In the second episode of our NYC Tech-focused series, NextView principal Tim Devane and VP of platform Jay Acunzo talk about the tech companies most likely to ascend to the status of "pillar" tech company. They also explore why many we consider pillars may not be, and what makes such a company in the first place. At the end, the name of our NYC tech podcast is revealed. Say hi on Twitter: @tdevane and @jayacunzo . Subscribe at nextviewvc.com/blog...
Jun 08, 2016•32 min
Startups are exciting for any number of reasons, not least of which are all the fresh new ideas for products and various approaches to doing the work. But we forget that building successful startups is not actually about coming up with ideas. Instead, it's about finding problems, figuring out whether they truly matter (and to how many people), and working hard to solve them. So what happens when you're obsessed with solving a problem? What does that do to your work, your team, your product, your...
Jun 02, 2016•36 min
Go inside the thinking behind a $16B startup -- worth more than Twitter, Pinterest or Dropbox as of this recording. Today's guest, Jesse Middleton, is a co-founder of WeWork Labs, the company's global startup incubator, and currently the head of WeWork X, which includes Labs and also the new WeWork investing and M&A activities. Jesse was also among the first to join the co-founders of WeWork when it started. Jesse shares insights on everything from mission and hiring to community development...
May 03, 2016•55 min
In the first episode of our NYC Tech-focused miniseries, NextView principal Tim Devane and VP of platform Jay Acunzo talk about the biggest problem and opportunity facing NYC Tech -- namely, successful and liquid entrepreneurs fleeing tech for other industries. Follow @tdevane and @jayacunzo on Twitter and help us give this miniseries a name - tweet #NextViewNYC Subscribe at nextviewvc.com/blog...
Apr 19, 2016•26 min
Oli Gardner is the co-founder of Unbounce, a platform that helps you build, test, and optimize landing pages to convert customers. Today, he spends most of his time writing and speaking and is arguably the best source on the planet for learning about how startups can create landing pages that convert, whether you're drumming up pre-launch demand or trying to keep growing meaningful revenue. Oli also shares FIVE specific elements that all well-optimized landing pages contain, and he shares some h...
Apr 13, 2016•32 min
Last time, we heard from a CEO about how startups can sell to big brands and enterprises. This time, Angus Davis, the founder and CEO of Upserve (fka Swipely) shares stories and tactics around selling to Main Street businesses. As a startup that sells to later adopters of technology or very small businesses, how do you think about product, marketing, and sales? Angus also shares some lessons learned from an impressive entrepreneurial career that spans Netscape, TellMe (which he co-founded and so...
Mar 23, 2016•50 min
The prospect of selling a new product from an "unproven" business into a large corporation can seem daunting. But startups launch all the time as enterprise-focused entities. Still, that doesn't make the situation any easier, so in this episode, Joe Coleman, cofounder and CEO of Contently, gets way into the weeds of selling into the enterprise. We also hear some valuable lessons around marketplace businesses and what it's like to be educating the market at the same time you're selling into it. F...
Mar 08, 2016•41 min
Oh what's in a name? Your startup's name and branding become objects that represent your passion, pride, and determination. But startups change their names more often than their founders or teams might like, despite all the love for their current incarnation. So ... why? What causes that? What influences should you listen to as a founder? And how the heck do you DO it? That's what we'll explore today. Follow twitter.com/LizWessel and visit wayup.com to learn more. For WayUp's hilarious announcem...
Feb 17, 2016•34 min
NextView's Rob Go, Tim Devane, and Jay Acunzo break down the key findings, themes, and stories from the firm's new report, The State of NYC Seed. Find the full report and SlideShare here: http://nextviewventures.com/blog/state-of-nyc-seed/ Twitter handles from the show: @RobGo , @TDevane , @JayAcunzo Topics discussed: The general climate in early-stage startups and VCs in New York City The tech landscape across four key sectors: consumer goods and services, food logistics and on-demand, media an...
Feb 09, 2016•42 min
When looking back at the seed stage of their companies, lots of guests on Traction will cite the same regret: "I wish I started content marketing sooner." Today, we talk to the man who coined the term, Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, an education and training organization serving thousands of customers and millions of readers a year. Joe's latest book, Content Inc, details how smart entrepreneurs are starting to grow an audience through content first, then unpack a produ...
Feb 03, 2016•57 min
There's no denying the sheer creative power of the internet, but too often, it turns into a race to the bottom -- more clicks (and therefore more clickbait), more pageviews, more impressions, more ads. When Tony Haile first became CEO of Chartbeat, the analytics startup based in New York City, he faced this massive problem of an internet teeming with clickbait headlines and short-term thinking. He also faced challenges like competing directly with Google Analytics (and the annoyingly competitive...
Jan 21, 2016•36 min
Justin Robinson, co-founder of mobile startup and liquor delivery app Drizly, talks about some of the ridiculously non-scalable things they had to do just to get their business off the ground in the right way. In addition, he'll share some tactics and stories around being a location-based startup and all the challenges that come with trying to gain traction anew in each market. This episodes includes... 1) The huge (if stereotypical) mistake Justin and his co-founder Nick made when they started,...
Jan 06, 2016•38 min
Hilary Mason, founder at Fast Forward Labs and Data Scientist in Residence at Accel Partners, debunks some of the myths around startups being "data-driven." In addition, she tackles some complex but critical topics and translates them for the rest of us. This episodes includes... 1) A clear definition of what data science actually is (and should be) 2) Hard truth about how much a startup should actually value its data 3) The evolution of the field of data science, who should use it, and where it...
Dec 10, 2015•46 min
Ben Einstein, Founder/Partner of BOLT, an early-stage VC investing in hardware startups, shares the stories of several connected devices and hardware companies and their tricks and challenges. We compare and contrast software to hardware in this episode, examining three core aspects of building any company: 1) Building early products (customer dev, prototypes, etc.) 2) Acquiring initial customers (including one "magic" number Ben proposes for a hardware startup to reach) 3) Raising seed capital....
Nov 24, 2015•1 hr 2 min
Sandi MacPherson, Founder of Quibb, a private community of tech tastemakers sharing professional content and discussions, tells the story of creating an application-only social network. She also shares her vision for an important project helping address the lack of women in tech: the 50/50 Pledge. In this episode, you'll hear... 1) The mission behind the great 50/50 Pledge (visit 5050pledge.com to learn more) 2) How an application-only model for a social network affects your model and early trac...
Nov 12, 2015•35 min
In this episode, Gabriel Weinberg, CEO of Duck Duck Go and author of Traction, the book (no connection to this show), shares the story of building a search engine to compete with Google, battle privacy concerns, and gain initial traction with an atypical product. You'll also hear... 1) The framework behind the popular book, Traction: How to get traction and seek explosive growth for your startup ... with an actual plan and purpose. The framework is called "Bullseye." 2) Common pitfalls to avoid ...
Oct 29, 2015•49 min
Exciting times ahead! Just a quick preview. Send us feedback anytime by tweeting me @jayacunzo
Oct 09, 2015•3 min
Danielle Morrill, CEO of Mattermark -- In this episode, Danielle shares her company's origin story, including how they created an addicting, ubiquitous newsletter read by VCs and entrepreneurs everywhere. You'll also hear... 1) Why a TV show inspired Danielle to launch a media company, not software startup, and why she was disillusioned with Silicon Valley. 2) The domino effect of thinking and operating that way at first and how this led to the SaaS startup success that is Mattermark today. 3) W...
Sep 23, 2015•42 min
NYC's Vin Vacanti of Yipit -- In this episode of Traction, we tell the story of Vin Vacanti , co-founder/CEO of Yipit (daily deals aggregator) and YipitData (analyzes web data for institutional investors). This episode features a really great story with some very tangible lessons and tactics that Vin willingly shares, including... 1) Why Vin and his co-founder taught themselves to code long before it was common -- and well before any tools existed to shortcut your learning the ropes. As a result...
Sep 02, 2015•34 min
Scott Belsky -- co-founder/CEO of Behance. Brand. Mission. Emotion. These are things that, perhaps surprisingly to some, are still not widely preached, taught, accepted, or built around by investors and tech entrepreneurs alike. But in this episode, Scott Belsky talks about their critical importance and exactly how he built the popular creative portfolio platform, Behance. And, really, this is a story about how he sparked a bigger, medium-agnostic movement across the globe among creatives ... al...
Aug 20, 2015•36 min
DraftKings' Jason Robins -- In this episode, NextView partner Rob Go talks to the CEO of the newest unicorn -- Jason Robins of DraftKings . Jason is generous with his storytelling and tactical tips for fundraising when VCs aren't receptive, partnering with larger players in your industry (as DraftKings was able to do with brands like Disney/ESPN, the MLB, the NHL, etc.), and building a company that's capable of being truly analytical -- not just driven by data but obsessed with it. So ... how do...
Aug 03, 2015•42 min
Kathryn Minshew , co-founder and CEO of career platform The Muse, shares tactical details from her scrappy founding story. Today, The Muse generates over 4 million monthly views and offers job postings from and visual windows into hundreds companies, ranging from Uber and Facebook to HBO and Adidas. STARTUP LESSONS YOU'LL LEARN: - Tactics to build audience for a startup - What the very FIRST step to building an audience of millions should be - Clever uses of channels blogging, email, social, and...
Jul 22, 2015•48 min
Bootstrappin' CEO Patrick Campbell , cofounder of SaaS startup Price Intelligently , shares his story of leaving Google, bootstrapping a startup, beating cancer, and more. STARTUP LESSONS YOU'LL LEARN What tradeoffs a bootstrapped startup's CEO must make How to price a software product correctly to maximize revenue and avoid leaving money on the table early on A definition of content marketing that actually makes sense Tactics to build an audience using limited resources and content, which you c...
Jul 06, 2015•54 min
Tech Journalist Dennis Keohane -- Imagine you were told to enter a brand new field tomorrow and that you had 18 months to get hired by one of the top brands in that space. What would you do? That's where the story of Dennis Keohane , national tech reporter for Pando Daily , begins. Dennis shares the story of his whirlwind year and a half, during which time he went from innovative teacher to writer covering tech innovation. Plus, he offers his perspective on how to fix Boston tech's lack of broad...
Jun 22, 2015•36 min
General Assembly CEO Brad Hargreaves -- When Brad set out to create General Assembly, he had to face both an unusual and a difficult decision: the "Chicken, Egg, or Farm to Put It All" problem. Listen for an explanation, as well as his story of how GA gained its first few results on the way to a global organization in the education space. Also on the show: Horrible improv comedy When students walk out. A centuries-old industry tells Brad to operate one way while a handful of potential customers ...
Jun 09, 2015•39 min
LinkedIn Co-Founder Lee Hower -- Imagine being on the founding team of not one, but TWO of the startup world's biggest legends: PayPal and LinkedIn. Lee Hower experienced exactly that. In the episode, he shares his stories of how LinkedIn scrapped towards early results back before most of the tech we all use today was even around -- it'll sound pretty archaic to most young entrepreneurs today. Lee also shares what it was like to get hired by Elon Musk, as well as work alongside the great Reid Ho...
May 26, 2015•30 min
NatureBox Co-founder/CMO, Ken Chen -- If ever there was a sneaky way to learn and gain initial traction, this is it. NatureBox currently ships millions of healthy snacks to consumers everywhere, but they all started with a single observation, a single hack using some free tools, and a single weekend of effort. Fastforward to 2015, and they're a Series C startup some would call a success, relative to most startups that launch. Ken Chen, co-founder and CMO of NatureBox, reveals the story of how he...
May 26, 2015•26 min
Fred Shilmover, InsightSquared -- In Traction's first-ever episode, NextView's VP of platform Jay Acunzo briefly explains the concept behind the show - to share the stories of the creative, unusual, and brilliant ways entrepreneurs scrap their way to early results. Then, Jay and co-founding partner Rob Go hear the seed-stage story of InsightSquared , a successful SaaS startup that's exploded in Boston, all based on a smart-yet-sneaky tactic used by co-founder and CEO Fred Shilmover before he had...
May 25, 2015•26 min
Launching this spring, a podcast from NextView Ventures about the creative, unusual, clever, and downright brilliant things that entrepreneurs do to gain early results. While everyone gets told to "do things that don't scale," we don't often hear what those things actually are -- at least not until a company succeeds and the story gets polished for the press. NextView partner Rob Go and VP of Platform Jay Acunzo talk to top founders, startup executives, media members, and VCs about how they scra...
Apr 23, 2015•2 min
