Joaquin Cunanan

👉 Attention Pacific-Northwest founders ✅ Are you building in B2B SaaS/AI? ✅ Have you raised less than $250K? ✅ Had one-too-many VCs tell you you’re too early? I’d love to chat. The Pacific Northwest is home to two of the magnificent seven, the birthplace of some awesome companies (Slack, Outreach, Remitly, Redfin, Auth0 to name a few) and a magnet for great AI/technical talent. Forum Ventures, will be doubling down in this awesome ecosystem and writing more checks into B2B SaaS/AI founders for $100K+ admission to our pre-seed accelerator. Our pre-seed program is highly personalized - not your generic startup school. Here’s what you can expect: 🤝 Hands on GTM and Sales support to get you to $200k+ ARR 🌎 A community of B2B founders who have raised $1B+ in follow-on funding 🚀 An awesome Managing Director who will work alongside your team as a fractional senior operator / co-founder. They’re all former founders and have lived 0-1. 💸 No-bs investors who will help quarter back your seed round and show up through the good and the bad. 👋🏻 PNW founder? Pitch us here: https://hubs.ly/Q02tdP_r0 🙏 Not a founder? Please share with your network or tag a founder below ⬇️ cc Simon Chou Dominic Lau Richard Kerby Casey Van Maanen Ryan Holmes Adarsh Pallian Paul Irving Scott Barker Sara Lindquist John Eng Sarah Studer Jacob Laes Marius Ciocirlan Chris DeVore Brendan Wales Sheila Gulati Jen Haller Kirby Winfield Andy Liu Matt Wang Sanford W Spivey Amy Sallin Erik Benson Annie Luchsinger Lauren Glatter Bryan Hale Brian Glaister Kristopher Alford Jeffrey Manner Julian (Jay) Rhind Connor Edwards Daniel Baraghoush Kaylee Lieffers (Astle)

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Unpopular opinion that many people are afraid to say because it seems to go against the grain or sounds politically incorrect, or risks a uproar. Remote doesn't work for most of the companies by definition. Company is a group of like-minded people working towards a common goal as a company, it requires teamwork, discipline, shared vision, drive etc that can only be maximized when people are physically together. The illusion that remote seems to be working is only because it is practiced in a large company that already has a solid footing and the demtiment to competitiveness will not manifest in short term. Disagree? Try remote with a startup that is still on borrowed money. Remote works only in very specific context or for specific role, which again is rare and not representative of most companies that make up the backbone of the ecomony.

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Work at a natural pace. In Cal Newport's new book "Slow Productivity" he walks through 3 components to accomplishment without burnout. 1. Do fewer things 2. Work at a natural pace  3. Obsess over quality Working at a natural pace is an area I'm focused on as I transition to whatever is next in my career. Most of my career's natural pace was driven by anxiety, coffee, HIIT workouts and more caffeine - which I'm pretty sure isn't what he means. In my late 40's though, that just doesn't work anymore. Nor do I want it to. It's a tricky philosophy though because if you're in the startup world I don't know how you build something meaningful and work at a natural pace. I've never seen it happen. It appears this is a philosophy that needs to be applied to a specific time and place vs. everyone, everywhere. Anway, I don't have the answers, I'm just exploring different questions. What I do know is working at a natural place seems to be more appropriate for where I am today. 

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👀 Hidden jobs! 👀 (Sorry/NotSorry for the clickbait title) 😎 I recently learned that there are many VC (Venture Capital) firms out there that maintain their own job boards for open positions at the companies that they invest in. This is a great resource to find openings at startups (and some pretty well established companies, too) that may not be listed here on LinkedIn or other boards. I thought it would be useful to put together a list of the ones I have found so far. If you are looking for work, check out my list! (A work in progress, but please repost and share). https://lnkd.in/gnQsb3H8 Oh and did I mention that I am #opentowork and looking for a new role in Engineering Management? Check out my profile and HMU if you've got something interesting! 🙏 Thanks!

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【Minimum Wage vs. Automation Debate】 $20 hour minimum wage in California and this is how McDonald's responded. The debate around minimum wage and automation centers on how these two forces interact and impact the job market, particularly for low-skilled workers. Does minimum wage increase automation and cut jobs? 1) Incentivizes automation: Businesses may be more likely to automate tasks if the cost of human labor (especially repetitive, low-skilled tasks) increases due to a minimum wage hike. This could lead to job losses in sectors susceptible to automation, like manufacturing or fast food. 2) Disproportionate impact: Low-skilled workers in automatable jobs might be especially vulnerable to job displacement caused by automation spurred by minimum wage increases. There are some counter arguments too: 1) Automation creates jobs too: While some jobs are lost, automation also creates new ones, often in sectors like maintenance, design, and data analysis. These new jobs, however, may require higher skills than the replaced ones. 2) Minimum wage's impact unclear: The overall effect of minimum wage on automation is a complex issue with ongoing research. Some studies suggest a minimal impact on overall employment. Additional factors to consider: 1) Job retraining: Equipping workers with skills needed for new, automation-driven jobs is crucial to minimize job displacement. 2) Higher wages, higher spending: Increased wages from a minimum wage hike can boost consumer spending, potentially creating new jobs in other sectors. Overall, the minimum wage and automation debate is nuanced. While there's a chance minimum wage increases could accelerate automation in some sectors, the full picture considers job creation, retraining efforts, and the broader economic impact.

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When You’re Starting, Just Sell. What do Google, Salesforce, the U.S. Department of State, and the Athena Grill in Santa Clara (California) have in common? They were all clients of e-Nor, the firm that I cofounded in 2003. It’s probably not hard to guess which of these came first. When you’re starting out in business, just sell. Don’t worry too much about pricing or about the stature of the companies that are willing to work with you. Even if you’re positioning yourself as a premium service provider and your hourly rate target is high, it’s OK to offer deep discounts to the first clients. Until you’re established, you basically need to do whatever it takes to close those first deals and get those first “logos” onto your website and into your marketing materials. If you can get the clients to provide testimonials after the discounted deals, all the better. Each logo and testimonial should be a stepping stone to the next. As you build a client base, you can feature the higher-profile logos. And you can gradually climb to the hourly rate that you were originally targeting. Working for free In these two instances, it could be strategic to even work for free: - to impress a prospect who could become a large client - to enter a new market For free work, limit the scope. You could offer a sample audit or another micro-sized service that would allow you to demonstrate your expertise while avoiding a big time commitment. And run away from anyone who directly asks you to work for free. They’re not your kind of client, and they’re not going to help your business. Giving back Since we’re discussing pricing, I’m compelled to point out a case in which I do unequivocally advocate providing your services for free. If you know me at all, you know I’m a big fan of giving back. Even if cash flow is slow and your budget is tight, you can always offer your services, expertise, and insights for free to causes and projects you find meaningful. Whether it’s a local nonprofit or a national advocacy group, countless organizations could greatly benefit from your expertise but may not have the means to afford it or even seek it out. The benefits are the rewarding feelings you’ll receive from contributing. Always give expecting nothing in return; it always amazes me how much comes back when you give freely.

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The major labels and the RIAA are suing Suno and Udio (link in comments). Everyone saw this coming. At $150k per infringement, each company could end up owing more than $150,000,000,000. It doesn’t have to be this way. There’s a fundamental conflict of interests currently between music rights holders along with the artists they represent, and the AI companies that want to train on commercial music-but don’t want to pay for it. It seems like there’s no middle ground, but that’s not true. There are, in fact, hundreds of AI companies that want to do the right thing. They want to negotiate reasonable paid licenses with rights holders that will empower them to make amazing products and compensate the original artists who created the music in the training data. The problem has been the absence of an infrastructure to manage these licensing arrangements in a way that allows for the music business to know how, when, and what the AI company is doing with the music.. We have a solution. Securing the training data, metering the model and attribution for the outputs are the keys to unwinding this conflict. At Musical AI (www.WeAreMusical.AI), our patent-pending Attribution Engine for AI identifies on a percentage basis the influence of each training object on the generated outputs. Additionally, our cloud infrastructure manages content take-downs, license sunsetting and more. We can solve this. #Music #AI #Attribution #Copyrights #wearemusical.ai

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Employee terminations: they're a topic no one wants to discuss but that every company has to navigate. Thankfully, Melanie Naranjo and wonderful Ethena advisor (& Gusto's former People Leader) Jess Yuen are tackling this tricky topic for the next Ethena webinar. Register if you want to learn more about these topics: How to pressure test whether or not termination is the right course of action Best practices for communicating termination decisions How to minimize risk and choose the best course of action when things get tricky Critical pitfalls to avoid

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Save the date to learn more about how we are redefining crowd-sec for on-chain code

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🔈 PSA for my start up folks trying their best to plan the next quarter 🔑 Spreadsheets are great and all but startups are built by people 🔑 Spend as much time getting folks bought in, aligned and excited about the plans as you do creating it. 🤗 The earlier the company is in their journey, the more this applies. ^^ Happy building 💪 #startups #spreadsheets #planning #peoplefirst

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For folks in my Bay Area network... Join me next week at HIGHER’s The State of TA breakfast briefing on Tuesday, June 18th at Chief Clubhouse San Francisco! I'm looking forward to catching up with a bunch of other TA leaders to discuss the challenges we’re all facing across the industry. It still feels like we are navigating uncertain times, but we'll do our best to make sense of it. I hope to see you there!! HIGHER’s The State of TA is grounded in detailed analysis from interviews with TA leaders across the US and Europe, alongside additional context provided by the panel. Here’s some of the topics we’ll cover: - Hiring and turnover: is this holding steady? - Talent quality: can this be defined and what key metrics do others use? - Talent teams: are we reaching the threshold for capacity and how do you bridge the gap between technology, efficiency, and capacity? - DEIB: is this falling down the priority list? Register today to secure your place: https://lnkd.in/gFd7TSE6 [eu1.hubs.ly] 

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Summer is here. If you're in tech, that means the summer sales slowdown is coming. Here's how I deal with it: 1. Accept the reality No matter what industry you're in, not all months are going to be the same. Dips and seasonal trends happen. Don't forecast for optimal, consistent sales when the hard truth is, you're not going to hit those numbers. Know your sales pipeline and be realistic about velocity and close rate. 2. Plan expenses wisely Having a good mix of fixed and variable costs is key.  To allow for profitability, you never want your fixed costs to be greater than your lowest revenue point. For example, if you usually do $100K a month in revenue but $50K in the summer, you should either cap fixed costs to $50k or plan for burn. If you need extra support in the busy months, rely on variable costs like seasonal employees or contractors, so those costs can be turned down in slower times. Review your sales pipeline now. If you're going to have a decline in bookings and revenue this summer, be honest with yourself about it. Burning cash during seasonal declines isn’t always the wrong thing to do – but doing so when you haven’t planned for it could get you in a real pinch.

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How to attract software sales staff back to the office? Recent articles highlighted the drive to bring staff back to the office 5 days a week, with Law firms and Financial Services paying a premium to attract talent back to the office 5 Days a week At Santa Monica Talent we are noticing that the trend of “5 Days a week in the office” is most pronounced in sales teams within the technology marketplace. But why specifically sales teams? 🧑‍ In March ‘24, the number of jobs in the UK listed as fully remote fell compared to March ‘23. Also, flexible jobs only made up 16.5% of total vacancies on the job boards in Feb 2024. 5 Days a week in the office Within the tech sector it's mostly the sales team asked to come into to create a high energy culture. Which makes sense - sales managers still put emphasis on this type of working environment to get the most from their team. Plus, if your sales function has a lot of junior employees, there is a need to nurture and train them which is more difficult remotely. There is also a perception that being in the office gives sales teams quicker access to necessary information from marketing and product, peer-to-peer learning is improved, and meetings and stand-ups run more smoothly. However, remote teams do save on operational costs and it improves their own work satisfaction. Performance is also largely based on managerial and company culture rather than working location. But how does Sales talent feel about this?  From our conversations, around 75% of candidates will not even apply for jobs that do not offer some hybrid working. ➡️ 25% - Want fully remote work ➡️ 50% - Want flexibility, 3 days in the office with 2 days remote work ➡️ 25% - Happy to be in the office 5 days week For employers, this means potentially missing out on the lion’s share of the available talent pool. Is there a solution?  Isn’t it fair to say that most sales roles have an element of research, admin and email marketing that could be suited to a home environment?  Therefore, is there room to find a balance between office and remote, home-based work? Or would employers be prepared to pay a higher salary to get the top 10% of talent back in the office 5 Days a week, like how the Law firms are paying a premium to attract staff back to the office. 3 different options are being offered, not just software sales. 1, Increased base salary for "5 days a week" in the office - Like Law firms 2, Day rate, 2 or 3 days only - Mostly Marketing and HR.  3, 10%+ less on the base for Hybrid, allowing staff to move further out of the main cities. (More common in the US) Working location can be a factor in attracting talent, but they also need to fit your company ethos and culture. Finding that balance is key for setting the foundations for a high-performing sales function. Get in touch to discuss your sales talent plans. ➢ You can DM me on LinkedIn or feel free to email ell@santamonica.digital for a confidential discussion.

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or you can just add to the PR/FAQ the question: "What would you tell your friend and get them to try it?" I think it's an awesome question. Then you have best of both worlds. PR/FAQs are meant to drive a working backwards culture. To Rajesh Velji's point, not all PR/FAQs result in a winning product. But rest assured that all AMZN products that have been successful started with a PR/FAQ (KIndle, AWS, Alexa, 3P platform, Last Mile, Prime, Prime Video, FBA, Amazon Business, Music, etc.). So, I'd say "ditch" is too powerful of a stance. But we can agree to disagree as well.

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What should a product detail page (PDP) for a wine shop look like? 🍷 The Shopify team at Especial recently redesigned the online shop for Pieroth. Pieroth is famous for their first class wine tasting experiences and wine products. For the PDP, we thought about what makes Pieroth's wine really special. We think one of the core USP of Pieroth is their wine knowledge. E.g. they have a offering where you can find out about your very personal wine profile and can give recommendations based on that. So, besides the usual best practices like payment/shipping/price information and a large product image, we added several features which you can see in the video: ✅ Colourful tags to show which wine profile and properties apply to the product ✅ Icons+Text to show the most important facts about this wine like its type, region, country etc. ✅ "Wie schmeckt dieser Wein?" ("How tastes this wine?") section showing the flavours and very detailed taste attributes of the wine ✅ Description of the region the wine comes from ✅ Information about the brand of the wine and the vinery ✅ "More suitable products" section which can be both editor's choice or Shopify's AI based recommendations ✅ Section about the Pieroth Platin loyalty program ✅ Section about Pieroth's participation in the fight against climate change Want to see it in action? Visit https://lnkd.in/eV6Fwdgr Want to chat about a redesign or optimisations for your E-Commerce store? Send me a message or comment with "PDP" and I'll get in touch. #shopify #pdp #design #digitaldesign #ecommerce #commerce #d2c

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Just spoke to someone who is spending 5 hours/day commuting from SF to South Bay 3x/week by transit. They want to join Upshift to get a car every Tue-Thu every week so they can get another hour of sleep in the morning and get home in time for dinner. Sound like you or someone you know? Our new personalized fractional car subscriptions are selling like hotcakes. Optimize your plan to meet exactly your situation. Need a car to commute 1-3x/week? Want a car to get out of town every weekend? We’ve got a plan for you! Everything is included in one fixed monthly fee, even insurance. Flexible - change how much car you need over time if your lifestyle changes, swap between Toyota Corolla hybrid or AWD Honda CRV hybrid SUV. Predictable - always get the same type of car, clean, gassed and professionally maintained. Convenient - delivery to your door, refueling service, return anywhere in our zone. Learn more and subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/g7cHCjU2 #EV #AV #carshare #transportation #autonomousvehicles #electricvehicles #VC #venturecapital #angelinvesting #mobility

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When looking to replace your favorite backpack, the lack of a label becomes a significant hurdle. Here’s why companies should prioritize labeling their products: 1. Consumer Identification and Repeat Purchases Labels are essential for consumers to identify and repurchase products they love. When customers cannot find a label, they struggle to buy the same product again, leading to missed sales opportunities. For instance, my favorite backpack, now sun-bleached and worn out, could not be easily replaced due to the missing label. Companies need to make it easy for customers to identify and purchase their products repeatedly. 2. Brand Recognition Clear and consistent labeling helps build brand recognition. When products are labeled effectively, customers can easily associate their quality and satisfaction with the brand, fostering loyalty. High-profile brands like Emeril Lagasse or Martha Stewart prominently display their names on their products, ensuring consumers recognize and remember them. 3. Ease of Purchase Labels significantly reduce the effort consumers need to repurchase a product. Without clear labels, customers might not invest the time to find the product again and may opt for a competitor’s product with better labeling. This convenience plays a crucial role in maintaining customer loyalty and driving repeat business. 4. Marketing Investment Companies invest heavily in designing, advertising, and distributing products. Not labeling these products properly squanders this investment, as it impedes customers from making repeat purchases. Every marketing effort should culminate in a straightforward path for the consumer to continue their purchasing journey. 5. Differentiation Labels serve to distinguish products from competitors. Effective labeling helps small companies stand out in a crowded market. It’s a critical aspect of product differentiation that can make a significant impact on a company’s success. 6. Value Addition Effective labeling is a simple, cost-effective strategy that adds immense value. It helps customers identify and connect with the product, leading to increased satisfaction and repeat business. For example, my well-labeled Emeril pans stand as a testament to how effective branding can enhance customer loyalty. 7. Service Industry Application While labeling is straightforward for physical products, it’s different for services. Service providers can still benefit by leaving branded materials, such as business cards or refrigerator magnets, with customers. These items serve as reminders of the service for future needs, ensuring the brand stays top-of-mind. Conclusion Proper labeling is not just a detail; it’s a fundamental aspect of product marketing. It enhances customer experience, drives repeat purchases, and builds strong brand recognition. Companies that fail to label their products effectively are missing out on significant opportunities to connect with their customers and foster long-term loyalty.

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The FTC just banned non-competes and estimates: -8500 new businesses created per year -$500+ in average wage increases -20-30k in new patents The ruling may allow executive non-competes to be enforced, but not negotiated for new agreements. It will be interesting to see if this goes to supreme court but a large employee friendly decision made today that could create tomorrow's new ventures.

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California minimum wage - everyone is watching to see what happens as a result of the recent increase specifically for fast food. Read our latest GuestXM - Now Powered by Black Box Intelligence™ article for additional insights! https://lnkd.in/dPY_HzGD

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