Designing Referral Programs, Building a Great Founder Peer Group, & the Seasons of Your Professional Life

A newsletter for founders & friends (30th edition)

Aug 12, 2022

Hey 👋

Welcome to the 30th edition of Re:VITALIZE, a newsletter with tactics, strategies, and stories on building companies plus cool things we’re seeing in the future of work.

Did you miss last week’s newsletter about B2B SaaS funding metrics, improving customer onboarding, & the "dark matter" of software valuations? Subscribe below so you never miss another👇

Top 3 Tweets

🥇 How to Design a Referral Program

Details are in the thread 👇

Andrew Chen 🎮 @andrewchen

New blog post: How to design a referral program andrewchen.com/how-to-design-… - how did these programs become so popular in apps? - what's the structure of a referral program? - how do you optimize the ask, the incentive, and targeting? - how do you judge success? Details 👇

andrewchen.comHow to design a referral program at andrewchen

🥈 How to Build a Great Founder Peer Group

Shahed Khan @_shahedk

In the early days of Loom, I'd wake up to terrible anxiety attacks, wasn't eating properly, or working out much. One thing that helped me get through stress was having a support system of other founders. Ideas from @ShaanVP and myself on how to build a great founder peer group:

🥉 Seasons of your Professional Life

A two-tweeter for the initial tweet by Aaron and response by Michele

Aaron Francis @aarondfrancis

I've decided that this is my Maximum Effort era. Someday I'd like to be in the Semi-Retired Leisurely Builder era, but I'm not there yet.

Michele Hansen @mjwhansen

@aarondfrancis I’ve had this idea of business/work “seasons” in mind lately and see a connection here. I guess you’d be in the planting stage — rushing to get everything in the ground and growing, working late into the nights with urgency and speed

Michele Hansen @mjwhansen

I find it deeply grounding to observe the agricultural seasons up close. I’ve been meaning to write something waxing poetically on business seasons — time for planting, time for growing, time for harvest, etc, etc… but I’ve been laid up with sniffles from said harvest 🌾 🌽 https://t.co/Tq0hef9kzx

Resources

Why execution is exponential
Valuing early-stage companies
Questions to ask after hitting PMF
The ultimate marketing strategy thread
Product Fundamentals for Go-To-Market
How to kickstart and scale a consumer business

Future of Work Reads

Everyone’s over remote work except for the workers themselves (Fortune)
The ‘resignation equation’: 5 factors that drive employees to quit (World Economic Forum)
Stop Offering Career Ladders. Start Offering Career Portfolios (Harvard Business Review)
The future of work in the tech industry (VentureBeat)
Seven Business Leaders Predict the Future of the Creator Economy (RollingStone)

The World of VITALIZE

This week on The VITALIZE Podcast we had Jesse Randall, CEO and Co-Founder of Sweater Ventures, a VC fund that pools money from millions of regular people and invests it into emerging technology and product companies poised for growth—companies you’ll see in your daily life or at work.
- Watch on YouTube
- Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
Gale is hosting a discussion with Mac Conwell of Rarebreed Ventures and Caroline Lewis of Rogue Women about making VC fund investing more accessible to accredited investors who want to put as little as $10K of capital to work each year
What Gale looks for at pre-seed
Open jobs at Vitalize portfolio companies

Written by Justin Gordon, Director of Marketing at VITALIZE, a venture capital firm and nearly 400-member angel investing community for everyone investing in U.S.-based B2B software founders in the work revolution. Find us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

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