Piper Van Wagenen

special projects @whop

[TBPN @tbpn]

Whop Co-Founder & CEO @cultured’s advice to young people:

- Experiment as much as possible
- Don't feel like you're wasting time

"The only real risk is not doing anything."

[Piper Van Wagenen @Piper_VW]

Whop is hosting a trivia night exclusively for founding engineers.

Bring your smartest friend and team up with a Whop engineer for a squad of 3. Food and drinks on us.

The prize: winners pick between F1 Grand Prix tickets in Las Vegas, a private omakase dinner on a yacht, or courtside Golden State Warriors seats.

Thursday, July 23 · 7:30–9:30 PM

Spots are limited to 30 and require approval — RSVP early: https://t.co/hMDwxhEYbx

[Steven Schwartz 🦅 @cultured]

Whop is experiencing unprecedented growth;

Daily ATHs at an astonishing YoY and MoM rate

Gross transaction volume is now pushing $20M per day

10,000 is a low day for # businesses created

# user signups are pushing 100,000 per day

Much of our offensive growth product feature set that has been under development for the last 3 months has yet to be released publicly.

Our platform is running at record high RPM and we need serious help

If you have successfully solved ML prediction problems at scale, run ultra lean legal teams, or are a designer who wants their work to make a difference, message me [email protected] with a bulleted resume

If obsessed with PNL and unit economics, with experience driving outcomes at scale, ping me as well

🚀

[Whop @whop]

Accept payments in 80+ local currencies from your phone

[Whop @whop]

Introducing Whop Cards.

5% cashback on Whop Ads, Content Rewards, and Uber.

Earn on Whop, spend anywhere Visa is accepted.

[Piper Van Wagenen @Piper_VW]

"gtm" is everywhere right now, but most people don't actually know what it means

i got coffee last week with a student who asked me to explain it

she's still in school, with more than a year left before graduation, and reached out over her spring break specifically to have this conversation

she wanted to understand the difference between gtm, growth, gtme, and other roles for non cs majors at early-stage companies

two things stood out to me

first — these roles exist. there are a lot of them. but there's a real gap in awareness around them

second — she reached out to a mutual contact, got my number, and set up a coffee chat just to learn

she understood that startup recruiting doesn't work like traditional recruiting. she knew she wasn't going to walk away with a job from our conversation, and showed up anyway because she wanted to be better informed

you can guess what it's like to work somewhere, or you can go find out

the best way to learn is to get as close to it as possible

if you don't know where to start, come find us at https://t.co/YpOt9zv0oA

we are actively matching gtm talent with the best startups hiring today

[Piper Van Wagenen @Piper_VW]

i got this message from my mentor last week after telling him what i’ve been up to

i’ve been thinking about it ever since

i recently turned down more “stable” jobs to join an early-stage startup

on paper, maybe that looks reckless

but there are a few people in your life who know you well enough to tell the difference between reckless and right

and he's right about the one life thing

we can't waste it, especially not on work we aren't excited about

[Piper Van Wagenen @Piper_VW]

i am very vocal about the things that i am excited about

here are a few things that i have not been able to stop talking about recently

standing desks
- i can sit still for hours and lock in. my posture, apparently, cannot. getting on my feet = key

claude code
- i have taken two cs classes in my entire life. two. and yet i am building things that are actually functional? i find that crazy

smiskis
- these are hilarious little green figures. they come in tiny boxes & you never know which one you're going to get. they are completely unnecessary but entirely addictive. and they glow in the dark

wispr flow
- best voice to text i've used so far. had a conversation with my friend caroline, referenced two other carolines, and it was able to differentiate between the three and link their contacts within the texts. thought that was cool

gt's guava goddess kombucha
- favorite flavor. favorite color (pink). tastes good and makes me feel like i'm doing something right for my gut health

washington square park
- i walk through it every morning, and it makes my day better before it's even really starts. it was raining today, but people were still skateboarding, singing, dancing, etc.

surprise letters
- especially from people i haven't heard from in a while. there is something about someone taking the time to write that says more than the letter itself

@talentpluto
- don't know if i'm more excited about the product or the team. can't beat building something incredible with incredible people

[Piper Van Wagenen @Piper_VW]

i wish i could wear our giant CALL ME button on my walk to work

so that anyone who isn't happy walking to their job
can do a quick switch-up
and join the startup scene

picture it
me walking down the street in the morning sun
past someone clearly miserable on their commute

they see the button
they call pluto
by lunch they're interviewing

ridiculous? maybe

but i pass so many people every day
all doing their own thing
going to jobs i know nothing about

and i can't help but think

some of them aren't happy
some of them want something different
some of them would thrive at the companies we partner with

i want to help them find that
and we can help them at https://t.co/YpOt9zv0oA

[Piper Van Wagenen @Piper_VW]

when i was younger, i thought role models had to be people you wanted to emulate exactly

- the same career
- the same life
- a mirror of what you hoped to look like in 20 years

i don’t see it that way anymore

i think role models are people who teach you something

people who make you better

sometimes without meaning to

sometimes without you even noticing until years later

@rocbvw taught me what it means to go all in

because when you truly care about what you’re doing

giving 100% doesn’t feel like a sacrifice

it feels like the point

i’ve never seen him do something halfway

not because he’s obsessed with perfection

but because he’s obsessed with the work itself

happy birthday dad

thanks for showing me that working hard on something you enjoy isn't always a compromise

it's one of the most rewarding things you can possibly do

[Piper Van Wagenen @Piper_VW]

i was an english major

never thought i'd work at an ai startup

i thought you had to be some insane engineer
that technical skills were the only way in

turns out that's not even remotely true

we're helping our partners hire for over 100 gtm roles right now
- growth, sales, marketing
- people who can sell a product before it even exists

most engineers don't think about doing that
they're too busy coding

but someone has to create the narrative
someone has to tell the story that goes out into the world

and that story matters just as much as how the thing actually works

you don't need to be an engineer
you need to be curious and confident
you need to want to come in every day

if you want to see your value add
if you want to work with teams doing insane things
if you want to help build something from scratch

this is your shot: https://t.co/YpOt9zv0oA

[Piper Van Wagenen @Piper_VW]

for the longest time, i tried to spend as little time on social media as possible

my days felt better spent having real conversations, reading the news, and writing > scrolling

i still value all of those things

but its become almost impossible to stay truly up to date without being at least somewhat active on X or LinkedIn

i don’t think scrolling there is automatically a waste of time anymore

there’s a real difference between losing hours to random reels on Instagram or TikTok

and deliberately consuming content that’s directly relevant to what you care about

while i was never much of a scroller

i was also not much of a poster

i believed that anyone who wanted to get to know me could do so in person

that no single post, or even a feed of posts, could possibly capture who i am

i still think there’s truth to that

you can’t 100% understand or know someone just from their online presence

but i’m starting to realize that it’s different for a product

for a product, a single post can be enough to signal what it is, who it’s for, and why it matters

and that makes showing up online feel a lot less optional

[Piper Van Wagenen @Piper_VW]

everything is a paradox

if you really think about it
most things contain their opposite

belief requires doubt
trust requires risk

speed often comes from slowing down
and clarity often comes from constraint

building a company is the same

it’s easy to optimize for what’s visible
but the real leverage often lives in what you can’t see

the doubts you acknowledge
the risks you choose to take
the tradeoffs and constraints you’re willing to embrace

[Piper Van Wagenen @Piper_VW]

~50% of people think of their jobs as
- a means to an end
- something to think about from 9 to 5
and then mentally check out

if that’s NOT you

if you’re actually excited about the work you do
or the work you want to do but haven’t found yet

(especially in a GTM role)
join https://t.co/YpOt9zv0oA

we intro you to companies that will only hire you
- if you care
- if you’re curious
- if you genuinely want to build something that matters to you

[Piper Van Wagenen @Piper_VW]

i constantly ask myself this question

am i happy with the direction i’m going in?

it’s an easy question to think about in the abstract

but when you join a team, especially at an early-stage startup,

it carries a whole new weight

it’s no longer just my direction that matters

it’s our direction

are we happy with the direction we’re going in?

because value alignment is sometimes even more important than mission

we can all share the same vision, the same long-term goals

but if we’re not happy with how we get there,

we won’t get there at all

[Piper Van Wagenen @Piper_VW]

start with yes

this has been my life motto for as long as i can remember

and it continues to motivate me every day

you don’t always need a perfect plan

sometimes you just need to say yes and figure it out as you go

this mindset matters most in startups

there is never a shortage of things to get done

or goals to chase

long-term vision is important

but sometimes, even when you have clear long-term goals

they can seem intangible

because the path to get from point a to point b isn’t always linear

there can be infinite points in between

you have to run with something and see if it works

you try, you learn, you pivot, you keep going

but the only way to succeed is to start with yes

[Piper Van Wagenen @Piper_VW]

10/10 would recommend making the trek to the office thru the nyc blizzard

[Piper Van Wagenen @Piper_VW]

there are moments when you stop mid convo and realize

this changes things

this screenshot can say it better than i can

big things are coming for talentpluto

stay tuned

[Pluto (YC) @talentpluto]

who is representing you?

athletes have agents
actors have agents
founders have investors

most top performers don’t go it alone
so why are you running your career solo?

let @talentpluto be the agent your career deserves

[Piper Van Wagenen @Piper_VW]

at stanford i was constantly surrounded by people who were building things.

friends started companies, joined tiny teams, and talked about ideas that didn’t fit into the constraints of a classroom.

these opportunities didn’t show up as job posts.

they showed up as late-night dorm discussions, side projects, or “hey, you should meet this person” texts.

i still have these conversations every day.

you can too.

@talentpluto is that friend who says, “hey, you should meet this person,” and actually makes it happen.