Liz O'Sullivan

TryNow.com Weekly Update ⚡ • Hosted a great dinner for 20+ brand operators in NYC last night with Eli Weiss. Thanks for coming out Jeff Hansen, Alice Kim, Vanessa Alvarez, Katrina Caraboolad, Ian Laya, Loris Spadaccini, Arjan Singh, Timothy W. Schifter, Laurie Mucciolo, Madeline Placik, Kyle Goldman, Nicole (Nico) ✨ S., John Wong, Michael De Santis, Adrian Aidid and many more. • If you've been following along, you know that we made a big shift towards product-led engineering towards the end of Q1. This means that as a company we spend more time describing problems rather than prescribing solutions (shout out to Steve Davis at TryNow for this sound articulation) and empower engineering to fully own the solution. By defining the problem in detail, solutions can more naturally flow out of that work. Shifts like this are by no means immediate, and this week capped off a month of very strong product-led engineering. Keep an eye out for improvements to self-service onboarding, enhancements to TryNow Insights Dashboard, and some impactful improvements to our automated capture process. A few companies that inspired this cultural shift towards product-led engineering are PostHog and Ramp, two very different companies that share a product development velocity that we admire. • Incredible week in NYC with Ian Schneider, Director of GTM at TryNow. At dinner last night, a prospective customer came up to us and shared praise for our sales process. He mentioned that we don't "sell", we don't apply any pressure, and we're the most customer-centric vendor he knows. Now, I know there's a lot of improvements we can and should make to our GTM motion to ensure we're always putting the customer at the center. But we're on our way. Keep it up, Ian 🤜 #TryBeforeYouBuy #TryNewThings #Shopify

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🚀 Introducing the Boston AI Forum's New "Ask & Offer" System! 🤝 We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the "Ask & Offer" System at the Boston AI Forum! 🎉 This feature is designed to help our community members share requests and resources more effectively. 💡 Here’s how it works: Initially, this feature will be managed via LinkedIn posts to ensure ease of use and accessibility for everyone. In the future, we’ll migrate this system to a dedicated platform for even smoother operations. Stay tuned! 🌐 Each post will include a unique ID (e.g., BAI-2024-12-19-01) for streamlined tracking and responses. Whether you're: 🔍 Recruiting top talent or Co-Founder, 🎟️ Promoting an event, or 🌐 Seeking valuable connections, this system ensures you connect with the right audience, seamlessly! 📋 Approval Process: To maintain quality and ensure alignment with our forum standards, please contact me for sharing. This allows us to review and refine requests for the best impact. 🙏 Together, let’s make the Boston AI Forum a streamlined and collaborative hub for innovation! 🌟 📣 Spotlight Example: Request ID: BAI-2024-12-19-01 Category: Co-Founder Recruitment 🚨 Seeking Co-Founder with AI or Medical Product Sales Expertise (Seed-Funded) We’re a Yale-based team combining AI technology with medical innovation and are looking for a co-founder with one of these backgrounds: 1️⃣ AI Technology: Experience with AI research or applications (prior projects are a plus). 2️⃣ Medical Product Sales: Expertise in healthcare markets, sales experience, or strong channel relationships. 💰 Seed-funded and ready to grow! If you or someone you know fits this profile, let’s connect! 📨 To Apply: Share your resume or LinkedIn profile. Include a brief self-introduction (experience + interest in the project). Provide your preferred contact details. 📅 Deadline: Initial contact by December 31, 2024 is preferred. 📧 Contact: DM me here. Let’s build something incredible together! 🙌 #BAI #BostonAIForum #AICommunity #NetworkingOpportunities #CollaborationPlatform #InnovationHub #AskAndOffer #StartupRecruitment #TechInnovation #AILeadership #MedicalTech #YaleStartups #CoFounderSearch #SeedFunding #AIStartups #HealthcareInnovation #Entrepreneurship #TechConnections #FutureOfAI #AIandHealthcare

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Had a surprising and unique interaction tonight. It was at a dinner for AI founders and investors from the Boston area. Someone spoke about the differences between east coast and west coast VCs and said the MA government needed to spend more and the Boston area VCs needed to do a better job supporting companies (I think that was the point). They started by saying that the VCs on the panel added no value. (Maybe with an expletive in there too!) I raised my hand shared a slightly different view, that distinctions in regional investing would diminish as things became increasingly globalized (or at least nationalized, instead of metropolitan hubs) and that it’s not hard to reach out if you use zoom and are willing to fly (and have gotten term sheets and raised rounds from both coasts without it being too hard) After the panel (which was a good one and more engaging than many I’ve seen!) that person came up to me and asked if I was the guy who made that comment. When I confirmed I was, they matter of factoy (but with some intensity) said “You don’t have a f*%^ing clue what you’re talking about.” Hadn’t had an experience like that before, but I guess there’s a first time for everything! The happy ending to the story is 1) I was calm and polite (not sure that would’ve been my response in my 20’s!) and 2) After we talked a little about our backgrounds and the issues, the individual totally changed their approach and said some kind things and (I think) retracted their hostile view of me. Honestly I appreciated that they were willing to have bold, contrarian positions and share them publicly. Many are too afraid to do so and despite the “contrarian” reputations investors have, many just follow the herd and chase trends. Finding someone who thinks differently and is willing to publicly pursue a less common viewpoint (backed by deep experience) and risk personal capital is admirable. Just maybe with the f bombs. 😏

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We spent $75,000 on a logo that we accidentally (maybe?) stole from Leonardo DiCaprio. In 2022, we spent months working with one of the top design agencies in NYC. We went well above our budget because we loved the agency, and believed they could craft the perfect logo for our company rebrand. The whole team was pumped. We had everything ready to go. - New website - Business cards - Branded swag - Launch emails drafted ... All of this scheduled for a regular Monday morning Then, on Sunday night, I got a call from a co-worker who saw that Leo had just launched a new Climate Tech VC fund.... WITH OUR EXACT LOGO I am talking about the same exact logo. Not similar. Not inspired by... IDENTICAL. Every curve, color, and detail was a replica of our $75k design. This was statistically impossible to happen. Two teams, independently creating the exact same unique logo, and planning to launch one day apart? We investigated how this was possible and we never found a connection or any way this could have happened. The agency was stunned. We even called Leo's fund and they couldn't find a connection or how this was possible. I don't actually think Leo or his team stole our logo. I also don't think our agency stole it from him. The timing makes it virtually impossible. But try explaining that to our design team who spent months on this. 🤯 We had to scramble to create a new logo at the last minute. It was pure chaos. There is a silver lining though - the new logo ended up being even better. 👉 I guess sometimes the craziest setbacks lead to better outcomes. This is just one of the crazy stories we had to overcome at Broadlume.

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Awesome to get to share a stage last night with Jennifer Li (Andreessen Horowitz), Robert Clarkson (Stripe), and Colin Kennedy (Ramp) talking about GTM motions at NY Tech Week. If you missed it, here’s the TLDR.. Rob dropping some bombs about how your buyer changes your selling motion. If you are selling directly to the company, show them how your product can help them. But if you selling to company's customers, show them how you can make their customer's lives better. So obvious when you hear it! Colin showcasing the power of alignment between GTM, product and marketing creating world class products that together, sell themselves, and let your customers sell for you. Ramp is a shining example of bringing this to life. As we bring this to early stage founders, you never know exactly what’s going to work, but you have to prepare for something to work. And when it does, it's time to pour fuel on the fire. And by prepare, I mean have a data room ready to go so you can fundraise quickly to add fuel to the fire. For example, here’s a walk through of the data room we have to always be “fundraise ready” at Puzzle, as you never know when that moment hits... 👇

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Do politics matter in dating? 72% of CMB Daters think so. Check out our feature in Mashable for more insights on how politics affect dating. cc: Anna Iovine

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Last year I put together as comprehensive of a list as I could of every single active venture backed startup in Boston over the last 5+ years. Very useful exercise! ...very difficult to maintain. Friends of LinkedIn - do you know of a tool that can automatically & publicly update this table for me weekly to keep the people of Boston informed of their venture backed population? I will highlight the tool on the page to the hundreds (soon thousands) of people that view it every month! Link to the manual version here: https://lnkd.in/ek9wSfUD The AI should also be able to answer this question: Which weighs more? A pound of bricks or a pound of feathers? Happy Friday to you!

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A timely question for my fellow civic-tech friends Following New York Governor's last minute decision to postpone indefinitely (I think this means "cancel") congestion pricing in New York City, some concerned citizens are trying to voice their concerns by reaching out to the governor's office and elected officials representing them. The way to proceed is as follows, to the best of my understanding - find who represents you and get the phone number(s) for their office - call their office and hope that someone will pick up the phone - if this happens, a staffer will listen to you, take notes and (I assume) relay your concerns to their boss Note that in most cases, you may want to read a short script prepared for you by a civic organization (like BetaNYC [1]) with full knowledge of the issue. This is a lot of work on your end. This is a lot of work on the staff's end. In this day and age, can't we have something better? Raising your concern should be easy as clicking on a link shared on social media, proving your identify, answering a few questions and pressing "submit". New York State is using Okta to provide single-sign-on across all its services. Building an app leveraging Okta is pretty straightforward. They have tons of such examples on their website. Why can't we have this today? This is easier for constituents. This is easier for staff members. If the feedback comes in the form of a poll, it is trivial to tally the result. For free text content, yes, could use Large Language Models (LLMs) to provide sentiment analysis and summarization. And each entry has been vetted and corresponds to a real human New Yorker. Why can't we have this today? [1] https://lnkd.in/eTupP57s

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Couldn't agree more! The National Public Data breach highlights two critical issues: 1. The 3rd-party risk from data brokers handling vast amounts of PII, where every data copy increases exposure. 2. The limitations of traditional cybersecurity, which focuses on access but not protection post-breach. Embedding Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs) directly into data operations is essential—minimizing PII copies and adding a critical layer of security, even if access is compromised. In today’s complex data landscape, it’s not just about keeping hackers out, but ensuring sensitive data stays protected if they get in. #DataSecurity

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It's exciting (and challenging) to keep up with all the exciting news and events at #climateweeknyc . At The PI (Planetary Intelligence) we're using climate science, case studies, reports and research as training data to harness and make actionable the intelligence of all of the best practices from the global climate community. An excellent example of best practices training data useful in teaching PI is this report just out from University of Exeter on #positivetippingpoints and the cascade of progress we make when we scale best practices in climate solutions. https://brnw.ch/21wN5i9 We need to avoid repeating/investing in lessons that have already been learned in solutions deployments from cities and corporates around the world. It's time to #sharebestpractices in what works, where, in which combination, to #scaleclimatesolutions and democratise access to #climateintelligence PI recommends the precise interventions to solve broad ranging climate/sustainability challenges faced by business and local government. PI has over 20,000 solutions and matches each by challenge, location and sectoral context. We don’t need another machine to learn on ALL of the data, just the right data for our sustainable future: lessons in what works and what doesn’t. We’re teaching PI to design the fastest path to Zero Emissions/Zero Waste/Zero Pollution by context and constraint - while respecting revenues, relationships, resilience, and nature regeneration. Join us as a beta user of PI to ensure your organisation or local community/city ambitions/progress helps teach others how to accelerate our collective #racetozero Learn more at www.fpi.earth and follow our progress The PI (Planetary Intelligence) Connect directly with me this week in #climateweeknyc to discuss #partnershipsforthegoals and to include your #climateambitions and best practices in PI's training data. Sandrine Dixson-DeclèveRainer KarcherPiers CumberlegeMichelle Del ValleMichalLeanne HickmanAnne-Caroline DuplatProf. Rajiv JoshiMichal Nachmany, PhDClover HoganCarine de Meyere🌳 Lisa Rabone - Sustainability in Data (SiD)Mange KumarasamyEarth4AllDeborah Sass

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I AM LOOKING FOR FUNDING IDEAS FOR CIVIC CHAT - A SOFTWARE APPLICATION PROJECT FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD: Civic Chat has the following objectives: • To be a catalyst for increasing the level of citizen participation in the American political system, • By helping potential voters learn how government works at local, state and national levels, • Helping them learn the positions of incumbents and political candidates on key issues • And discovering which candidates match their own positions more or less closely • By talking to their phone or computer In their native language Civic Chat will also: • Give a team of HBCU students hands-on experience working on cutting-edge technologies to build and deliver a world-class software application that creates meaningful value to our society, • Introduce the country to the idea of mainstream software conceived and coded by Black Technologists • Be open sourced so that others can extend it with new features and / or to support communities not covered by the initial release For more details and a link to the demo site and video, visit https://lnkd.in/egY-b4my, and if you know of any SPECIFIC opportunities or individuals (not easily searched or commonly known) who support initiatives at the intersection of Technology and Civic Engagement, I would greatly appreciate your insight or assistance. Thanks! - Ken

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It turns out, the Long Island Sound IS water. For these and other insights, check out this post about our seed funding round. 😬 #startups #fundraising #newyork

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Jounce Media's newly published State of the Open Internet Report explains the industry’s chronic bidstream congestion issue and how to address it. This latest research highlights the trend toward consolidation we are seeing on the supply side and is a must-read.

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As I prepare to fly back to Boston from CMS Connect 2024, I'm still digesting everything I took away from presentations and conversations of the past 48 hours. It's been incredibly enriching to hear what's up next from leading content management systems like dotCMS, developer tools like Netlify, emerging products like ai12z, and industry icons like Dries Buytaert. My main takeaway is that all of us who seek to create better, more accessible web experiences still have plenty of work to do. Many human-technology challenges remain unsolved. And the priorities of developers and content teams still aren't completely aligned, despite years of effort in solving. Other takeaways: - While we still have work to do to address the tensions between the goals of marketers and the priorities of engineers, the future is bright and investment is happening, fast. - Having a web content and asset management strategy is critical to any consumer facing AI strategy. Things that benefit UX like taxonomy, ontology, and content hierarchy also form a critical foundation for AI-readiness. - AI offers enormous potential to better serve users if yielded responsibly, and is driving real progress in our industry by the day. And our industry sees the problems with clear eyes. Major thanks to Janus Boye and Matthew Garrepy for bringing together such a great group and facilitating such a productive agenda. Definitely one of the best events I've ever participated in.

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Another great Boston Generative AI meetup with Judah Phillips. He assembled a great panel Clement Cazalot from Machinery Partner, Patricia Geli from C10 Labs, Jeff Catlin from InMoment, Nathan Treloar from Orbita Questions and Answers included Healthcare and biotech using generative AI and the challenges East Coast vs West in the AI race: which cost is better to live and work in? How Massachusetts is working with the government to be an AI leader. A vital answer from the panelists for AI startups is that it is essential to build abstract layers as generative #AI models are constantly changing rapidly. You never want to be locked into one model. The best statement came from the last meetup when a panelist stated, "We are in the first inning of the AI game." What we see today will be vastly different one year from now. #WSIWorld #generativeAI

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Are you in town for Generative AI World 2024 in Boston? Say hi at Woodstock - AI Woodstock, that is. Link below #ai #genai

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Little scheduling hot tip for my fellow indie consultants and friends who might be juggling multiple calendars! When I started consulting on my own, it was mostly NBD, I did everything from my personal gmail account. Then, things picked up and I realized I needed a separate calendar and inbox for my different projects that didn't get swallowed up by spam and newsletters and personal reminders. AND THEN, I took on my work as interim president at Rewire, and things got even more complicated calendar-wise. I used Calendly for a while, but the free version is only good for one calendar and one kind of scheduling link, and here I was managing three calendars and desperate for more options. The idea of creating duplicate appointments across all three calendars made me want to walk into the sea, so I started doing some research. That's when I found Reclaim.ai. And no, this is not a paid post, however if they are looking for influencers I AM AVAILABLE. This tool has changed my calendaring life, and that means a lot coming from a double Gemini/Cap rising. Not only has it helped me sync all three calendars, it also has three different types of meetings you can choose from when you send a scheduling link. The free version for individuals and sole-proprietors like me is so much more functional. And that's your Monday hot tip ;) https://reclaim.ai/

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Today, Perplexity announced a dedicated hub for U.S. general election information. Populated by data from The Associated Press and Democracy Works, the company described it in a blog as “an entry point for understanding key issues.” “Starting Tuesday, we’ll be offering live updates on elections by leveraging data from The Associated Press so you can stay informed on presidential, senate, and house races at both a state and national level,” Perplexity wrote. “Thank you to Democracy Works for granting us access to your Elections API to help power these experiences.” In a July study, the Center for Democracy and Technology found that, in response to 77 different election-related queries, more than a third of answers generated by AI chatbots including Anthropic’s Claude and Google Gemini included incorrect information. #perplexity #ai #genai #tech #news #elections #presidentialelections https://lnkd.in/eQpm9xyT

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On my flight back to the East Coast this week I inadvertently got to preview the board packet for a leading global publicly traded CPG. With an easily recognizable logo, the 'private and confidential' labels appearing occasionally throughout the deck didn't do much to assure privacy & confidentiality. I wasn't trying to snoop: the dimmed cabin lights for most of the flight, our respective seat positions, and the board director's very large unprotected screen set to maximum brightness made it near impossible not to pick up the agenda, areas of focus (predictably there were various ESG initiative roundups, a laughably simplistic view (incl. KPIs) of various AI initiatives (since this is an area I can speak to with authority, it didn't give me much confidence in the rest of the company's plans), the usual 'highlights from local markets', personnel updates that haven't been announced yet, and a smattering of various financials. If you're a senior executive or a board director, please, please, please invest in a screen privacy shield. They're ~$20 (~$50 if you want the 'fanciest' one) and can shield your screens from eyes that shouldn't be on them. Buy them for your teams. Talk about ways to mitigate accidental information oversharing. Make your people aware of particularly sensitive routes (for example, if you're a pharma/biotech executive flying b/w two industry hub cities like Boston and Zurich, keep that laptop under a blanket & don't discuss work in the airport lounge). Perhaps the company's next board packet could include a few slides and recommendations on operational security best practices. #datasecurity #boardofdirectors #bod #boardpackets #corporategovernance #confidentiality #sensitiveinformation #opsec #informationleakeage

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