Startup Experiences: Building the Future with A16z and Emergence Capital

Start-up work was the hardest but most rewarding work I've done so far. Top tier venture firm investment benchmarks, deciphering ambiguity with founders and customers, and building the most efficient revenue generating machine possible as fast as possible is an intellectual and mental marathon/sprint.

My first start up was Hansel experience. At first, it was a peer to peer travel and retail recommendation platform, but then focused solely on the retail recommendations. Something, like honey or wikibuy chrome extensions for retail shopping. It aise $150k in seed but it didn't we couldn't retain users long enough to get revenue.

My second experience was a contractor at Dooya Media Technologies. They focused on media acquisition, storage, and distribution services for smaller media companies. I built SVOD and AVOD channel for their clients to publish their content on Xumo, Pluto, Tubi, and Plex. A lot of late nights and weekends were spent on this project, but again it didn't generate the velocity I was looking for.

My third experience was with Adaptive. They were backed by world famous venture firms Andreesen Horowitz when I joined. Three and a half years at PayPal/Venmo left me looking for digging into customer problems. When I joined there were only 10 of us. Our product was under developed, no sales cycle, no product manager, no everything. However, we had great founders, initial customers, and a great team. I was 25 when I joined and the Henry, the CTO entrused me to build the budgets and invoicing platfrom. It was a feature that often times prospective customers would cite as a reason they didn't want to sign up. The first build that I brought to market was a disorganized flop. The second less disorganized but didn't generate the results we needed. The third received better reception, and the fourth was a clear milestone unlocking a lot of new customers. It was 18 months of teeth cutting, gut renching work that that resulted in a resounding win. Although, I'm not their anymore I remember it with great pride and gratitude.

True start up work is romanticized. To be honest, it's survivorship bias. Media celebrates the winners, and doesn't even bother to mention the more plentiful losers. Every day you're on the cusp of failure but you work like hell to persist anyways. You must find ways to do deliver quality fast and cheap because there is no other way to compete. I can dive into specifics if you're interested.