Janine Co

Marketing @TryPallet | @IRONMANtri

[Janine Co @ja9co]

1/ A month ago, I landed a full-time PM offer @Microsoft based on competence, not credentials.

I had a very unusual path to PM, but I’m humbled by how much I’ve learned to get here. A thread that I hope may help other aspiring PMs out 👇🏻

[Janine Co @ja9co]

@matt_feroz Was great to finally meet you!!

[Janine Co @ja9co]

Founder energy, but never too big to say hi to everyone in line. @swartzcenter, thanks for hosting!!

[Janine Co @ja9co]

29 today, and a lifetime of vo2maxxing

[Janine Co @ja9co]

One of my favourite things about working at @TryPallet is realizing how much of the company exists because someone refused to settle for "good enough."

[Sushanth Raman @SushanthRaman]

Two years ago, @TryPallet was growing fast, but I decided we needed to start over. It was a period that I haven't shared much about until now.

Deep down, I knew we had built a good business, but not an outlier company. Almost no one agreed. My teammates lost faith and left. One investor even threatened to sue us. At the time, it felt like the riskiest decision I could make.

Looking back, staying the course would have meant optimizing a business I knew had a ceiling.

In the first year after the pivot, we went from $0 to $10M+ ARR and started working with some of the largest companies in the physical economy. To every teammate, and to @kevinzhang and @BainCapVC: thank you for the work and conviction that got us through our darkest hour.

[Janine Co @ja9co]

I still think about this every day. From @GustavS.

[Josh Elman @joshelman]

https://t.co/8zuACcwHGR

[Janine Co @ja9co]

Less vibe coding, more irl building

[Janine Co @ja9co]

@davidfromkansas @OpenAI @ChatGPT This is giving Restaurant City in a good way

[Janine Co @ja9co]

I think there are two variables before effort: agency and access.

Agency can help you find the opportunity, but at some point, someone has to give you a shot.

[Alfred Lin @Alfred_Lin]

If you want your company to be gritty: create a gritty culture, hire gritty people, and celebrate gritty achievements. https://t.co/KLN7iC7zlK

[Janine Co @ja9co]

Cool people I’ve met in SF recently

@aronkor
@davidfromkansas
@kungzhaochicken
@SkratchLabs x @movemint_cc

[Janine Co @ja9co]

@davidfromkansas Really cool, David!

[Janine Co @ja9co]

https://t.co/tWUrpvZO7o

[Janine Co @ja9co]

This reminded me of something @pmarca wrote almost 20 years ago: "Go to where all the action is happening."

The internet made us think geography matters less, but I'm increasingly convinced we underestimate how much it matters for ambitious people.

Your environment sets your reference point for what's normal and possible. Spend enough time around ambitious people, and the path of least resistance starts pointing toward your goals.

It's the same with @IRONMANtri. Suddenly everyone you know has done one, and what used to feel extreme is just the baseline.

[Aporia @aporia9n]

If you’re in your 20s (and ambitious) do everything to move to those 4 cities

Yes people will mog you for paying extortionate rents for such little comfort but who cares, you’re not everyone, you’re on a mission, you’re here for greatness

London/NYC/Paris/SF are basically the golden 4. They’re not just big cities, they’re global sorting machines. People move there from all over the world because they want sth badly enough to accept all the downsides. The guy born in London can be lazy. But the 26yo Frenchman, Indian, American, Italian, Nigerian, Lebanese etc who voluntarily accepts the tiny flat, shit commute and absurd rent to be there has already self-selected pretty hard

And that selection compounds. I felt it instantly moving from my hometown in France to London. Growing up I was always “the ambitious one” in my friend group. Then you arrive in London and suddenly you feel extremely average. Everyone is trying to do sth. Completely changes your reference point for what a normal person can achieve

The other thing is just how many serious games are happening at once. If you know at 22 that you’re going to be a semiconductor engineer forever, maybe there are better specialised places. But most ambitious 24yos have absolutely no clue what game they’ll eventually want to play. In London/NYC/Paris you can accidentally become friends with people in PE, startups, politics, law, media, fashion, pharma, academia etc. Your finance friend dates someone in fashion, their roommate is building a startup, you meet someone in politics at dinner. Suddenly 5 completely different lives feel plausible

That’s insanely valuable when you’re young precisely because you don’t yet know which people / industries / opportunities will matter to your 34yo self

SF is the weird exception because it’s basically one giant concentrated bet on tech/AI. Much narrower than the other 3, but that game is so asymmetric rn that it deserves its spot. If you want to build at the frontier there’s probably no other place where your reference class changes that aggressively

And yh everyone keeps saying the internet made geography irrelevant. Maybe for information. Definitely not for trust/friendship. Anyone can learn from the same people online now, send the same cold DM, follow the same accounts. Much harder to replicate being the guy someone has had 20 dinners with, worked with, travelled with, introduced to friends and randomly bumped into for 5 years

When you’re 24 and nobody knows who tf you are, geography can do a lot of the work for you. You get invited because your colleague knows someone. You end up at a dinner because your friend needs a +1. Someone you met 3 years ago leaves and starts a company. Another moves to NYC. Another becomes a partner somewhere. Most of the ROI is completely impossible to predict upfront

Basically before you have your own gravity, borrow the city’s

At 45, if you’ve built the company / reputation / money / audience / network, you can go live in Tuscany, Mallorca, South of France or wherever and people will come to you. At 24 no one is coming lol. You should probably be where everything is happening

And tbh if you have the ability to move I wouldn’t spend 3 years waiting for the perfect job / apartment / timing. Get the shitty room, accept being poorer for a while, figure it out once you’re there. Your 20s are probably the cheapest years of your life to tolerate inconvenience anyway

You can optimise sqm, weather and comfort later

At 24 I’d rather maximise how many possible lives are available to me

[Janine Co @ja9co]

The best brand marketing starts by responding to culture, but eventually creates a culture of its own.

Being early and knowing what's happening online matters, but the real magic is building such a distinct voice and worldview that people understand how your company sees the world, especially as products and features become easier to replicate.

[Nikunj Kothari @nikunj]

My hottest take is that brand marketing is going to be THE major differentiator and one of the most prized assets for a company going forward.

And, I’m not talking about launch videos or pouring money primarily for “aesthetics” simply to pump the valuation. You still need retention before attention.

I’m talking about thinking through what a company stands for and understanding the “vibe” of what’s happening in the market. Being relentless on the long term goal while also thinking through how to showcase the company in the short term. And doing it every week.

Especially if you think agents become the primary user for most products, then to get the attention of a rapidly attention deficit audience (aka humans) you’ll need to stand out consistently in how you present the company.

These folks primary have been given tier 2 roles and passed up for CMOs many many times. I think this will finally invert in the next 10 years where you’ll hire these folks as cofounders or at least give them a big seat at the table.

Normally the design centric CEO tends to be this, but those are rare and you’ll need to learn how to hire for this role. Just like a good product marketer, these are exceptionally rare so you have one hold them close!!

[Janine Co @ja9co]

Founders are looking for the wrong people.

1. Hire interesting people and let them have interesting ideas in public.

2. The best company content shouldn't scale. Scale it too hard, and you get slop. Efficiency is the enemy of taste.

[Rob Hoffman @RobHoffman_]

every tech company on earth right now wants to hire someone who can turn their expertise into viral content across LinkedIn, X, and YouTube

I call them “Inbound Engineers”

their job is to extract your company’s unique knowledge and value props, and distribute it through an efficient system that earns attention

it is the most valuable role in tech right now but most founders have no idea where to find these people

they’re hard to find because their job requires a unique skill stack: marketing + copywriting + psychology + taste +
agentic systems building

are you also trying to find one of these people?

like this tweet so I know I'm not alone 🥲

[Janine Co @ja9co]

@LubaYudasina @LubaYudasina We would love to host you at @TryPallet. Lmk!

[Janine Co @ja9co]

Every VC adding "childhood ketchup consumption" to the founder due diligence checklist

[sourcery @sourceryy]

Keith @rabois explains his Ketchup theory:

"I still believe that ketchup is really good for you when you're a kid. People who are successful were eating a lot of ketchup when they were young."

"Malcolm @Gladwell also has a chapter on how ketchup is the perfect food."

" I've just noticed observationally that when I talk with some of my friends, I'm like, 'How much ketchup did you have when you were a kid?'"

[Janine Co @ja9co]

@RocketBlocks @lennysan @stripe @IRONMANtri @TryPallet The best part is Kevin is exactly how he comes across online. Incredibly kind, humble, and wise. Left the convo thinking I hope I'm that kind of person when I'm his age.

Also can confirm he looks exactly like his pfp!

[Janine Co @ja9co]

Kinda wild that I finally met @kevinyien irl after meeting him virtually 5 years ago.

I was reading Kevin’s stuff before I even pivoted into PM. Finding your swagger, the unsell email, etc. Everything he writes is so good. Timeless but also very human.

[Janine Co @ja9co]

One of my favourite forms of "networking" is watching people grow over the years.

I watched Kevin go from @RocketBlocks, @lennysan's podcast, then product leader @stripe.

Meanwhile I went from PM, @IRONMANtri, layoffs, then marketing @TryPallet.

[Ivan Zhang @1vnzh]

SF was promised AGI but got ABGs instead