Janet Lee

head of GTM @withdaydreamco • founder @startdoingwell

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

Canva has 55M+ active users.

You're probably one of them.

Here are 8 Canva hacks you should know about ✍️

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

@jordan_ross_8F OS

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

@toddsaunders Hey Todd! Happy to chat with you about https://t.co/bl3v9IhyiG :) https://t.co/OVQo9P8jTq

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

“Only losers post on LinkedIn.”
My ex said this about his own tech friends.
So I didn’t post. Until 3 months ago. Now I’m a CNBC contributor:

A couple months ago I wrote about my 5-hour commute between LA and San Francisco.

I almost didn't post it.
Would anyone care?

I hit publish anyway.

The response surprised me…

Hundreds of likes and DMs.
Messages of encouragement.

Then an editor from CNBC reached out.

"Would you like to be a guest contributor?"

Because I shared one honest story about crying
in Ubers and eating solo dinners at the office.

Your vulnerability is what connects you to everyone else.

Moments of self-doubt (we all have them).
That exhaustion you're fighting through.

All the messy, human stuff we usually hide.

When you share your real story,
you give others permission to share theirs.

I just wrote about what was true for me:

4:30 AM alarms.
$450 weekly travel costs.
Jumping into a new role and industry.

What story are you not telling?

Write about it
and post it.

See what happens.

You never know who needs to hear
exactly what you're going through.

It opens doors. And even leads to business opportunities.
We got dozens of inbound leads at daydream from this article.

Don’t let limiting beliefs hold you back from yourself or others.

My article went live Sunday on CNBC:
https://t.co/RAU8O6IxRY

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

@Jason @withdaydreamco is where it’s at!

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

If your website speaks one language
You're invisible to 50.6% of the internet.
Announcing daydream’s international SEO service (for 100+ languages)

Consider these facts:

- 68% of consumers would switch brands for native-language support
- 57% consider it biased when companies don't provide multilingual content
- Translation costs range from $0.10-$0.25 per word (thousands of pages = tens of thousands of dollars)

Canva understands this.

With 65% of users outside English-speaking markets,
they've translated their "create" pages into dozens of languages.

The result?

15.5 million additional organic visits monthly.

International SEO is one of the deadliest SEO playbooks.

But to date, it has been too hard for most companies to execute.

The traditional approach requires vendor networks
and localization specialists.

This is slow.
Prohibitively expensive.
And only a handful of teams could pull it off.

We’ve launched daydream's international SEO feature to solve this. Making International SEO available to everyone.

The impact?

Teams can parallelize international SEO along with their standard SEO playbooks, making growth much faster.

We've reimagined translation workflows using AI that:

- Interpret rather than just translates
- Understand tone, structure, and cultural nuance
- Maintain brand voice consistently across markets

Our work with OpenArt demonstrates the impact:

1,200 SEO pages translated to 11 languages
10,000+ translated pages published in just three months
New languages shipped in less than two weeks

New content, site updates, and product pages can all be translated instantly in lockstep with your broader content strategy.

This transforms international SEO and localization
from a cost center into a growth multiplier.

Fueling better SEO.
Faster market entry.
And higher conversions.

In every region you serve.

Is your growth team still treating international expansion as a future project instead of immediate opportunity?

Check out the full announcement here 👇

https://t.co/x6xTXUtsrG

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

$4,000 a month. Five hours round trip.
My commute looks insane.
But here's what most miss about opportunity:

It lives where others won't go.

While everyone else was:

- Complaining about SF prices
- Waiting for remote roles
- Looking for the easy path

I chose the “hard” way:

- 5AM departures
- Door-to-door marathon
- LA to SF hustle

But here's the secret:

The obstacle became the way.

Those 5 hours? Not lost time. Found time.

The commute has become a sanctuary where:

- I build clarity
- I find focus
- I gain perspective

SF is the epicenter of technology.
It's where AI is being born.

LA is my home.
It’s where my life and the people I love are.

To most this would present a binary choice:

You can watch from afar in LA.
Or you can be in the room in SF.

I chose the room.
And I chose my home.

The mindset shift that changed everything:

- "Have to commute" became "Get to think"
- "Waste of time" became "Sanctuary of focus"
- "Brutal schedule" became "Forced discipline"
- "Missing out" became "Being present"

The truth about opportunity?

It often wears a costume called "inconvenience."

While others run from:

- The hard path
- The long hours
- The tough choices

Winners run toward them.

Because that's where the magic happens:

- Where others quit
- Where others complain
- Where others make excuses

Your next breakthrough is hiding behind:

- That thing you're avoiding
- That challenge you fear
- That path everyone calls "crazy"

Stop looking for easy.
Start looking for worth it.

What "impossible" thing are you facing?

That might just be your gold mine.

The future will always belong to those who don't just accept the hard path. They embrace it.

What's your "5-hour commute"?

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

My mom thinks I'm never home.

My CEO thinks I'm always working.

Both are right. Here's my Q1 review:

18 flights between SF and LA

32 nights in hotels

11 first dates (yes, really)

3 raves (because balance)

4 conferences

23 family dinners (mom still asks if I'm eating enough)

The work stuff:

- Sourced and closed the Positional acquisition

- Launched complete website rebrand https://t.co/RaGpFGIhWL

- Created weekly newsletter from scratch

- Published 24+ blog posts, getting to 3x a week

- Built LinkedIn from 0 to daily posting

- Landed 10+ podcast interviews for our CEO

The behind-the-scenes:

- Revamped entire RevOps process

- Rebuilt sales discovery framework

- Migrated CRM (Hubspot → Attio)

- Sourced and activated entire creative team

- 150+ client calls

And my proudest achievement?

➡️ Got the entire company using Slack threads.

(If you know, you know 😂)

Onwards to Q2 🚀

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

Rich people put $50K in startups for fun.

Regular people put $5K in startups for hope.

One of these is predatory 👇

Yesterday I saw a viral post:

"Democratizing angel investing for women!"

"Anyone can be an angel investor!"

"Women need to get in the game!"

2M views and counting.

It makes me frustrated.

Because here's what they don't tell you:

- 90% of startups fail completely

- Money is locked up for 7-10 years

- Most angels never see a dollar back

- You can't sell when you need cash

When a wealthy person writes angel checks:

- It's 0.1% of their wealth

- They get the best deals

- They can afford total losses

When a normal person scrapes together $5K for an angel check:

They get the leftovers.

And they sometimes can't afford to lose it

I learned this the hard way:

During my MBA, I was also swept up in all of the content about angel investing, especially encouraging women and people of color.

I put $10K in a promising startup.

Founders were from Stanford GSB.

I got lucky-ish when they failed fast and returned $4.9K (exhibit A ⬇️).

Most never see any money back.

That same $5K in an index fund?

$13.5K in 10 years. Almost guaranteed.

But that's not sexy enough for TikTok.

Not empowering enough for LinkedIn.

Not viral enough for the influencers.

Want to really help women build wealth?

Start with:

- Emergency savings

- Retirement accounts

- Increasing earning potential

Not glamorous.

But it works.

Secure the boring bag first.

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

My commute is 5 hours. Door to door.

Leave at 5AM. LA to San Francisco.

It’s one of the best decision I’ve made.

But, it took a mindset shift to change everything:

I went from "I have to do this" to "I get to do this."

That simple change transformed my twice-a-week, door-to-door 5-hour commute between LA and San Francisco from a burden into an opportunity:

- Quiet hours on the plane became a sanctuary.

I started listening to affirmations, journaling, and reading.

- I approached work trips with mercenary focus

When in SF, I was locked and loaded in work mode

When back in LA on the weekends, I could fully enjoy my life there with friends and family.

- I stopped fighting reality and started embracing it

The commute wasn't going away, but my resistance to it could

This mental shift applies to everything challenging in business:

The project that's behind schedule

The difficult conversation you're avoiding

The competitor that's pushing you to be better

Sometimes pushing through the hard stuff reveals unexpected gifts.

If I hadn't taken that job in Palo Alto with the brutal commute, I never would have met Thenuka Karunaratne ☁️ or found my current trajectory with daydream.

The truth is: SF is the mecca for AI.

If you want be in the mix, this is the place to be.

Our greatest opportunities often hide behind our biggest "have to" moments.

What are you currently viewing as "I have to" that could become "I get to" with a simple mental shift?

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

‘Isn't it weird having a 28-year-old boss?'

A friend asked me this last week.

I used to think so.

Now I realize it's actually a unique advantage.

Let me explain.

Some people have preconceptions about young founders.

Some positive.

Some negative.

My experience?

1. They lead differently

- No pretense of knowing everything

- Actually listen to ideas

- Create space for real innovation

- Build teams, not hierarchies

2. They're outlier performers

Think about it:

- Raised millions

- Built teams

- Shipped products

- All before 30

The bar is higher when you're younger.

They've cleared it anyway.

Most important: I’ve found that my youngest bosses have been the most ego-free:

- No "this is how we've always done it"

- No sacred cows

- Often less status games

- Pure focus on what works

I've seen this firsthand:

At Series with Daniel Lai and Brexton Pham

Now at daydream with Thenkuka Karunaratne ☁️ and Shravan Rajinikanth

The young founders I’ve worked with don't just accept new ideas.

They hunt for them.

Because when you have nothing to prove,

You have everything to learn.

That's the real advantage of working with young founders:

They remind you how to be humble.

They show you how to stay hungry.

They teach you how to keep learning.

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

@bscholl https://t.co/bl3v9IhyiG is all over this. in fact, our AI x SEO map just dropped today: https://t.co/5m2ndYNg8j

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

"You don't deserve $100K without a Harvard degree."
My “mentor”, circa 2022.
24 months later, I make multiples of that. Still no Harvard degree.

It's funny how one conversation can change everything.

I remember sitting across from him.

The "mentor" everyone said I was lucky to have.

His words came with authority and experience.

But they also came with a ceiling.

Ceilings are interesting things.

They're only real if you believe in them. And sometimes, the people placing them above you are just projecting their own limitations.

I chose not to believe.

2023: Joined a startup and received a raise above his offer.

2024: Switch jobs again, another pay bump.

2025? Head of GTM at daydream.

The ceiling kept breaking.

The salary kept climbing.

The doubts turned to congratulations.

Here’s the reality:

Your degree doesn't determine your value.

Your last salary doesn't limit your next one.

Your doubters don't write your story.

The only ceiling that matters is the one you accept.

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

I’ve done 700+ auditions, 99% were a “no”.

The first few years of my acting career were brutal.

But I stuck with it.

I cold-emailed agents to represent me. Most never responded.

But I stuck with it.

I sent physical postcards to casting directors, trying to stand out.

But I stuck with it.

I took classes all over LA — comedy, drama, improv — constantly learning new skills.

And I stuck with it.

Then things started to click:

• I landed speaking roles on Grey’s Anatomy, This is Us, Shameless, Jane the Virgin, and more.
• I booked commercials for McDonald’s, Samsung, Lincoln, Infiniti and more.
Acting taught me resilience in the face of rejection — something we all face, both personally and professionally.

Startups come with their own challenges, but I approach them the same way: keep pushing, keep iterating, keep improving.

Great things happen when you stick with it.

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

https://t.co/OAyMEM0ECN

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

With the cost of AI decreasing and performance increasing, many customers are asking us:

How is this going to impact SEO? Our team identified three key trends:

1. Automated search tasks

Imagine you are scrolling through Instagram and find a recipe you want to make for dinner.

Instead of going to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients, an AI browser agent will: read the recipe, add the ingredients to your Instacart, and purchase the ingredients for you.

This could fundamentally change how people find and buy products online.

2. Prioritization of synthesized content

Today, search engines heavily rely on backlinks to determine a page’s authority.

However, with better AI, search engines could start favoring content that combines information from hundreds of sources.

For example, instead of just ranking individual product reviews, search engines may prioritize AI generated articles that analyze and summarize insights from several reviews.

Search engines will likely start favoring AI-generated content that analyzes and consolidates information from hundreds of sources, potentially diminishing the importance of backlinks.

3. Hyper-personalization

Picture this: you're interested in getting started with Lagree, so you find a studio and navigate to their website.

As you browse the site, the AI begins to display testimonials from people with similar fitness goals, recommends specific classes based on your schedule and location, and even adjusts the images to show instructors and equipment at the studio nearest you.

This level of real-time, hyper-personalized content could become the norm as AI gets better.

Interested in learning more about how advances in AI will impact SEO?

Our team wrote more on this in the daydream journal.

Check out the full post below:

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

https://t.co/p1bRk0tb2v

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

Our latest edition of daydream journal really hit home.

@thenuka_k shares how multitasking not only makes us less productive, but also speeds up our perception of time.

Between leading GTM at daydream, super-commuting between LA and SF every week, and running my financial coaching business Doing Well — I'm constantly battling the urge to do multiple things at once.

But I’ve realized when I actually slow down and focus on one thing? My days genuinely feel longer and more fulfilling. It's counterintuitive, but so true.

If you're feeling like your days are just blurring together, this piece offers practical ways to make one day feel like two (without working more).

Check it out 👇

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

https://t.co/OL6y9xDhbu

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

Thrilled to announce the launch of daydream journal — our new weekly newsletter sharing notes on AI, growth, and the journey from 0→n.

We’ll cover a variety of topics from Programmatic SEO to GTM strategy, featuring voices from across the @withdaydreamco team. So far…

• @thenuka_k shared his 3 principles that have been game-changers for him in building a more resilient founder mindset.
• The @withdaydreamco team debriefed DeepSeek and the future of SEO
• And later today, @thenuka_k will be sharing how to make one day feel like two (without working more)

Get every daydream journal in your inbox by subscribing using the link below 👇🏻

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

https://t.co/OL6y9xDhbu

[Janet Lee @jayleejanet]

Our first edition of daydream journal had a 57%+ open rate and 8%+ click through rate 🤯

Readers were hitting us up calling the post “amazing” and referring to it as “gold”. 🎖️

If you’re:

• A founder or exec looking to stay ahead of the rapid changes in AI and search
• Responsible for growth and want to learn the latest strategies used by top PLG companies
• Interested in the real behind-the-scenes of building a startup from the ground up

Then drop your email below 👇🏻