Hi founders and fellow VC Friends!
Each week we deliver one awesome person to your inbox. These are the people you need to know—the marketers, sales gurus, engineers, ops wizzes— who give your startup superpowers 🚀. The best part is, everyone is hireable on an interim basis.
Please meet Michal, Your Comms, Brand, & Fundraising Pro 🔥
I met Michal via Tommy Leep, a dear friend and climate investor. They’ve known each other since kindergarten — this crew runs deep!
Michal helps startups with fundraising narrative, messaging, and media relations. Most recently he helped BeeHero land their $4M seed round and Albedo Satellite Imagery close their $10M seed round.
Previously, he ran all marketing communications for Waze — from their US launch through its $1.1B acquisition by Google. He also worked with Moovit, leading to its $900M acquisition by Intel, and did the brand work to get Spire Health Tags into every Apple Store globally. Throughout his career, he’s helped his clients raise $155M+ in funding and been part of $6B+ in startups exits to Google, Intel, Nokia, Dell, eBay, and Synaptics.
Fun facts: he launched 50Cent's remix app back when apps were hot and he volunteers with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America to help his community.
You can hire him to help you raise early-stage venture capital (pre-seed through Series B), define your product and brand voice, and show you how to get TechCrunch to cover you.
Want an intro to Michal? Reply to this email and I’ll connect you!
He graciously offered to share 3 pro-tips 🙏
Fundraising is all about storytelling
Don’t fall into the trap of creating a beautiful pitch deck before you have your actual pitch.
For example, AI company Fido.ai, (acquired by Samurai Labs in 2018) designed the visuals for their deck before crafting the narrative that investors would hear. Committing to visuals before identifying and understanding your fundraising story is a major no-no.
I worked closely with Fido.ai to help them reimagine their fundraising story and develop a compelling narrative that appealed to investors.
By being intentional every step of the way, we came up with the tagline "Decoding the Human Internet" and raised $1.6M in seed funding.
After you have your narrative, practice your pitch in the mirror without judgment or distraction. Train yourself to maintain eye contact and keep your audience engaged. Boardroom confidence comes from within. It manifests in eye contact and composure.
When it comes to deck design, you don’t need anything fancy. You can use resources flaticon.com for vector graphics, designer.io for user-friendly design tools, and Canva for deck templates.
Effective branding is simple and inspiring
Keep your words short and uplifting. We remember brands that are approachable and make us feel strong, safe, and empowered.
Here are some great examples:
“Shave Time. Shave Money.” - Dollar Shave Club
“Challenge Everything.” - EA Games
“Because You’re Worth It.” - L’Oreal
Navigation app Waze was initially an open-source GPS tool for mapping red-light cameras in Israel. It had no brand or anything memorable.
By the time Waze raised its $25M Series B a lot had changed within the company. It was no longer just red-light camera tracking. Waze offered a variety of new features including real-time traffic data and was challenging major companies like Google , MapQuest, and Tele Atlas.
It was time for Waze to differentiate itself with a strong brand voice. We started by initiating the dialogue around an entirely new category “Traffic apps” and created the tagline "Outsmarting Traffic, Together." This tagline would ultimately become the basis for the entire community-driven brand.
For more tips on communicating your brand’s proposition, reference Simon Sinek’s excellent TED talk on Golden Circle Thinking.
Successful PR is about building relationships with journalists before you need them
Sending out generic, cold emails to reporters is a waste of your time and the journalists’.
The best way to cultivate a relationship with a journalist is to discuss topics they care about — well before you need them to write about you or your product.
Keep in mind that journalists are also human. They have plenty of non-work-related hobbies and interests. You can build a meaningful relationship with a journalist by engaging with them on social media about non-work-related topics.
For a full year before the launch of Waze's Ad product, I engaged with reporters on a near-daily basis by commenting on their articles and reaching out. Through this process, I was able to gauge their interest in covering Waze's Ad product before pitching them months down the road.
Ultimately, our launch received tons of positive press without the surprise or mess of politically charged headlines suggesting that Waze Ads would distract drivers.
In-person relationships, outside of the office, can be powerful too. When I learned that a senior tech journalist for CNN in Silicon Valley was in my sister's graduating class, I reached out and suggested coffee. She accepted, and we had a wonderful meeting. We didn’t talk about work, we only talked about our shared interest in emerging hardware.
I’d created a meaningful connection that would be important in the future. Once I began working with Spire Health, I knew I could reach out without feeling like a salesperson. I emailed her about the potential of Spire’s miracle technology and she immediately sent our CEO a blank email with the subject line "re: Michal - you got the right guy."
Want an intro to Michal? Reply to this email and I’ll connect you!
As always, let me know if you have any questions and if you want an intro to any of the folks in this email (including the PS section 🎉).
Stay awesome,
Founder of Awesome People Ventures (join the syndicate here)
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Awesome People continued 🚀
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Vicky is your content strategist. Most recently she helped start and launch Currant, a very cool food publication -- it’s a great blend of artsy, techy, and worldly. Over the course of her career, she’s led creative marketing campaigns for B2B and DTC companies
Katya is (also) your content strategist and copywriter. Most recently, Katya managed all of Tesla’s internal communications — everything from the internal website redesign, to company-wide emails, to employee onboarding.
Brian works with founders to become high-performing and conscious leaders. He’s been a founder, VC, and product manager. Most recently, as a coach, he’s helped multiple founders close their Series As and scale their teams.
Want intros to anyone here? Lmk and I’ll connect you!
Full-time hires
Powered by Talent Drops
Looking for some full-time talent? My friend Vedika from Weekend Fund just launched the latest Talent Drop and it’s 😍.
Talent Drops anonymously features top talent looking for their next thing.
A Software Engineer at Facebook who implemented onboarding of new businesses generating $XB in revenue
A seasoned operations executive with go-to-market, launch, P&L, and large org experience, most recently at Uber
A Data Scientist at FAANG with experience applying ML + deep learning technologies
A clinical design & product strategy expert who launched One Medical's mental health strategy; Behavioral scientist with Irrational Labs
A Senior Product Manager at Google who led product launches in ads, search ranking & discovery
An experienced operator leading product for the largest health-tech startup in India
A Chief Operating Officer at a global major with over 500M USD in P&L. Currently building new IoT business line with 50% YoY growth
A well-rounded product/marketing leader with a background in product positioning, research, growth, storytelling, and analytics across leading tech and financial services companies including Google and Amazon
A VC with an operator’s DNA. Led all things product, tech, strategy, and comms to enable inorganic growth. Built networks and ecosystems. Spent a decade in the Valley at the intersection of Product, Design, & Engineering
Want an intro to one of these rockstars we’ve highlighted below? Hit up the Talent Drops team here.
Part-time opportunities
Want to make some extra $$$ and work on interesting projects? The Awesome People job board is filled with awesome flexible advising and consulting roles. They’re perfect for fun-employed folks, self-employed folks, and moonlighters!
Awesome People Bounty Board
Yes! That’s right! Get paid to do cool shit for awesome people. Help with this newsletter, work on deals, or suggest whatever you want. Check out the bounty board and respond to this email with how you want to get involved!
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