Michelle Lim

In this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with notable X personality Trung Phan about the evolving social media landscape, and how to tame the mayhem and pandemonium of X. https://lnkd.in/dVHMzbui

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💯 If your team is drowning in support tickets and customer "rough edges" you should probably sit back and evaluate if you have a viable product. At the very least, you should evaluate if your product team is correctly focused on the needs of your customers when this pattern emerges. "Jessica pointed out that if our solution was to hire someone to deal with customer issues, then next week when we grew more we’d have to hire another person, then another, and so on. Her point was that the real solution isn’t solving tickets, it’s listening to customers and building a better product so customers never need to write in the first place." "In a sense, every customer support ticket is a privilege – someone took time out of their day to write about how to improve your product. But it’s also a failure – you could’ve saved them that time by making the product better and more intuitive in the first place. You can’t out-hire a bad product, or compensate for poor taste with a big support team." Customer feedback is a gift. Don't squander it or pawn the problem off on a man-power to solve it. A pile-up here is *always* a sign that your product direction needs improvement.

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Let the wave begin! Pioneer Fund company Recall.ai *grew their revenue 10x* in the past year, has 300 enterprise customers, and just raised a $10M Series A led by Ridge Ventures. David Gu and Amanda Zhu dropped out of college at age 19 to start the company. They've grown it exponentially with a tiny team. They make it easy to build meeting bots that are cross-platform. They're aggregating all these different APIs into one unified API, the way Twilio did with cell phones. At first it "sounds" easy to build a meeting bot -- just integrate with the Zoom API. But in fact there's a huge long tail of things you need to build, security and privacy pitfalls, automations, transcription complexities, integrations, the calendar invites where someone is using Google Meet or Teams, staying up-to-date with the libraries, etc etc. Recall takes care of all of that. It's WAY easier to build on top of Recall.ai and focus on the features that make you unique. Congratulations to the Recall team!

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🤝 Iterative Cofounder Matching - What to look for in a co-founder? In the 2 weeks since we launched the co-founder matching platform, we've matched 40 people. After seeing what people are looking for in their co-founders, I have 3 observations. 💡You Don’t Need An Idea to Meet Co-Founders I noticed 90% of users on the platform already have some sort of start up idea. This made me wonder whether aspiring founders without an idea are hesitant to meet co-founders. I think this could be because many people attach too much importance to the idea. In my opinion, you should meet potential co-founders even if you don't have any ideas because 1) You'll meet other people with ideas. (90% of our user base, for example) 2) The idea will change, almost always. The problem and co-founder fit, are more important. 💪 Value Compatibility As Much As Skills 70% of first time founders were looking for specific expertise or skills in their co-founder. On the other hand, 100% of second time founders equally prioritised motivations (and a sense of humour). As an ex-founder, I understand why. More often than not, co-founder breakups happen because of motivation misalignment, lack of communication or misaligned working styles. It’s easier to stay resilient with a co-founder who has a sense of humour - and laugh through the extremely tough times. 👨‍🔧 Non-Technical vs Technical Co-founders 85% of the non-technical folks prefer a technical founder. More interestingly, 30% of technical founders also prefer a technical cofounder. I think people might be placing too much value on technical experience at the idea stage. For non-technical people, my suggestion is to build a basic MVP to validate your idea first. Learn no-code tools like Bubble/Flutterflow if you have to. Once you validate - you’ll also have a clearer, more convincing pitch to your potential co-founder. For technical people, my advise is to prioritise co-founders who are obsessed about the problem, rather than the solution. Want to learn more about how to choose co-founders? We’re hosting an event tomorrow, where Hsu Ken Ooi will talk about what to look for in a co-founder (and what to avoid). 📅 Date: Tuesday 14 May 2024 🕒 Time: 6:30-9:00pm 📍 Singapore – Register for location details. Look for the 📌 in the comments to register

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I’ve been keeping a running list on things I wish I knew or did while working in product before transitioning to founding Inari (YC S23), so here's the 1st part! Hopefully this is helpful for any product folks considering building your next thing. Note: this pic is Eric on our 1st day building in SF for YC. Prior to all the pain 💀 Action begets information 🔎 Product people love planning. But when trying to figure out what startup to build, I’ve noticed PMs get stuck looking for a “best” idea without shipping anything. 99% of PMs never make the leap even though they intend to. I've found the only way to overcome analysis paralysis and start exploring a frontier was to talk to customers and ship things. You’ll uncover many more problems and ideas that wouldn’t have been possible only planning. Steve Jobs said it best: “It’s the disease of thinking that a great idea is 90% of the work, and if you just tell all these other people, “Here’s this great idea,” then of course, they can go off and make it happen. The problem with that is there’s a tremendous amount of craftsmanship between a great idea and a great product. As you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows. It never comes out like it starts because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties.” Unlearning big company habits 📚 Late-stage startup and large company product development cadences are COMPLETELY different than with early stage startups. I thought being at several startups prior to founding would give me an edge but I’ve unfortunately found that not to be the case at all (and oftentimes is more harmful than beneficial). Early stage building means talking to customers and shipping new products and fixes DAILY, not quarterly. This means often trading off how complete a solution is before launch or how maintainable a codebase is. A lot of what's shipped gets thrown out quickly as you uncover more about a customer’s true problems. Any long-term planning done in the early stages becomes irrelevant as you try new things. I remember when founding Inari last summer, I sat down and drafted out a 3 month roadmap with tasks, dates, and estimates across the whole YC summer batch like a “good” PM would. Complete waste of time 😂. Our group partner Harj had us throw it out and pushed us to set a concrete goal of just getting 1 customer to pay and make their experience delightful. That ended up literally taking us most of the summer. Log ALL the internal problems ✍🏼 While you’re working at any big company or startup, LITERALLY keep a long notepad and document every hairy internal problem and homegrown solutions that pops up. Those internal issues are real tangible problems that a company actively spent resources against and it’s incredibly likely that other companies are dealing with the same issue. Bonus points if you also directly worked on that solution - you might want to spin that out into your own company!

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I’ve been keeping a running list on things I wish I knew or did while working in product before transitioning to founding Inari (YC S23) and here's the 2nd part! Note: this pic is me on our 1st day building in SF for YC. Smiling through how fun all the incorporation paperwork was 😂 Mastering growth and distribution 💌 I never truly internalized the adage “first time founders obsess over product and second time founders obsess over distribution” until we launched Inari for the first time last year and initially heard crickets. I hadn’t worked on growth in any of my prior roles and now I probably spend 60%+ of my capacity catching up, learning basic tactics, and experimenting with new channels for Inari. I think we could be much farther along if I had mastered in-product growth and activation tactics, had reps setting up outbound and SEO systems, and built a community and audience much sooner (I also never realized how fun engaging with people online could be 😄). No excuses not being “technical” in 2024 💻 If you’re considering working on a SaaS startup and you can’t code, just go and learn to. With the recent advances in LLMs and coding assistants, there’s literally never been a better time to learn to code, unblock yourself when you run into issues, and build an MVP. There’s nobody on the planet that will care about your product as much as you will. If you’re unable to be deep in the details, identify defects, and make fixes quickly yourself, then the overall clock speed and quality bar of your product will suffer. The quality expectations for ALL startups have increased over the last few years and it’s on you as a founder to keep that rigor and velocity extremely high, so being able to unblock yourself makes a world of difference. Managing your own psychology 🧠 Surprisingly, the toughest part when transitioning to founding was managing my own mental state. There’s a constant internal uncertainty on whether you’re building something that people actually want and spending time on the right priorities. Your view on finances also completely changes. Money used to be a resource I spent on fun discretionary spend but now money feels like “oxygen”. The stakes of each day feels much heavier when you feel like you’re running out of oxygen for your startup which you're pouring your heart into. Overall, be prepared for these internal influences before making the jump! That could be better carving out the right runway, validating your idea or building an MVP before leaving your job, or bumping up your skills around building and selling beforehand.

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Day #4 of observations from attending Home Care 100 this month: There is a cambrian explosion of "AI scribe for OASIS docs in <15 min" startups currently underway in Home Health. A new one of these is launching every few months. I'm certain we'll see 2x AI scribe vendors at the next HC100 in January. And so, I listened for the overall positioning of these products by the vendor and buyer at Home Care 100. It sounded like this: HH CEO: “I need a solution to lower the caregiver burden of clinical documentation” HH Vendor: “I offer AI to reduce the burden of clinical documentation” This may sound like a "checkmate" match between what the CEO is saying, and what the vendor is offering. But it isn't. The CEO actually has a business model problem. They cannot afford to sufficiently pay for the time it takes for caregivers to complete clinical documentation. And so, they are stuck looking for solutions that minimize the cost of personal time on documentation that caregivers have to absorb. Solutions that offer AI and the promise of driving down this cost down for the caregiver are the start, but not the endgame. If I were not building Arya, and wanted to build a standout documentation product, I would build an "AI-powered clinical documentation agency", not an AI scribe. Here's what this AI-powered documentation agency would sound like: 1. We eliminate 90% of all clinical documentation at your company. We do it at 1/10th the cost of a traditional outsourced documentation shop 2. We do this by a human-in-the-loop AI solution, that allows our human documenters to work 10x faster than DIY 3. Under the hood, we integrate with *all* the best AI out there (incl. ChatGPT) in a SOC2+ HIPAA guaranteed environment. We decide the best AI+human workflow to use for each documentation on the fly. Regardless, you always pay a flat rate, and we absorb the risk or AI vs human effort 4. Your caregivers approve each human-in-the-loop documentation. We don't publish anything to the EHR till it's approved 5. We guarantee a <1% error/ change rate on our documentation from caregivers, or we offer some money back I did some back of the napkin math to see what the economics of an such an agency might look like. With the current math, the caregiver is still absorbing upwards of $10 worth of time per OASIS documentation. If an AI-powered agency drove this cost down to the single digits per doc, might HH agencies be able to work this into their financial model and take this off the caregiver's plate entirely? Here's hoping for a "we've got you covered on the documentation " caregiver benefit coming in the future. #homecare #homecareagencies #HC100 #homecare100 #homehealth

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To all the founders about to quit and dreaming of a FAANG job or equivalent in pay & prestige, listen up: 1. What you're doing now-- trying to build & grow something new-- is the only "job" that AI and robots won't be taking. 2. The job you are dreaming about is already gone. Push through to fight another day. Be relentlessly resourceful as PG puts it. Your problem needs to be solved and no one is going to solve it for you. If you want help/advice on cutting expenses, sharing upside with community in exchange for build & grow collaboration, and raising capital from your users-- DMs open. There is no greener grass than the type that grows on PMF. Using Slyk IO to launch, grow, and raise fast puts you on the fast track to finding out. Your community can help you get there. I know because I'm doing this with Cadoo . #founders #startups #community

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As a technical founder, one of the biggest challenges in scaling from $1M to $10M ARR is balancing two mindsets: the creativity and passion that helped you build an incredible product, and the operational discipline needed to lead a growing organization. To evolve from an IC to a founder-CEO, focus on these 3 areas: 1️⃣ Establish a hiring playbook Develop a structured process to assess candidates using scorecards for their resume, interview, and reference checks. Grade each on a 1-10 scale and dig deeper if a reference doesn't give a 9 or 10. 2️⃣ Delegate, but stay hands-on Empower your team, but also seek out the "ground truth" - join customer calls, have skip-level conversations with ICs, and interview key candidates yourself. Lean in to understand the details of each executive's role. Only then can you set expectations and evaluate the performance of your team. 3️⃣ Define a culture that can scale Be proactive about articulating your culture's core tenets. Approach it with the same rigor and customer-centricity you bring to building products. A strong culture is the "shared operating system" that allows a large organization to function as a cohesive whole. Learn more from my conversations with Doug Winter of Seismic, Mohit Aron of Cohesity, and Sanjit Biswas of Samsara in the latest edition of B2BaCEO: https://lnkd.in/emsvFN9q

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Contrary to popular belief, not all friction is bad. In this interview, product leader Yue Z. shares how adding good friction actually led to higher conversion rates when onboarding users at Thumbtack. Here's the latest interview in my product leader series in Forbes: https://lnkd.in/ex842XsW

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I've failed hard at building a startup for over a year (but hopefully not for much longer). It's been a year since we founded Serra (YC S23), and in that time I've failed and learned—a lot. We've went through 3 pivots, talked to 100s of people, and I've learned a ton about myself in the process. If I could turn back the clock, 3 things that I would immediately do differently: 𝟏. 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐫𝐞 𝐚 𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐧 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦 (𝐀𝐒𝐀𝐏). • 𝐓𝐚𝐥𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐬—self-explanatory • 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐬—much harder. Learn how to properly dig into a users’ pain points, don’t ask leading questions, and drop your conceptions before each call. • 𝐀𝐬𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲’𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐚𝐲—talk is cheap, money is not. Worst case, you find out what you’re making isn’t wanted, which is honestly the best case. 𝟐. 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰 𝐛𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐟𝐟 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭. If you're sweating thinking about doing it, then it’s probably the right thing to do. A personal example is as a recent college grad, I felt intimidated talking to more experienced people. I spent the first few months avoiding speaking openly with these people because I didn’t want to seem dumb. This was the worst thing I could do, as the only way to not be dumb is to learn, and the best way to learn is to openly ask. 𝟑. 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜. We viewed pivoting as running a series of experiments as fast as possible. Our hypothesis would be that “X is a big pain point for a certain ICP” or “Y is a solution a certain ICP would pay for.” Then, to collect data, we sought to talk to as many users as possible. We celebrated every yes, and most importantly every no, as each no helped us disprove our hypothesis faster. Learn to also recognize false signals (one-off customers you can’t find elsewhere) and set KPIs for each week. 𝟒. 𝐁𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞. Recognize equally your strengths and weaknesses, celebrate your successes (no matter how small they might seem), lean on your cofounder(s), friends and family. I learned to break up tasks into smaller chunks. Instead of “we’re building a unicorn,” it became “focus on talking to 10 users.” Then it became “disqualify this idea within a week.” Then it became “close X deals this week.” Take small steps to the bigger goal & celebrate every time you hit that step. ======== If you’ve made it this far, thank you. We’re finally coming out of pivot hell and launching Serra (www.serra.io), an AI-driven search engine for recruiters to find the best-fit candidates. If you’re looking to help find signal among thousands of inbound applicants in your ATS or looking to find outbound gems, would love to hop on a call with you here, https://lnkd.in/geF28MZ9, or shoot me an email at alan@serra.io. Here's to the craziest rollercoaster!

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Hiring a strong founding engineer is one of the hardest but most impactful decisions a startup makes. Three methods to find founding engineers I’ve seen work well on PeopleGPT: - Engineers at Seed / Series A companies - Former VC-backed CTOs or founders - Current founding engineers In each case, the searches filter for 1) background in a high-growth or venture-backed environment (powered by PeopleGPT's integrated funding data), and 2) significant IC experience. Do you have other strategies? Share in the comments below 👇

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Hiring is hard enough, but for early-stage startups you have be prepared to pay well and often give up more equity than you want to. Shortchanging strong candidates on money and potential upside isn’t going to get it done. 3 options for early-stage startups to build their technical team: 1) Offer more comp (salary + equity) 2) Hire less experienced but motivated devs 3) Talk with us about how we build nearshore engineering teams for early-stage startups => save on payroll and keep your equity

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🔥Raise Millions For Your Startup🔥 This is arguably the most valuable startup fundraising resource I've had the privilege of stumbling upon. It's from Tam Pham from hustlefund.vc and it's good... The reason why it's particularly useful is because the intel provided is ACTIONABLE: ● Should I raise from angel investors or venture capitalists? ● What do all the fundraising stages mean? ● What do equity, SAFEs, and dilution mean? ● How do I determine my startup’s valuation? ● Why are cap tables, shares, and vesting so important? ● Where should I incorporate my company? ● When is the best time to start fundraising? ● What exactly should I include in my pitch deck? ● How should I structure my first meeting with an investor? ● What questions will early-stage VCs ask me? ● How do I build authentic relationships with investors? ● What happens if an investor says no or ghosts me? ● What should I expect after an investor verbally commits? You guys can save this doc to your local computer by enlarging the PDF below and then by clicking the "download" icon in the top right corner of your browser. -------------------------------------------------------------------- 💡Join 30,000+ Amplified Investors: https://lnkd.in/eAYGMHRN ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Ami Vora is the Chief Product Officer of Faire. Prior to Faire, Ami spent over 15 years at Meta where she was VP of Product and Design for WhatsApp (2B+ users), VP of Product for Facebook’s ads system (now a $130B business), and director of product at Instagram where she created Instagram's first ads platform. In our conversation, Ami shares: 🔸 Why execution eats strategy for breakfast 🔸 Using metaphor to rally teams around a shared goal 🔸 “Dinosaur brain,” “Toddler soccer,” and “hill climbing” 🔸 A pro tip for handling disagreement 🔸 Tips for working well with product-minded founders as a product leader 🔸 The story of Ami’s incredible 15-year journey from temp to VP 🔸 Much more Listen now 👇 - YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gQasbCbp - Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gQCjrhwn - Apple: https://lnkd.in/ghYTapTG Some key takeaways: 1. Execution eats strategy for breakfast: While strategy is undeniably valuable for guiding direction and setting goals, it’s the execution—the tangible implementation of those plans—that truly drives success. Without strong execution, even the best strategies can’t succeed. This means being willing to get your hands dirty, to tackle the mundane and sometimes tedious aspects of the work that lead to real results. Successful execution allows you to learn from both your triumphs and your setbacks, enabling you to refine and improve your strategy over time. 2. When handling high-stakes product reviews with executives (who are so inundated with information that they can't go deep on all of it, aka "dinosaur brain"), focus on distilling complex information into concise, actionable recommendations. By doing so, you not only clarify your recommendation but also empower execs to offer useful context, patterns, or insights at the right altitude. 3. When having a disagreement, use phrases like “Fascinating! You have to tell me more about why you think that” to show a genuine interest in learning. While everyone loves being right, delivering the best outcome is what truly matters. Put your ego aside, embrace curiosity, and collaborate to broaden your perspective and information set. 4. Use the “hill climb” metaphor to remind your team that moving from a local to a global optimum is like traversing hills and valleys. Imagine your product roadmap like climbing a mountain range, with your current solution being a local peak. Reaching the global optimum or the summit requires leaving your comfortable vantage on an arduous journey to explore other hills and valleys. Trying to play it safe by staying put means forfeiting your shot at reaching the global maximum. Use this analogy to remind your team that achieving the best outcome demands risk-taking and perseverance through challenges. Embrace these hurdles as crucial steps toward success, knowing each stride brings you closer to the summit.

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I sometimes see entrepreneurs effectively "single-thread" their approach to VC pitches. They find a partner they like and want to work with, and they let that partner champion them through the process. If you're a hot deal, moving fast, you might meet one other partner one time before you pitch the partnership. Maybe not even. It is absolutely the right thing to start by targeting individual partners you want to work with. They're the ones you build the business with, day in and day out. But as you move through the process, take a moment to understand the broader firm. It's the firm you're legally marrying, not the partner. Understanding the decision-making process and culture inside the firm will pay dividends if and when you hit a bump in the road. You're raising from a partner *and* a firm: https://lnkd.in/gSHuh399

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 🔥 "How many engineers does it take to replicate Docusign as a software product in 2026?" Sarah Guo dropped this thought-provoking question at last week’s panel. Answers from the eng/product leaders at top companies were eye-opening: Scott Densmore: 10 engineers Romain Huet: 5 engineers Ainsley Escorce-Jones: Just 1 Lee Robinson: 1-2 engineers Say hi to a future where rewriting major software might be simpler than you think. Reach out to me if you are planning to do that! 🙋🏻‍♂️ PS: Take a look at what Gil Arditi is working on at Morph.ai 💡 #software #sdlc #softwaredevelopment #llm #ai #ml #largelanguagemodel #copilot #gpt4

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