger and used to surf the then polluted waters of Santa Monica Bay. Paul noticed that the existing companies in the contract cleaning industry were improperly discharging contaminated water into the storm drains, which then drained into the bay that his friends and him surfed in. His first company Property Prep helped to improve those conditions through a solution that properly disposed of the contaminated water. He now works to improve the world through his most recent company CBS EcoMedia, which was acquired by CBS and funds the most effective non profit companies that are taking on the most urgent social issues of our time. In this episode we also discuss:

• Seeing opportunity around you in the world everyday.

• How surfing and risk taking has influenced Paul as an entrepreneur.

• What happens at the intersection of art and engineering.

• Difference between working hard FOR an idea and working hard ON an idea.

• How to be receptive to the right ideas in your life.

• Paul’s 4 criteria for knowing if an idea is worthwhile to pursue.

• How Paul created the national Adopt-A-Waterway Program in the United States.

• Using existing business models to transform other industries.

• The partnership with CBS that led to EcoMedia being acquired.

• If you get exactly what you want, will you have the courage to follow through with it to meet your goals.

Ambition Today Question of the Day™:

How should a person take an idea they have and navigate it into reality?

Links from this episode:

• CBS EcoMedia

• Paul Polizzotto on Twitter

• Viewers to Volunteers

• CBS

Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…

Be sure to listen and subscribe to Ambition Today in the iTunes Store for iOS, on Google Play Music or Stitcher for Android. 

Listen to this episode now: 

Ambition Today Episode Sponsors:

Toptal

Audible.com

Founder Institute New York

10 Thousand Users In The First Month

This post has been co-authored with the Founder Institute.  I wanted to share it with you here, as there are some great insights and powerful tools you can start using right away. 

Launching your first product is an exciting and stressful time for every startup, as the initial success of a company’s offering often determines how well the product will do in the long run. And with the large number of overnight success stories out there, the pressure to release a hot product right out of the gate is higher than ever.

Luckily, if you’re getting ready to launch your product and want to learn how to get the most from your release, this guide can help you get started as it is filled with insights from someone who managed to attract over ten thousand users in just four weeks of launching their product - WITHOUT a marketing plan or budget. That someone is Manoj Khani, a Graduate of the Los Angeles Founder Institute and the founder of the photo management app PhotoPanda.

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Like most first time entrepreneurs, when we first started building PhotoPanda, I only had a rough idea of how we were going to get in front of users, but not a tested Go To Market plan. We were busy building the product with a small team that consisted of a Designer, Developer, and a Product Manager, but not a marketer. Also, our assumptions about who our best users were, haven’t been validated in any statically significant environments. Yet, despite a lack of early planning and our decision to not invest in paid acquisition until we found out user lifetime value data; we were able to acquire over 10,000 passionate users within the first 4 weeks of launch.

So how did we grow 100x from our first one hundred beta testers while only spending <$100 and what did we learn?

1. Promote Your Company on Product Hunt

We asked one of our mentors to submit us to Product Hunt. Product Hunt is great for spreading the word among early adopters, especially if you have a consumer product. Its users will not only try your product, but also give you valuable feedback. Various tech journalists also frequent the site daily looking for new products to write about.

Here are a few points to keep in mind when promoting your product on Product Hunt:

• Apart from finding someone who has submission rights, you will need to make sure your product looks ready and delivers value. A rickety beta will cost you the opportunity inherent in the launch of a brand new product, as the site showcases new releases only.
• Also, you will need to make sure that when your product does go live on the site, you are 100% available to respond to all comments and feedback from its users.
• Being on time zone 12 hours ahead when PhotoPanda went live, my ability to not rapidly get back to the commenters limited the amount of upvotes we received.

2. Reach Out to Bloggers and Journalists

Product reviews by bloggers/journalists are a win-win, as it means they do the work for getting you in front of interested eyeballs and in return their users benefit from it. Getting a positive product review from a trusted author is far more effective than any sort of paid advertising to that user base. Bloggers know their readers and will write only when the product is relevant and useful to their readers.

Below are some tips to keep in mind to utilize bloggers and journalists to expand your user base:

• Reach out to as many writers as possible. We submitted PhotoPanda to the App Store, and immediately started reaching out to tech journalists and mommy bloggers. We had put together a contact list of 100+ journalists and reached out individually to all of them. I followed them on Twitter and started engaging with their posts.
• Don’t give up. Unless you have an existing relationship or the blogger wants to write about that space, the conversion is low here. So don’t get demoralized; it is still better than nothing! In the second week of doing this and leveraging the Product Hunt announcement, we got our first review published in AppAdvice. The online tech magazine has a significant audience and soon after, CultOfMac included us in their “Apps of the Week” section. These positive articles propelled us towards our first thousand users.

Go international. Seeing this traction domestically, we started reaching out to bloggers internationally in the United Kingdom, Japan, and Southeast Asia – places where we expected our core demography to be. After many translated emails (we used Gengo for professional translations), we received reviews in two major Japanese outlets techjo.jp, appps.jp, followed by stories in Indonesia and Hong Kong. This brought us our next several thousand users in a matter of days.

3. Submit to Product Review Sites

There are quite a few sites that will help you submit your new product to many technology websites at once. After trying a few, I ended up using StartupLister, which helped us submit to over 40 other websites like Mashable, The Verge etc., for $89 only. Not only did this save us valuable time in the race to get the word out, we also got accepted by many upcoming sites like BetaBound, Startup blink and Killer Startups, that we would not have otherwise known of.

A word of caution: Some sites will ask you to pay to publish your review faster. I would advise against this. The best reviews are ones in which the blogger/journalists loved your product or found it relevant and wanted to write about it to their users can benefit from it.

4. Boost Your Social Media Presence

Since PhotoPanda is in the photos space, Instagram was the obvious choice for social media. We were frustrated with the amount of effort it took to grow the audience, so we used an automation tool (Boostagram) to help us get up to a 1,000 new followers per month. This helped us gain a presence on social media and an early communication outlet for our users. However, converting social media to paying users is a separate challenge and the topic of another post.

In addition to Boostagram, check out the following tools to help you get the most out of your social media accounts:

• EveryPost enables you to curate your company’s visual content, schedule customized posts, and share content to all major social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Tumblr.
• Bit.ly lets you shorten your url and tracks clicks to help you monitor how well your content is converting traffic to your website.
• Hootsuite, a social media management tool that lets you schedule and analyze your social media marketing campaigns.
• Crowd Booster optimizes your social media marketing decisions by automatically sending you analytics on a regular basis.

5. Promote Your Product on TV

The year prior to going completely digital, we had been on a Fox morning show on Cyber Monday. The audience of the morning show, airing in Santa Barbara, was not quite what we were targeting, so while it helped from a press perspective, it did not have any real impact on sales.

If you plan on promoting your product on a TV show, keep the following points in mind:

• Remember that appearing on television won’t guarantee a sudden surge in users, so make sure you’re targeting the right audience.
• The smaller and more localized the TV program, the smaller and more localized your audience will be.
• If you are able to promote your product on television, plan a major social media campaign before, during, and after your appearance.
• In the event that your TV show appearance does reach a wide audience, block off the next few days after the program airs to ensure you’re prepared for increased volume.

6. Hire a Growth Hacker

With the number of early stage startups ballooning, there is a surge of “growth” companies and growth hackers or social engineers. Most of these cost money and need several weeks or months before building any real traction. Prior to hiring such help, you will need to understand whether they specialize in the audience you are targeting and how exactly they will help.

In the Entrepreneur article, “The Entrepreneur's Guide to Hiring a Kickass Growth Hacker”, Neil Patel outlines several important tips to consider before bringing on a growth hacker. Here are a few of the highlights below:

1. Remember that growth hacking is more of a mindset than a set of methods or skills, as it requires more creative thinking than technical methods.
2. Look for a strategist rather than a technician. Growth hackers are less concerned with technical details than they are with the way in which the details work together.
3. Don’t hire a growth hacker; instead look for a content marketer with a growth hacker mindset. “Growth Hacker” isn’t an official title, so hire someone with a mix of old and new strategies.
4. Look for someone with experience, someone who has successfully hacked their way to growth at previous companies, as they will be better equipped to identify your needs.

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Quick Takeaways

1. Plan your “go-to market” before starting to build the product. Test it during development, and have an audience that can benefit from your product, ready to try your beta/MVP.
2. Leverage third party tools to submit to as many early adopters sites as possible. Follow up at least a few times with the ones that are relevant to your product/vertical.
3. Figure out the best social media channel and use automation tools to build your following faster and more effectively.
4. Be hyperactive when interacting with early adopters and responding to their feedback, reviews, and comments to establish your credibility.
5. Try free channels to validate your core users and product assumptions first before investing significantly in paid channels or hiring outside companies.

A lot of effort goes into building a good product. Almost similar effort, if not more is needed to get it out in front of the audience that will benefit from it the most. Trying multiple routes to understand and acquire these users before investing in paid channels is a scrappy way for refining your product quickly. It will also grease the wheels of any inherent viral components, setting you up for more organic growth and accelerated learnings.

FINY11 Graduates Founder Institute New York

Founder Institute New York Spring 2016 

Last week the Founder Institute New York graduated the Spring 2016 cohort with 12 promising new companies. The eleventh batch of the Founder Institute in New York includes companies from across several industries such as film, childhood education, real estate, fin-tech, retail, HR-tech, fashion and more. As always, I am very grateful for the incredible lessons, experience, and wisdom brought to each semester's graduates by our great mentors here in New York.

Founder Institute New York 11

Clapper - Streamlining communication and logistics for media productions.

GigSesh - Helping professionals make extra cash by connecting them to advice seekers.

Mindsprinkles - Sprinkling culture into your child’s screentime.

NvestN - Low cost robo-investing platform for the underserved market of investors.

PicketFencer - Find a hometown that fits.

Prix Fixed - Where planning is not the event. 

Real Assembly - The future of real estate crowdfunding.

Skour - Mobile storefront for brick and mortar boutiques.

SquarePeg - Intelligent assessment based job matching for candidates and employers.

TeddyMozart - Let your memories transcend borders and time.

TellyVizion - Where artist's work and shows are compensated directly by the audience.

Ushu - Custom tailored shoes to your unique foot's shape.