Jerry Luk

Bilt Rewards went from $0 to $1.5B valuation in under a year post launch. I had the pleasure of hearing Ankur Jain, Bilt’s founder and CEO, speak at FintechMeetup. It was extremely inspiring and I had to dig deeper. What is Bilt? The core idea of Bilt Rewards is simple and compelling. Why can’t your rent payments contribute towards home ownership in the future? Most of us pay rent through our bank since paying with a credit card adds an additional 2.5-3%. With the Bilt MasterCard, you not only avoid fees but earn points on your rent payments: redeeming 1 point for every dollar spent up to 100K points per year - that you can apply towards your down payment. Fascinating tidbits: 1. Before Bilt, you weren’t legally allowed to use points towards a down payment. So Ankur and team spent 18 months working with regulators to create the regulations required to make a system like this possible. 2. Ankur worked on the idea by himself for a year, pitching to real estate owners and finessing the model before even hiring the first employee. 3. Almost every real estate owner Ankur pitched to initially was opposed to the idea. Over the course of 4 years, Bilt built a distribution network of 4M+ rental homes that allows residents to pay with Bilt. Ankur shares lessons valuable to every entrepreneur: 1. Distribution and customer acquisition strategy needs to be at the forefront of your pitch. 2. Creative relentless vs hard-headed relentlessness: “No just means ask again differently. Slightly different changes. Slightly different approach. Slightly different person you are asking. That’s the key. Doing the same thing over and over again will only get you the same results.” 3. A great product will not sell itself. To break through change aversion and transform consumer behavior, you must out execute with relentlessness: “The irony is when you think about building a company, you’ve gotta have the right product to solve a real problem. You have to have the core business economics and all that stuff. But what people don’t talk about - it doesn’t matter how good your idea is or how perfect the timing is. If you are not relentless at taking no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no over and over again and still being willing to come to the plate, it doesn’t matter. That is the single most important trait I’ve found. Because for whatever reason, the world likes to reject change. There is such inherent resistant to anything different. So you have to literally will your idea into existence. It’s exhausting but fulfilling.” Keeping especially the last takeaway in mind as we forge new paths ✨

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An intriguing startup called Fragment is shaking up the ledgering game. 💡 If you’ve ever dealt with tracking customer balances, you know how tedious it can be—Fragment's API aims to simplify that by offering real-time, double-entry accounting without the accounting jargon overload.📊 Founders Thomas Neckel and Omi Chowdhury are onto something big here, especially with their track record of successful startups. With early adopters like TruckSmarter and Nala already onboard, it's exciting to see where this tech goes. 🚀 #Fintech #Startup #Innovation #AccountingTech #TechTrends https://lnkd.in/eUrC-tJE

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Tune in to get insights from Touraj Parang, President, COO, and Board Member of Serve Robotics on the importance of early partnerships in startups, the myth of exit taboo, and the impact of the new technology landscape on the VC power law. Plus, learn how startups can secure funding in today's bustling market. I missed this episode, but you shouldn't! Spoiler alert, this episode is in Persian (Farsi). Please leave a comment if you think we should record these in english. 🎥 Watch here : https://lnkd.in/ehbBeDD4

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I participated in a “SMART MANUFACTURING” panel with Gayathri Radhakrishnan, Rohini Chakravarthy and Abhijit Supekar (moderator) last week at TIECon 2024. The coolest part of the panel was 3 Women VCs talking about a topic that has not traditionally been discussed by women. I never imagined I’d see this in my lifetime. Things have indeed changed! We had a very lively discussion of whether we can expect lights out factory in 5-10 years. Automation is happening in all stages but full automation manufacturing is tough because it requires human like adaptability. It is not converting text into instruction or code - it is about precision. Robotics + AI is making this happen and we will get there. AI is going to bring the cost down for complete solution for example: there are robotic arms that can do more tasks and learn like a human and not just some specific tasks. Also check out our portfolio companies Micropsi Industries and RGo Robotics that are making it happen in this space. Thanks to Anshu Bahadur Hrishikesh Sathawane Nilesh Dixit for organizing the panel and Anita Manwani and Surbhi Kaul for making this happen! #TiECon2024 #AIUbiquity

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During a recent brainstorming session, we realized that many of our projects involve #startups needing rapid product or #POC #development teams. Sharing a deck showcasing some of our past work. Please share it with your contacts who may need a full #productdevelopment team or to #augment their existing team. #Drupal #MultiTenantArchitecture #headlessFfrontend #LuceneSearch #GraphDB #Mongo, #NLP #GraphQL #HTML #JS #NoSQL

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Instacart is a market leader when it comes to leveraging AI tools to boost productivity at work. I had an amazing conversation with JJ Zhuang, Instacart’s Chief Architect, who has shepherded over 50 AI-driven initiatives to market across the org. We explored what catapulted Instacart to the forefront of AI integration, supporting radically diverse use cases across various functional areas. One striking insight (echoed by Ethan Mollick and others elsewhere) is that you often don't need specialized tools for specialized work. Frontier models like GPT-4 can seamlessly adapt to a wide range of functions and use cases. They're not just for engineers; they're incredibly versatile tools used by marketing, comms, and legal teams. From generating code to proofreading and ideation, GPT-4 empowers every department to leverage AI for enhanced productivity and innovation. By integrating LLM’s like GPT-4 into their workflows, teams can streamline processes, automate repetitive tasks, and unlock bandwidth for new creative possibilities. How can you harness the power of AI in your own work to boost productivity? Share your thoughts below 👇 Want to hear more insights from JJ? Check out the full podcast episode by clicking the link in the comments.

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Consumer founders in SF come check out our event next week and register below

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Excited to officially introduce Layouts - customizable filters and views to track POs and production on a granular level. 🍚 A Director of Ops we work with wanted two things: Complete control and complete flexibility when it comes to managing their production runs. With granular logic powering layouts, operators saw an immediate impact thanks to: ⚡️ Advanced filters (Vendors, Expected Ship Dates, Payment Status, Tags +) ⚡️ Saving custom layouts for your team to monitor (eg; POs where invoice is unpaid but status is received, etc.) ⚡️ Ability to toggle between multiple layouts (Classic Apparel Vendors, Footwear POs, etc.) Centro Layouts gives you the flexibility to filter and customize your PO data to see exactly what you need, when you need it. Save time flipping through spreadsheets and fast track critical decision making. Drop a comment or send me a DM if you want to see a quick demo of Centro Commerce in action. :) #inventorymanagement #procurement #production #brandoperators #shopify

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👉 Building up a new podcast is *already* been an enlightening experience. Have had a chance to chat with some amazing folks, got some incredible feedback, and have a ton of ideas for how this series will proceed. I will say, the most exciting part of my recent podcast, "Building Products with Generative AI", is that there is a narrative that is building throughout each episode. I'm not going to reveal what that is just yet, but if you watch each episode, you'll start to notice a solid pattern!

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Some great insights from our VP of Product, Chris Allsopp on building a platform designed for a diverse set of users. "...We implemented a consistent design language across the platform while allowing for customizable views and access levels. We've created a fluid platform where actions on one side seamlessly influence another." This quote from Chris does a great job encapsulating one of our core values at Growthware of creating a fluid platform. Click the link in the comments to read the full article. #ui #ux #saas

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🚀Bay Area Founders Club Substack Launch🚀 Greetings Community👋 Welcome to the Bay Area Founders Club newsletter on Substack! Subscribe to get weekly updates on entrepreneurial and investment happenings in the Bay Area, along with top-notch content delivered straight to your inbox every week. Join us to stay connected and informed! #BayAreaFoundersClub #Entrepreneurship #Investment #Startups #Innovation #Networking #Substack

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A new episode of The Revamped Founder I was on with Advik Kapoor YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gx3kWuk7 Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gE-DyeUV We talk about how to build great hardware + ADHD and how to deal with it (00:00) Epic intro + http://doola.com/exerton (2:55) Who is @andrewjaykeller? (3:23) What is ADHD? (7:08) Can procrastination take the form of ADHD? (8:55) Trying to focus even with ADHD (13:15) Solving problems with the use of hardware (18:56) Why hardware? [+ reading things inside your brain] (22:56) How should founders start building hardware products? (22:48) How should founders design hardware products? (banger advice at [ 33:09 ] for deep tech companies) (35:04) How to nail user comprehension? (37:53) How do large companies control the lifestyle narrative? (amazing example at [ 40:24 ]) (41:00) Do large companies have a manufacturing moat? (43:16) Should companies outsource manufacturing?

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🌸 Exciting Spring 2024 Product Updates! 🌸 Super proud of our team for all of their incredible work! A few highlights! 📍 New communities in North Dakota & San Francisco ✨ Improved location-sharing & directions 🚩 Report conditions & hazards in-app 🎉 Personalized onboarding 📊 Easy access to challenge reports for staff Check out our blog for more details: Spring 2024 Product Updates. #OutdoorRecreation #ParkManagement #SpringUpdates #VisitorExperience #OuterSpatial

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Hey Friends, Today we're revealing the biggest launch in the history of Superhuman: reimagined for teams!! I would greatly appreciate your support if you could upvote us on Product Hunt https://lnkd.in/gX_b3PVi (if you haven't already, update your Superhuman version to get access the game-changing features)

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Had a great conversation with MarketWatch discussing how Zillow uses AI to assist buyers and sellers. We discussed AI and ML-powered features like Natural Language Search that allows users to express preferences naturally for customized listings,  AI for personalization for content delivery, and the use of AI to enhance home valuation through Neural Zestimates by analyzing unstructured data from listing images and descriptions. It's a joy to work with the Zillow AI team, and this is just the beginning of what we have in store! #Zillow #AI https://lnkd.in/g2TBKjqe

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Great to see Marqo (and open source) featured prominently in the latest TechCrunch article on the role and rise of vector databases in AI. Although the hype, getting vector search into production is still very challenging. Vector search requires much more than vector similarity alone (i.e. a vector database) and needs to have the embedding -management, -orchestration, -inference and model (re)training. Vector databases get you vector similarity, Marqo gets you into production. Article: https://lnkd.in/gxNqeDXQ Github: https://lnkd.in/gsFRwZT5 Marqo: https://www.marqo.ai/

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"All labor will be near free. All expertise will be near free." These words from Vinod Khosla at the recent KV CEO Summit stuck with me. A few weeks ago, I attended the annual summit organized by one of our investors, Khosla Ventures. While there were many highlights (like hanging out with Bill Gates and Sam Altman), this quote made me think the most. What parts of Aleph will still matter in five years? There's a lot of hype about AI, but there's real value too. We're already seeing a big impact internally and in our product, even though we're just scratching the surface of what will be possible. This raises big questions: How do we prepare for a future where labor and expertise change? What skills will remain relevant, and which will become obsolete? How do we build a product and lead a team through these changes? Since then, these questions have influenced every decision, from product priorities to hiring. I believe getting this right will make or break companies—and careers.

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Kathryn Minshew - so happy you decided to expand your advisement in business to a broader community. You are one of the hardest working entrepreneurs and executives in tech. For any entrepreneurs in need of advice on fundraising and growth you should book time with Kathryn Minshew on Intro.

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Welcome to Building Products with Generative AI Episode 5 - Welcome to Building Products with Generative AI - Episode 5!

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