Jamie Nacht Farrell

CRO at @EMERITUS_INST. Founding Team @TrilogyEdu, @2uinc, @GA. 5 exits in edtech. Super fun mom, wife, and generally a mission driven badass...

[Alexis Ohanian 🗽 @alexisohanian]

This is too real. The difference between "failing" or "succeeding" is determined by the smallest actions. Cold emailing 10 more people, pitching 1 more investor after 50 rejections, or driving an additional $5K in sales. Repost this video 👇

[Jamie Nacht Farrell @EducationNut]

Quote of the morning from Jonathan Finkelstein - "TAMs don't buy things" (in reference to going through a start up pitch). #startups

[Jamie Nacht Farrell @EducationNut]

@PhilOnEdTech Validating my decision not to go this year (while I am in the throes of FOMO). That was a hilarious comment

[Phil Hill @PhilOnEdTech]

I’m considering offering a $750k seed round in exchange for a bar table #asugsvsummit

[Darren Marble @darrenmarble]

Exited founder giving advice to a first-time founder 😆

[eve @eveforamerica]

“1/3 of the music industry is connected to Diddy’s lawsuit?”

[Neuralink @neuralink]

https://t.co/OMIeGGjYtG

[Jen Abel @jjen_abel]

planning and strategy are waste of time for pre-pmf startups — knowing where to start with vision is critical, of course — everything else is learned with market experiments and execution

everyday not running sales activities adds 2-3 days from achieving revenue

market will invalidate thinking at 2-3X speed of what you’ll spend hypothesizing

i know many will suggest otherwise — but I’ve seen it 300x over

[Alexis Ohanian 🗽 @alexisohanian]

Today's founders sometimes need different types of support and expertise than I did as a first-time CEO (back in 2005!), but certain things are always going to be the same.

The biggest thing that's still true?

The value of having the right person, with the right expertise, in the room with you at the right time.

[Jen Abel @jjen_abel]

early-stage startups:
it's all about depth, not breadth

it's impossible to know what's working
and what's not working unless
you're going deep enough

this is why 'horizontal' startups
or startups seeking to serve multiple ICPs
or use cases are really, really hard
and stacking odds against yourself

it's challenging enough to understand
one ideal customer group well
let alone multiple groups who each require
a different go-to-market, product feedback, etc.

this is what is referred to as
the "bowling pin strategy"
coined by Geoffrey Moore
knock down the first pin and use that momentum to knock down adjacent pins over time

[Alexis Ohanian 🗽 @alexisohanian]

The secret ingredient for successful early stage investment?

Intuition.

When you're the first person to invest in a new company, you don't have a track record to look at or much data to examine – instead, you have to make those early decisions based on intuition.

Intuition, though, isn't a magic trick. Like anything else, it's a skill you need to hone and develop. Contrary to popular belief, you can quantify intuition AND build a performance culture around it.

At @sevensevensix, each time we invest in a portco after a pitch, we ask everybody who was in the pitch meeting to grade the founders:

→ How did this person communicate?
→ How resilient do they seem?
→ How coachable vs. stubborn is this founder? (there's a sweet spot)

If we fund this company, Cerebro automatically sends everyone on the investment team a survey six months later asking them to grade the founders again — now that they've actually worked with them.

Then, we show them the side-by-side of their original grades from the pitch and how they'd evaluate them today after working with them.

This helps show us what we got right—but also, what we got WRONG.

For example, maybe we thought a founder was going to be a great communicator because they delivered their pitch like a pro—but, six months later, they seem to be unable to get a dialogue going with their own co-founder. Oops.

It's REALLY important to clock those discrepancies, though. To learn and keep learning from what we got right AND what we got wrong. It hones our intuition, building it like a muscle.

This process keeps us fit as early stage investors. I was very lucky because I cut my teeth as a YC partner for years and saw thousands of pitches and made thousands of decisions (right and wrong) before ever starting my own fund. I've been successful because I got a LOT of reps. Now I'm building software to scale that to the entire team here at 776.

[Katherine Brodsky @mysteriouskat]

https://t.co/F457Yp6Rbc

[Jamie Nacht Farrell @EducationNut]

@matthaggman @AcquiredFM Totally. Finished in a day. Any other recs / similar?

[Lee Harris @LeeHarris]

This is utterly brilliant. A student accuses @jk_rowling of being transphobic. This teacher skilfully dissects the claim and challenges it by asking questions.

He teaches not what to think, but how to think critically.

Watch until the end.
You see the epiphany in real-time.

[Jamie Nacht Farrell @EducationNut]

I just subscribed to ETCH https://t.co/9So0AJeWp1

[Jamie Nacht Farrell @EducationNut]

https://t.co/COteSGDtvT

[Jamie Nacht Farrell @EducationNut]

@jjen_abel How do you get people that will run through walls if they are not all in? Hard for first time founders to build that, no? You talking sales or all roles? Who do you define as core team? This is a fun one.

[Jamie Nacht Farrell @EducationNut]

Coercion https://t.co/yqxtooIKQb

[Jamie Nacht Farrell @EducationNut]

@Superhuman How do I schedule directly from IPad app?

[Jamie Nacht Farrell @EducationNut]

@automattic there’s a bug on the “text” app. Not allowing google sign up or login.