Clay

Leading the business teams at Clay. 

We are building a complete GTM development environment where teams can turn any growth idea into reality. We serve more than 10,000 customers — including OpenAI, Canva, Google and Anthropic.

Co-Founder & Head of Operations

89 Christopher

89 Christopher is a $2M fund backed by Sequoia Capital and Bloomberg Beta. I started this fund with my best friend Nitin Gupta because we wanted to work together on something, thought this would be fun, and knew we could help founders.

Our fund is named after the address of our 300 sq. ft, 6th floor walkup, shoebox apartment we shared in New York when we were 22. It was in this apartment where we began our journeys working in the startup ecosystem. 

We can uniquely solve a handful of important problems all companies face: 

Compensation: Nitin built the benchmarking product at Pave and is the first call for dozens of founders when it comes to employee + executive compensation. 

GTM: Clay operates at the edge of all things GTM and having built all the business functions at Clay from scratch, I help founders with tactical advice on hiring, marketing, sales, team structure, planning, etc.

General Partner

Newfront

When Newfront merged with ABD, I managed the integration and developed the initial product roadmap/strategy post-merger for the employee benefits, 401k, and wholesale teams (>$100mm in revenue).

Director of Operations

When I was hired, Newfront was a fast-growing, tech-enabled insurance brokerage startup focused on P&C insurance. They wanted to expand to employee benefits, and I built and led that business unit from scratch to tens of millions in revenue.

GM, Employee Benefits/Health Insurance Business

Candid™

When I was hired, Candid had an e-commerce business and wanted to start a retail operation. My job was to build as many stores as possible, as quickly as possible. Of course, I had no experience in retail, site selection, real estate negotiations, store design or construction. But I learned quickly. 

We went from 0 to 27 retail stores in 20+ markets in 14 months, which drove more than 60% of Candid's revenue. Ultimately the business struggled with its unit economics, but I had a great time, grew a lot and met some amazing people.

Head of Expansion

Google

As many of you know, the Clinton campaign lost in 2016. I was surprised, confused and poor. I somehow got this job, via cold email per usual. I thought it would be a good fit because it was at the intersection of geopolitics which I knew and liked, and technology which I didn't know but thought I might like.

Long story short, it wasn't for me. I didn't feel challenged and struggled with the usual big company things. I used my extra time to intern at nights as a prep cook at the restaurant Dirt Candy for a few months, but then I met my now-wife and wanted to spend time with her :)

I was fortunate that my best friend and roommate was a VC and introduced me to the world of startups, which felt surprisingly similar to political campaigns. After the 2016 loss, I wanted to learn how businesses work and develop tangible skillsets. I knew that I learned best by doing, and felt a startup was the right place to do so.

Special Projects & Communications (Jigsaw @ Google)

Hillary for America

Traveled with Secretary Clinton throughout the general election — serving as a deputy to our traveling communications director, managing the 60+ traveling press corps and executing on communications crises as they arose (frequently!).

Traveling Press Aide

Served as the principal spokesman for Hillary Clinton during the South Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey primaries. Developed and executed a comprehensive press and earned media strategy — including TV, newspaper, and radio — for Clinton and high-profile surrogates across the four states.

Won South Carolina by 48 points
Won Florida by 31 points
Won Pennsylvania by 12 points
Won New Jersey by 27 points

Statewide Press Secretary

Special Assistant to Communications Director

Office of Hillary Rodham Clinton

When I was 18 I was singularly focused on politics and passionate about Hillary Clinton. I wanted to work for her, so I cold emailed her top advisor 10 times. Eventually he responded and begrudgingly agreed to meet for coffee. But before he went downstairs, he asked his assistant to interrupt in 5 minutes because he correctly diagnosed that I was "a crazy kid." In any event, the first 5 minutes went so well that I got the job. To this day, working for Hillary Clinton was one of the great adventures of my life.

Communications

Varun Anand

I asked our Head of Finance if I could spend $60,000 to take five enterprise CRO prospects to the Super Bowl. He did the ROI math and it's not looking good for me.

Karan Parekh actually walked me through the numbers on camera - deal size requirements, probability lift benchmarks, estimated ROI, and why our bet at the US Open was 10x smarter.

Some of what we get into:
- How to calculate the real cost per ticket 
- Why a 15-20% increase in close probability on even $400k ACV deals doesn't justify the spend
- My land-and-expand counterargument (which I thought would win him over)
- Our portfolio approach to event marketing budgets and when we measure individual bets vs signal for scaling

In the end, Karan gives a surprising reason why even if all five CROs convert, the Super Bowl isn't worth the $.

This type of conversation happens every day at Clay. It's how we balance making aggressive creative bets with financial discipline. Whether we're debating a $5k executive dinner or 50-yard-line seats at the most expensive sporting event on earth, Karan's reasoning is keeping us honest.

Yes, he just killed my Super Bowl dreams. But he is (probably) right!

P.S. My schedule just freed up for February 8th, 2026. If anyone is looking for a +1 to the Super Bowl, DM me.

P.P.S. Any other marketing questions you want us to debate? Drop them below👇

This year Clay invested over $1m in billboards.

That kind of marketing spend without clear ROI makes finance people nervous.

But we make a TON of marketing bets like this at Clay, big and small. So here's a look into how Karan Parekh, our Head of Finance, guides our marketing motion without demanding perfect attribution and killing our creativity.

Some of what we cover:
- How brand and performance marketing are linked and why B2B companies invest in brand too late 
- How we use attribution modeling, customer-defined attribution, and incrementality analysis to measure the unmeasurable 
- What marketing works as you move from Series A to scale-up to public company (and why Figma nailed it) 
- Guerilla marketing tactics from Clay's early pre-PMF days

At the end, we share the strategy behind our recent billboard campaign and real examples of how we're measuring impact and ROI. 

Karan is brilliant and I'm very excited for more of the world to get to know him. Anything you want us to discuss next? Let us know! 👇

P.S. We have no idea the ROI of this video.

Next week I am kicking off a 3 week European tour.

Why? Because Clay is expanding to Europe!

This is a MASSIVE market opportunity for us. Europe is already 20% of our revenue and we only have a tiny but mighty team on the ground. That changes now. We are actively hiring for sales, success and support roles in London.

On this trip, I'll be hanging with users in every city, as well as speaking at Web Summit, Slush, and SaaStr AI, and meeting with founders and GTM teams at companies like Lovable, Legora, Miro and Granola. 

Here's my tour schedule:

- Lisbon (11/12 - 11/13)
- Amsterdam (11/14 - 11/15)
- Helsinki (11/19)
- Stockholm (11/20 - 11/23)
- London (11/25 - 12/2)

I am HYPED about connecting with Clay [Clubs] and kickstarting our European expansion. I'll be posting updates and learnings along the way, with plenty of selfies.

I'm hosting or attending 11 public events, I would love to meet you there.

Link to register (and full event schedule) in the comments. 👇

No alternative text description for this image

Karan told me Clay was a terrible idea and I shouldn't work on it. Two years later, he quit his dream job to become our Head of Finance. The night before he accepted his offer, we shared a bed and bonded till 3am. He was the last invite to my wedding. There were three emotional dinners every time he failed to give his notice. This is the story of how I recruited him:

In 2023, Karan had the perfect setup as a hedge fund manager. 9-5 hours, incredible pay, unbelievable culture and returns. And I was looking for the smartest person with a financial skillset who makes every decision better.

In this video, we tell the full story of how we found that person in Karan:

- Why I had him build our financial model as a "favor" when we didn't even know if our Stripe data was revenue or bookings
- The 3 times he said he'd give notice and couldn't pull the trigger (and the 3 intervention dinners I orchestrated with different teammates)
- What happened the night he slept over at my house before attempt #4 - shared bed, emotional wreck, late night pillow talk

I wanted to share how messy, long and emotional exec recruiting processes can be. And also show how wonderful they can feel when you get it right. The trust we have makes everything easier and faster, and it is SO MUCH FUN to work together. Even when we disagree, we resolve conflict almost instantly. I hope you see that energy in these videos, and find this for yourself too!

At Clay [Club] Amsterdam, a top-secret yacht broker to the rich and famous showed me a wild Clay use case I've never seen. He can't be in this video for privacy reasons. But here's how it works:

Use Case #1: Know Your Customer

Imagine you're shopping for yachts. You're perusing, hanging out, drinking champagne, acting rich. And then you go to the broker and say, "I'm interested." But he doesn't know you from Adam. You could be anyone off the street. Are you even wearing a Rolex? Is that a Loro Piana sweater or Old Navy? How does he know you're worth his time?

Well, this is where Clay comes in. You provide brief info through a web form, which kicks off a Clay workflow to find unique data points trying to answer one question: are you going to buy a yacht?

Data points like: What's your net worth? Where do you live? How close is your address to a marina? What are the house prices in your area? What's the average income in your area? What companies did you work for? Do you sit on any boards? Does your region have a boating culture?

Then they're connecting it back to the CRM to see if there are any mutual connections and assigning a lead score. Finally, they WhatsApp the salesperson within seconds to share whether this stranger is a qualified lead.

Use Case #2: Newfound Wealth Signals

Then they built signals to catch people right when they get rich:

- Company IPOs
- Acquisition events (for employees who just cashed out)
- Estate/trust unlocks that become public
- News mentions
- Even lottery winners

The moment these triggers fire, they're in the inbox selling yachts. 

Use Case #3: ABM for Yacht Teams

Turns out yachting is a B2B industry. Call it YaaS (Yachting-as-a-Service). News to me too.

Super yachts and mega yachts... buy smaller yachts. One for groceries. One for diving. One for fishing. Some owners have a yacht in the Mediterranean and another in the Adriatic.

So they're running ClayBM campaigns on yacht teams—targeting captains, first mates, the yacht support team—to sell them MORE yachts. Your yacht needs a yacht, apparently.

I learned all of this in 30 minutes at Clay [Club] Amsterdam from a guy who couldn't be on camera because his buyers are royal families and oil barons. Very hush hush!

Pretty cool to find unexpected Clay use cases in the most niche industries!

P.S. Thank you to Patrick -- co-founder of Claygency The Kiln and more importantly my EuroTour companion -- for stepping in and talking this through with me :-)

The people have spoken. Clay is coming to Paris! We're adding a late-breaking stop to the Euro Tour.

We'll be taking the Chunnel next week from London to Paris, which I thought for the longest time had windows like an aquarium to see the fishies.

The momentum from this tour has been more exciting than I could have imagined. I just toured offices in central London yesterday. We're going all in!

Come join us for two more exciting events in Paris. First, I'm talking about GTM in the Age of AI with Gabriel at Dust, and then hanging with the Clay [Club] to talk Top GTM Trends for 2026 with our hosts Jérémy Grandillon and Bill Stathopoulos.

Would love to meet you in person!

Register in the comments. 👇

P.S. Some people have been commenting that our Fireside Chats have been "unhinged" and "the most fun I could have had on a Saturday at noon". Come see what all the fuss is about!

I just spent a few hours in Amsterdam with my friend Salar, CEO of Monumental. They're building AI-powered robots and software that autonomously construct masonry walls on-site. And we realized something crazy: Clay and Monumental have the same go-to-market motion. 

When Salar started, everyone told him construction tech doesn't work. His words, not mine. But in a way they were right. Contractors don't have budget for tech.

So, instead of building their GTM around selling contractors AI robots and fancy software, they sold brick walls. 

Contractors already have budgets for brick walls and market pricing already exists. Monumental just shows up with robots instead of masons. If the tech fails? They bring in human masons, eat the cost, and still deliver the wall.

We do the same thing at Clay.

Early on, we'd pitch the dream to CROs and CMOs on all the crazy AI automation Clay could do. We were faced with skepticism. So instead we led with selling data.

These GTM leaders needed data, they already had pre-allocated budget, and we could improve their data quality and prove it quantitatively. Then once we did that, we showed them all the incredible things Clay could do. We showed them our version of robots that can lay bricks. 

Two completely different industries with the same playbook.

With AI it's easy to get caught up selling the dream. And if you don't hit those high expectations, you're setting everyone up for disappointment. Better to start with a wedge for a pre-existing problem and budget, earn trust with quick wins, and build the magic from there.

Last week in Helsinki I went ice dipping in the Baltic Sea with the founders of Google Maps (Lars Rasmussen) and Dust (Gabriel Hubert). I lasted all of 5 seconds. It was fun, it was invigorating, and has absolutely zero relevance to any of you but I wanted to bring you in on this energy!!

P.S. I know some think Clay takes our marketing a bit too far on here, but we draw the line at nipples on LinkedIn. So Peter had to get creative with this edit.

WHAT A DAY AT SLUSH! Yesterday we did some LIVE growth hacking on stage with my dear friends Eileen O'Mara (CRO of Stripe and happy customer!), Luciana Lixandru (Sequoia) and Jane Alexander (CapitalG). 

Let me share one with you. One SaaS founder is building a product to turn WhatsApp messages into a CRM. His problem was they're getting lots of leads but people aren't showing up for demos. What does that scream to me? He's got an ICP problem! Those people don't truly have pain! If they did, they wouldn't be ghosting him.

Well who could be his customers? It's likely small businesses. I suggested he use Clay and prospect local companies with Google Maps, scrape their websites to see if they use WhatsApp, and then check their Google and Yelp reviews for people who are complaining about long response times. Have that table run on a schedule and reach out to the owner minutes after the review gets posted. I promise you that person will show up to a demo!

That was a lot of fun to do on the hottest tech stage in Europe, trying to solve real growth problems for founders figuring out their product-market-fit. 

Now I'm off to Stockholm to continue my European Tour. 

Excited to meet the teams at Lovable,  Legora, and hangout with the local Clay [Club]. If you want to meet up, register for the Stockholm events (some later today!) in the comments. 👇

Just had a very fun fireside chat with the RevOps, revenue marketing and product marketing teams at Adyen, the $43b payments juggernaut based in Amsterdam and very happy Clay customer :-) 

We had a great hour-long conversation on a range of topics including the Clay journey, GTM engineering, our culture, marketing ROI, and the future of GTM. 

But certain questions stood out. Why? Because I hear some variation in every event I host for startup teams across Europe and the US. Questions like: How do org structures evolve in AI? What skills should ICs be prioritizing in the age of AI?What are the common denominator qualities that the cutting edge teams all share?

Here's how we think about it:

We see the best GTME teams operating like product and engineering orgs. They iterate and experiment quickly, power through a queue of tickets, and rigorously automate through every revenue function. Teams look less like assembly lines now and more like GTM engineers building systems that help sellers focus on selling.

The best teams are increasingly technical and use Clay and other tools to build sophisticated workflows that automate QBR deck creation, build event invite systems, and weaponize conversational data into ABM, Salesforce updates and prep notes. This shift matches with the tide we see moving to more flexible data warehouses as the system of record, with GTMEs orchestrating many workflows from there through Clay. 

Massive thank you Evelina Petrova-op den Kelder for hosting! We're so happy to be a partner to you and excited to keep working together.

Wow Lisbon what a whirlwind! Two panels at Web Summit, an amazing dinner with our friends at Coverflex and an epic cruise with Clay [Club] Lisbon. 

I'm always so struck by the community we are building. I met so many people on the cruise who have forged deep friendships through the Clay [Clubs]. We can take Reyhan Khan as an example, who's made lifelong friends with Rafael Guerreiro 🚀 and Olivier 🧪 Tytgat through this community. 

At the Coverflex dinner, I finally was able to meet Pedro Azevedo who has been pushing the boundaries of what's possible in Clay for years. I had such great convos with Luis from Amplemarket about what we're excited about in GTM tech, Ollie Cheal from 1Password on the latest security practices, and Norberto Guimaraes a legend who pushed me on authentic marketing and the limits of our jobs data. 

We had such a good time that when I left at 12:30am, half the folks were still hanging! Big thank you to Miguel Santo Amaro 🇵🇹🇮🇹🇪🇸 for gathering this special group.

Just got to Amsterdam, where we have another [Club] event, a fireside with Andrey from Miro and lots of meetings with our customers here :-) 

P.S. Thank you to Andrew Johnson for capturing the this picture of my custom Clay sneakers.

Had two great sessions yesterday. One on the main stage at SaaStr with Amelia Lerutte and then with Paul Adams at Intercom. One question kept coming up: what is behind all our crazy marketing, like Kung Fu and blunt rolling videos!?

Well it comes down to our people of course. And their unique backgrounds that makes the creative magic.

Let's start with Peter Kang, who runs Clay's rapidly-growing social media presence. Peter was an investment banking analyst at Barclays and worked in finance at Clubhouse. But on the side he ran a TikTok about SPREADSHEETS with 200k followers!! How rare is it to find someone with an analytical mindset but a proven creative track record?!

And then there's the inimitable Jessica Jin, our chief schemer in permanence. If you've seen something crazy we've done on LinkedIn, it was probably her brainchild. I can't go into too much detail about her background or LinkedIn will suppress this post. But if you're curious you can look up my past posts on her. The short safe story is that she organized absolutely hilarious nationwide protests and had no B2B tech experience before her scheming began at Clay. But political organizing is marketing.

This is the whole point of the interview process. Learn everything you can about someone and see how you can translate their skills to what you need. That's where the real alpha is in hiring.

Just arrived in Paris today and absolutely pumped to wrap up the EuroTour with baguettes and croissants! 🥐

Techstars

Have questions on how to optimize your Techstars application?
https://ltse.com/insights/founders-guide-for-applying-to-techstars-in-2023

What's different about the program I run for Techstars NYC? Learn more here: https://www.techstars.com/newsroom/the-winning-formula-for-startup-acceleration
--
I'm a generalist investor for Techstars NYC focused on AI, health, supply chain and climate: accelerating some of the highest-profile early-stage companies in the world. I have sourced & evaluated 3,000+ startups and worked with the Managing Director to select 25 investments.

I also help plan the program execution and manager the speaker, mentor, and investor relationships that help our founders do more faster. I personally coach & work with founders to figure out how to get to PMF, fundraising strategy, recruitment & hiring strategy, and ops/automation (aka How to Save Time) and continue to do portfolio support for companies from past programs.

Select Investments: Olli Health, CodSpeed,  KYD Labs, CollectWise, Reelist, Ripple, Offe Market, Imaginario, Mishe

Investment Manager

Investment Associate

Senpai

Helped experts get paid to answer questions with audio answers at Senpai ⚡️ (HF0 2021 batch)
Backed by amazing investors like Backend Capital & the VP of Product at Quora
#1 on Product Hunt (Golden Kitty Awards 2021 Finalist), featured on Forbes

Co-Founder & CEO

Co-Founder & COO

Co-Created (spun out of Prehype)

Startup consulting for Co-Created, a venture studio that spun out of Prehype, extending a 10+ year track record to continue building startups with some of the world's best companies and entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneur In Residence

Auby

Auby uses AI to curate personalized playlists of clips from podcasts and audiobooks on your favorite topics. 

Aube was acquired by Adashe.

Founder & CEO

The New School Podcast

The goal of The New School is to help others figure out how to turn their passions into meaningful careers.

Listen now on:
Auby - https://heyauby.page.link/FDmPNLEnz4JRLGzK9
Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-new-school-with-christine-hong/id1493320317
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1dZMeZGX73kjGeyVZzq6Qb
Other Platforms - https://anchor.fm/thenewschool

Podcast Host

Tinder, Inc.

Innovation Team: worked on new growth features targeted at Gen Z including
- Swipe Night: interactive video experience where your choices leads to matches
- Festival Mode/Spring Break Mode: match with others going to the same event before getting there
- Tinder U: match with other verified university students

Trust & Safety Team: product lead, worked on various methods to help people feel safer on Tinder including
- overhauling the user reporting system
- adding ML to content and text moderation methods
- improving tools for community moderation teams

Lead Product Manager

Fulfilled my childhood dream of being an actress. Ironically, the first network role I booked was on HBO's Silicon Valley.

Found myself frequently auditioning for roles like "asian nerd" or "asian hooker" so left to have more creative control in my career instead of promoting unhealthy stereotypes.

Actor

Upload

Taught Virtual Reality Development Workshops (Unity, C#)

VR Instructor

Yahoo

Joined through Marissa Mayer's APM (Associate Product Manager) program. 

Product Manager for Lifestyle Labs, focused on incubating new lifestyle focused apps.

Incubations Product Manager

Frontend Developer for newest version of Yahoo Mail. Helped rebuild Mail from scratch in React, Flux, Node.

Software Engineer

Echo Dance Journal

Echo was a growth-focused app that allows students to track progress in a video journal and receive expert feedback from credible teachers. Teachers provide feedback on different parts of the students' video using audio and touch.

Our initial target audience was dance students since they had the strongest desire for feedback on a visual performance from instructors. 

Demo of the main features: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLsKYH5lfFY

iOS Developer (First Developer)

Engineer → Founder → Investor @ Techstars NYC | Investing in the health of people and the planet, and the systems that power them (health, climate, AI, supply chain).

Note: I don't accept LinkedIn requests from strangers. Please send a personalized message so I know the context for connection request :)

Christine Lu Hong

Stop raising VC money for a business that can't return a fund.
I know. Harsh.

But here's what I see every week at Techstars after evaluating 20,000+ startup applications:
Founders who did everything right.
Except one thing: their TAM is $500M. Maybe $1B if we're being generous.

And that's when I have the hard conversation.
"This could be an incredible business. You could bootstrap this to $5M/year and own 100% of it. But it's not VC-backable."

Because here's the thing — VCs need you to become a unicorn. They need one company in their portfolio to return the entire fund.

You can't build a billion-dollar company in a $500M market. The math just doesn't work.

So before you spend 6 months building, do this one calculation:
→ What will you charge per customer per year once your product is fully built? (Not your early beta discount — your actual price when you have all the features you need)
→ How many companies can realistically afford that? (Not "every small business in America" — be honest about who your real customer is)
→ Annual price × Total customers = ?

If that number is under $10B, don't raise VC.

Build it anyway. Bootstrap it. Raise from angels or alternative sources of funding. Just don't destroy a great company trying to force it into a VC story it was never meant to be.

The hardest part of my job isn't rejecting bad ideas.
It's telling brilliant engineers they built something fundable... just not with venture capital.

PS: If you're stuck on your TAM calculation, drop it below and I'll tell you if the math checks out.

Early Stage Investor @ Techstars NYC | Engineer Founder

I'm launching the playbook I wish existed after I spent 6 months building something nobody wanted.

Back then, I had the technical skills down cold. What I didn't have? A playbook for everything else.

How do you validate an idea before building? How do you sell when you've never done sales? How do you know if your "target customer" will actually pay you?

I learned the hard way:
→ Built things nobody wanted
→ Pitched the wrong people
→ Spent months on features that didn't move the needle

Now,  after evaluating 10,000+ startup and investing in 50+ founders at Techstars and beyond, I've seen the same patterns over and over. And I know what systems actually work.

That's why I'm launching: Christine's 0→1 Playbook

A newsletter for technical founders who are great at building, but need the execution systems for everything around the product.

Every week: Tactical frameworks, templates, and system drops
Every month: A complete playbook

Inside:
→ GTM frameworks that don't require a sales background
→ Fundraising systems that play to technical strengths
→ Validation sprints that save months of wasted building
→ The exact templates & frameworks I use with founders at Techstars & beyond

No fluff. No theory. Just tactical playbooks that get technical founders from 0 to $1M+.

First drop next Wednesday: The $100K mistake technical founders make in Week 1 (and the 15-min exercise that prevents it)

If you're technical, pre-revenue,or building without customers — this is for you.

👇 Link to subscribe in comments.

Question for technical founders: Technical founders, what's the ONE mistake that cost you the most time or money?

Techstars applications close in 48 hours.

If you’ve been on the fence about applying, this is your sign. Not a sign from the universe — a sign from someone who actually reads your application… and is hosting one last session to help you make it better.

And tomorrow (Tuesday) @ 4pm ET, we're hosting our final group office hours before the deadline.

After reading 12,000+ applications, I know exactly what gets rejected in the first 20 seconds — and more importantly, what makes reviewers stop and lean in.

What we’ll cover:
 → The 3 mistakes that kill applications instantly (all fixable in 24 hours)
 → High-leverage edits that dramatically strengthen your app
 → Live feedback on your app answers with the Techstars NYC program team

No judgment if you’re applying last minute. You’re busy building a company.
That’s literally why our program exists.

📅 Tuesday @ 4pm ET (Zoom)
🔗 Register here: https://luma.com/4rphh07n

Tag your cofounder who definitely also needed this sign. ⬇️

Most founders don’t fail because of design or code.
They fail because they’re talking to the wrong people.

This is Question #1 I ask founders — and the one that kills most ideas before they ever get off the ground:

Are you talking to someone who can actually PAY you?

I see this every week:
• 5 “promising” customer calls
• a design partner asking for custom features — and not paying a dollar
• an unpaid pilot that feels like traction

Founders convince themselves they’re making progress.

Meanwhile, their “customer” has:
 ❌ no budget
 ❌ no urgency
 ❌ no authority
 ❌ no intention of ever buying

They were never a real customer.

In today’s 0→1 Playbook, I break down all 4 questions that separate VC-fundable ideas from side projects — starting with:
🔥 The 5 customer groups (and why only Group 5 buys)
🔥 How to identify the budget owner vs the user
🔥 The 3 other questions that tell you if you’re actually building a VC-backable company

If you’re building or fundraising in the next 12 months, read this before you write another line of code.

👇 The 4 Questions That Separate VC-Fundable Ideas From Side Projects
 (link in comments)

If you’re not sure what group your customers fall into, drop 1–2 sentences — I’ll sanity-check it.

5 months ago, 582 female founders signed up for office hours — in just a few days.

Today? I have a WhatsApp group with those founders that won't stop buzzing.
The energy is unreal. Daily wins. Real-time problem solving. Intros flying. Deals closing.

But here's what's keeping me up at night: I'm still only seeing 13% female CEOs in my Techstars NYC applications.

The community exists. The talent is there. The support system is ACTIVE.
So why aren't more of you applying?

I'm doing this differently this time:
Last round, I scrambled to bring in 3 more Techstars investors to handle 600 founders.
This time? I have more runway — and I’m keeping the session intimate.

If demand spikes, I’ll add more sessions throughout the week. Everyone gets real face time.

AND yes — everyone who joins gets added to the Female Founder Support Group WhatsApp (the one that hasn’t stopped buzzing for 5 months).

📅 Friday, November 14, 12pm ET
⏰ Apps close November 19 - that's in 9 days. Let's fix these numbers 💪

Link to join in comments.

#FemaleFounders #Techstars #LetHerBuild #CommunityOverCompetition #StartupFunding

Honest question for founders doing sales or customer discovery: I'm seeing something interesting across my portfolio and want to test if it's just me.

Founders are booking WAY more calls from personalized LinkedIn connection requests than cold emails — even with the same copy and ICP. Like 3–5 first meetings from 50 LinkedIn requests vs. 0–1 from 50 emails.

My theory: Inbox economics
 → Prospects see ~10 LinkedIn requests/day because LinkedIn limits you to ~100/week (they actually review them)
 → They get 100+ cold emails/day (instant delete)

 Scarcity = attention.

Let's get real data on this 👇
 Comment your stage + rough results:
 "Pre-seed: 5 LinkedIn meetings, 0 from email"
 "Seed: Email still works — 50% reply rate"
 "Series A: LinkedIn 10%, email 2%"

If 20+ founders share, I'll compile everything into a short report for everyone.

Had the chance to spend 3 days at the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Impact Bootcamp Founder Retreat in Half Moon Bay and it was one of the most intentional founder environments I’ve been in this year.

AWS brought together an exceptional group of next-gen founders from Atlanta, NYC, Mexico City, and London for real work: storytelling, hot-seat sessions, and the honest conversations founders rarely get space for while they’re building. These small, high-trust environments accelerate people 6–12 months in a weekend.

I hosted a workshop on sharpening founder narratives for investors and accelerators, but the real credit goes to Lily Yuen Xu, Sara Lila Cordero Porta and the AWS and Techstars teams for creating a container where founders actually move forward.

Grateful to be in the room and excited to keep supporting this work. Programs like this don't just write checks; they create conditions for breakthrough work. More of this in 2026, please.🚀

🏖️ LA Founders — Techstars Office Hours (Mon, Nov 10)

We're hosting a small, invite-only office hours session for early-stage founders next Monday with Gabriel Schlumberger and Allison Kitain. If you’re fundraising or thinking about applying to Techstars, this is your chance to:
 
If you’re fundraising or thinking about applying to Techstars, this is your chance to:
💸 Get direct fundraising feedback from our investment team
🧠  Learn what investors really look for in the Techstars application (closing Nov 19)
🤝 Meet the Techstars team and other top LA pre-seed founders

📍  Culver City
🗓️ Monday, Nov 10 (90-min session)

We’ll confirm attendance by Friday morning — spots are limited!

Techstars invests $220K in every selected company and helps founders get to PMF faster — with alumni like DigitalOcean, ClassPass, and PillPack.

👇  Link to apply in the comments. If you’re an LA founder (or know one who should be there), tag them below

I bet I can tell you why your last customer didn’t buy — in under 5 minutes.

I do this for founders I advise and invest in all the time...
usually only when I'm taking equity.

Free for 3 founders this week.

Drop a comment with:
1️⃣ Your product (1 sentence)
2️⃣ What happened on the call (2-3 sentences — how it went, what they said, what you said)
3️⃣ (Optional) Your question for me — what are you unsure about?

Top 3 most-liked comments by Monday, Nov 24 @ 9pm ET
 → I'll DM you for your recording link

I'll analyze it and tell you:
✅ The question you should’ve asked
✅ Whether this person will ever pay you
✅ The moment you lost (or gained) control of the conversation

Then I'll share anonymized lessons from all 3 in my Dec 10 newsletter.

P.S. This call analysis is one piece. For the complete framework on validating your idea before you build: 👉 https://lnkd.in/eWYzwH-4

Excited to be a Monday Girl mentor! Love the amazing supportive community they’re building of next gen female leaders 👯‍♀️💪

Your next career glow-up starts right here ✨

Our new mentor lineup features NYC’s women at the top of their game from brands like from Notion, Shopify, Block etc…and they’re ready to talk shop.

Members → your dashboard is waiting. Select a session now!

Not a member? → Apply for membership before this year’s cohort closes

Log In 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gGyaDacB
Apply 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gpJQbvZ5

Introducing, your new mentors ⭐
Grace Clarke Head of Community at Shopify
Jennifer Lai Head of Retail NAM at Gymshark
Jenni Lewis Global Director, Inclusion & Diversity at Block
Nancy Chen Marketing Lead at Notion
Milena Brown VP Director of Marketing at Penguin Random House
Priyanka Rao Early Stage AI Investor at H/L Ventures
Christine Lu Hong Sr. Investment Manager at Techstars
Estelle Palandjian Co-Founder & Head of community at CAKE
Natalie Riso Head, Startups & Strategic Partnerships at Rho

taplio

The Battle

Varun Anand

Christine Lu Hong

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Performance ScoreVarun Anand's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreChristine Lu Hong's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Varun Anand

Christine Lu Hong

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Varun Anand's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreChristine Lu Hong's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreVarun Anand's LinkedIn Performance