Narcisa Codreanu

There's a fallacy amongst engineers that if you just build a great product, people will flock to it. You realize how untrue this is after launching your first product as a founder. Coming off the heels of our Forever Links launch, this is resonating deeply:  I now realize there's a reason why marketing and sales end up being half of an org over time: knowing how to talk about your product and grab a customer's attention is insanely difficult. The product might be awesome, but if nobody knows about it, how to use it, and aren't convinced that there's value such that they even try, then it doesn't matter how awesome your product is. This means a lot to us in the present: right now we rely on our account management team to educate our customers. But there are too many features on the horizon for one team to handle the outreach without structure. Our Forever Links launch helped us build our muscles by talking about our products, making sure we have distribution, and connecting with people in a way that showcases value. And I'm so excited we're finally doing this on a feature level for FERMÀT. More announcements to come soon. 

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As a YC and TechStars alum, here’s 4 common mistakes I’ve seen start-ups make (including myself) that spell disaster: 1. Focusing too much on the solution, losing sight of the problem. This is incredibly common for technical co-founders. You spend all your time building a beautiful, sexy app that doesn’t actually solve a real problem. In the early days, you should spend as much time understanding your customers’ pain as you do building the solution. Building the solution is the fun part, but make sure you “eat your veggies” before going all in. 2. Forgetting to KISS. That is, forgetting to Keep It Simple Stupid. It’s so easy (again, especially for technical co-founders) to go overboard on features, building everything that comes to mind. But really you should be building as little as you can and get to an MVP as fast as possible. And don’t “build in the dark” for too long, because you’re probably going to completely rebuild it in a few months as you get feedback from customers. 3. Obsessing over your competitors. I see this all the time, where start-ups founders are too reactive to what their competitors are doing. Your competitor launches a new feature and out of fear of getting left behind, you immediately change course and build a copy-cat feature. Instead, you should listen to your customers, figure out your own product roadmap, and execute. Execution is the name of the game. 4. Shiny Object Syndrome. Another common mistake I see founders make is switching directions too often when a brand new shiny idea comes their way. It’s easy to do in the early days because you don’t have deep roots with anything you’re doing. You finish an MVP, launch it, and expect customers to come banging on your door to get access. When this doesn’t happen (of course), you get bored and immediately pivot your product in a new direction. Growth takes time - make sure you’ve gone deep enough on your current path before chasing that shiny new object. What other common mistakes have you seen founders make?

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If you had a great startup idea, should you keep it a secret? Are musicians natural entrepreneurs? In this episode, Seed Zeng and I chat with Yotam Rosenbaum, musician, YC founder, and investor. 👉 Listen on your podcast app: https://tr.ee/ZmRr5NjEtk

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I've recently heard two different stories that illustrate the stark differences in how AI is affecting the job market: - One startup founder said he laid off two junior engineers. Now, he's involved in coding himself (he has a background in software engineering) and uses GPT/Copilot. He mentioned that product development is much faster now compared to when he had the two junior engineers. - Out of this year’s graduates from a top 50 computer science master’s program, only one person received a job offer upon graduation. One student applied to 60 companies and received zero interview requests—not zero job offers, but zero interviews. It seems like AI is making experienced, senior professionals more effective at their jobs, reducing the need for junior employees. But if no one hires juniors, how can anyone become senior? The job market continues to be very challenging. I hope this is just a short-term, interim phenomenon as we figure out how to integrate AI into the workforce. In the meantime, we might also see the rise of tiny companies, including one-person businesses or small (less than 3 people) startups.

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Common founder hiring mistake #5: (most founders don’t think this applies to them) Failing to run structured interviews. Most founders think they’re great at interviewing. Chat with candidates, ask about their background, maybe throw in some tough technical questions. But without clear structure, interviews easily veer off course. You fail to systematically assess candidates on consistent criteria And your team asks disjointed questions based on what intrigues them, not what predicts performance. Suddenly you’re debating candidates without alignment on what good looks like. And critical factors get overlooked. Your new goal: Well-crafted interview plans. • Start by defining explicit evaluation criteria upfront for each interview stage. What specific skills or traits make a candidate successful in this role? • Then design focused questions that ladder up to those criteria. Dig into relevant experiences to determine if candidates meet your standards. • Share question bank, desired responses, rating guidelines and interview best practices with all interviewers. Make sure everyone assesses candidates the same way. • Take time to calibrate on what strong, medium and weak responses look like for key questions. Prevent bias by keeping evaluations evidence-based. With rigorous process, your team reaches alignment faster on quality of hire. And you avoid hot-take debates after missing key signals in interviews. P.S. Dover’s expert recruiters help our customers create interview plans based on best practices AND train the team on how to be amazing interviewers.

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Today I am going to do something really unique (based on Hunter Walk's idea), I am putting Async up for sale publicly 🎙️ What's Async again? A Voice Memos platform that powers fully asynchronous work conversations Sometimes, things don't work out, and we move on. But we rarely read those stories here, and I am at a stage in my career where I want to be true to myself because I think I've done everything I could to make it work, and there's nothing to be ashamed of. So why not open-source an M&A process? 🎢 WHY I will not rewrite the story, but in a young startup, only one thing matters: People. It basically took us 18 months to launch the first V1 of Async vs the 6 months I had envisioned. We had raised for 24 months of runway, meaning we only had 6 months left after our (great) public beta launch to find Product Market Fit. Not enough. 🥗 WHAT ARE WE SELLING Send an async voice memo to anyone through a simple link anywhere (Gmail, Slack, Notion, etc.) or drop it on their personal URL (mine is async.com/ilan). The memo will be transcribed and summarized and have time stamp reactions, files, and more. > Incredible suite of apps for the Web, Mac, iOS, and Chrome (reply to your Gmail emails with voice notes). Our tech stack includes React, Node.js, Stripe, and Swift. > Brand and domains: we own the trademark and domain for Async and async.com. We also own asynchronous.com and audioletter.com. 👤 ICP > Coaches, Creators, and Consultants: Offering async consultations with clients, audiences, and fans. > Sales People: Send updates to your leads, prospects, and clients without requesting a call. > CEOs / C-Level: Update your team on objectives, progress, wins, async. > Investors: Perform due diligence, deal updates, and ref calls async. 🧠 IDEAL BUYERS Players with distribution power or considering us as an add-on to their offering. > Tools for Creators, Coaches, and Consultants: offer asynchronous consultations > Note Takers: add collaborative audio > Calendar, Project Management, and Mail apps: add asynchronous conversations to emails, tasks, and projects, replace meetings > Audio tech: add collaborative audio notes > Email Newsletters: Add Audioletters to your offering. 🫶 THE THANKS 🙌 Our users: You've kept us going all this time (and still are!), and we hope to keep Async alive for as long as possible ❤️ Dan: best co-founder I could dream of. Here for every battle, an execution machine, and simply an amazing friend. Forever in my heart. ❤️ Jeremy & Lucas: I've worked with many designers and engineers in my career. You're simply the best. You've won my heart and trust; thank you. 💵 To our investors: Thanks for bearing with us and believing in our vision and us. I will fight to make you proud until the very last breath. That's it, you know everything. If this rings a bell to you or one of your connections (tag them), please slide in my DMs and let's chat ❤️

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Starting to put feelers out for the next adventure in my onchain journey. I'm looking for roles (FT or Consulting) where I can do some or all of the following: - Build & lead a brilliant team of devrels & comms wizards - Create some mind-blowing edu & leadership programming for builders, devs, creators, etc - Create comms bridges for onboarding into web3 - Highly strategic communications strategies for impact & public goods protocols, projects, etc. - Grab a hot mic and say the quiet parts out loud-- diplomatically and with compassion-- of course. ;) - Create impact and ensure our tech plays a powerful role in the strengthening of communities throughout frontier markets and in the places where our tech is needed most. https://lnkd.in/ggu45hy3 DM me or pass this along to someone who is seeking the same. ;)

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Senior engineers lose money and responsibility at Meta partly because of an unwritten rule. Candidates are expected to not follow their interviewer's instructions to SUCCEED. Yes, you read that right. That blew my mind. There are other common reasons for downleveling as well. Some of these are expected but others are surprising. Kevin Landucci + Kashish Singhal, loved the simple practical takeaway for candidates. And the full episode rocked! Subscribe to ApplyPass to get more tips in your feed 🛎

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Sometimes when things go terrible wrong, something GOOD happens from it. I think that’s exactly what happened today when storyboarding for the 1st time with Amirhosseign. It seems the harder we tried to collaborate on Google Meet the Audio got worse. Eventually I threw the towel in and asked Amirhosseign to work independently. My usual Storyboard session takes place over a shared Screen on Google Meet where the Storyboard Artist storyboards in real time so that we can collaborate together on flushing out the story. But the internet gods were just not willing to allow our collaboration over a shared screen today, so I typed out over a DM LinkedIn communication to Amirhosseign; do the best you can working independently. So Amirhosseign read the script and began to work his magic. I just looked in on the Storyboards he uploaded to his Storyboard Folder and I said to my self: “Wow, I really like his storyboards” We now have a handful of Storyboard Artists collaborating on the same scene. It’s so interesting to me to see how each Artist interprets the scene and brings their own special touch breathing life into the many different students (characters) in the 5th grade English class. Thank you Amirhosseign for the awesome Storyboards you turned in today. Great job! Author: ELS Storyboard Artist: Amirhosseign ________________________________________________ Havilland https://lnkd.in/e5hwf6Ru Eric’s World Building Explanation https://lnkd.in/enNjfw7v For Onboarding HAVILLAND Writers https://lnkd.in/e67Ut35j ________________________________________________ We are looking for all types of help for completing myRide’s prototypes and the Havilland Storyline movie trailer. Join us to learn more about myRide and the Havilland Storyline, I have set aside every weekend to explore a collaboration. Join us!! 8 AM EST (Saturday or Sunday) All you have to do is show up on the Google Meet! 😊 Google Meet https://lnkd.in/dNHttvj

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Day #4 of observations from attending Home Care 100 this month: There is a cambrian explosion of "AI scribe for OASIS docs in <15 min" startups currently underway in Home Health. A new one of these is launching every few months. I'm certain we'll see 2x AI scribe vendors at the next HC100 in January. And so, I listened for the overall positioning of these products by the vendor and buyer at Home Care 100. It sounded like this: HH CEO: “I need a solution to lower the caregiver burden of clinical documentation” HH Vendor: “I offer AI to reduce the burden of clinical documentation” This may sound like a "checkmate" match between what the CEO is saying, and what the vendor is offering. But it isn't. The CEO actually has a business model problem. They cannot afford to sufficiently pay for the time it takes for caregivers to complete clinical documentation. And so, they are stuck looking for solutions that minimize the cost of personal time on documentation that caregivers have to absorb. Solutions that offer AI and the promise of driving down this cost down for the caregiver are the start, but not the endgame. If I were not building Arya, and wanted to build a standout documentation product, I would build an "AI-powered clinical documentation agency", not an AI scribe. Here's what this AI-powered documentation agency would sound like: 1. We eliminate 90% of all clinical documentation at your company. We do it at 1/10th the cost of a traditional outsourced documentation shop 2. We do this by a human-in-the-loop AI solution, that allows our human documenters to work 10x faster than DIY 3. Under the hood, we integrate with *all* the best AI out there (incl. ChatGPT) in a SOC2+ HIPAA guaranteed environment. We decide the best AI+human workflow to use for each documentation on the fly. Regardless, you always pay a flat rate, and we absorb the risk or AI vs human effort 4. Your caregivers approve each human-in-the-loop documentation. We don't publish anything to the EHR till it's approved 5. We guarantee a <1% error/ change rate on our documentation from caregivers, or we offer some money back I did some back of the napkin math to see what the economics of an such an agency might look like. With the current math, the caregiver is still absorbing upwards of $10 worth of time per OASIS documentation. If an AI-powered agency drove this cost down to the single digits per doc, might HH agencies be able to work this into their financial model and take this off the caregiver's plate entirely? Here's hoping for a "we've got you covered on the documentation " caregiver benefit coming in the future. #homecare #homecareagencies #HC100 #homecare100 #homehealth

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tl;dr - We're pausing NoCode Pros as a paid community for a few months. Why is this happening? John Krueger and I started NCP last summer to help our journey growing our own low code agency, DreamLabs. Our hypothesis was that the best way to level up and achieve flourishing would not be to read some books or guru videos. Instead, we wanted to learn directly with and from other practitioners, fellow nocode / lowcode agency owners in the trenches building their own businesses. Our hypothesis was correct. Over the past 8 months we've applied the insights, lessons and connections made through NCP to achieve our goals as an agency, expanding from a team of 2 to over a dozen. We're now so busy with the agency we can't in good faith maintain the NCP vision at the same time. So we're temporarily pausing NCP to focus on stabilizing our agency. The idea is that after we're built in more foundational stability, we can open up time to return to NCP and bring it to the next level. We appreciate all the NCP members' participation, engagement and support as we learn and grow together. Upwards 🚀

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My team and I have been FLOURISHING working solely in Slack for the last 60 days 🔥 Here's a sneak peek into our structure: 1️⃣ Each project is given its own assigned thread with details, due dates - as a single source of truth for questions & comments. 2️⃣ We then rely heavily on our emoji system to track the progress of each project (see below). This allows us to move quickly and remove noise. No small talk, pure ask. 3️⃣ I then track all of our projects for the week in a separate thread organized by each client to make sure we stay on track.

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Andrew Chen puts into words what many product people have realized in the trenches. There is more to product decision making than data. Having taste, sometimes rebranded as "product sense", is something I've been leaning into. There's usually not any meaningful data at the earliest stages anyways, it's about a developing a vision informed by your depth of experience, your conversations with customers, and your differentiated view of the world. https://t.co/ZR3HFdfDX9

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Today's market and expectations are pretty tough. From my conversations, I see that experienced product managers within companies are often under immense pressure, grappling with additional responsibilities, less senior support, and the need to demonstrate clear impact. It's also tough for folks trying to secure their next role, and it's clear that even the most seasoned professionals need robust support, more confidence, and advanced skills to get where they need to be. That's why I'm glad to lead another Advanced Product Management Cohort out of London, starting on June 11th. We have 6 spots left. Here’s what we cover: 1️⃣ Product Discovery & Strategic Thinking 2️⃣ Experimentation & Prioritisation 3️⃣ Product Leadership & Communication 4️⃣ Career Growth Framework - my personal favourite When you join Colab, you not only gain access to one live cohort (such as this one) but also to a comprehensive knowledge base, a library of tools, on-demand recordings and snippets, and bi-weekly career coaching on our platform. If you are interested, check out the full program details. https://lnkd.in/gCXka-D9 💰 Affordable payment plans are also provided. Feel free to DM me if you'd like to chat to see if it's right for you or how else Colab Cohorts can support you.

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Been seeing PropelAuth pop around a bunch and boy do I love auth. Always like new players in the game. Let's take a quick look. Pricing. I don't get it. The first tier is 150/month for 2.5k mau. 6c an MAU is pretty crazy expensive esp given most competitors offer 10k for free... The feature breakdown between tiers is also a bit confusing. Some features which seem critical to building an app are behind paywalls where as others which are "nice to haves" are in the free bucket. Unlimited orgs is nice I suppose but that cost is just built into the MAU pricing. Maybe I don't need unlimited? I know Clerk charges way more per org but their MAU's are almost free in comparison. Features. Outside the usually suspects, (2FA, SSO, email, RBAC, etc) the API key stuff was pretty cool esp if you are setting up a dev focused product. Waitlist feature is also a nice little touch. I think most waitlists are disgustingly complicated for their purpose and it is cool they have this on the free tier. It would be nice if there was a drop in UI to let end orgs manage their own users but I couldn't find that anywhere. Clerk has this but it was a little janky in my experience. Docs. The setup is awkward or maybe more so strange. When i go to quickstart I see all these warnings about framework selection. It took a solid 5 minutes before I realized there is a selector in the UI. Using what appears to be a HOC withAuthInfo, seems again awkward at least in the react realm unless I am missing a reason for this. I'd strongly recommend dropping all the HOC usage esp given their are hooks which do the same. Backend was pretty simple. My 2c after an all be it brief review, docs need a bit of love. Which features fit into what payment bucket could also use a review. Clerk and everyone elese for example let me have a staging env at the free tier given it is kinda a requirement to move anything to prod. Little odd to gate that behind a 150/month paywall. It is actually kinda a complete non-starter for any project. 2FA is not needed for a free tier and could easily move to a paid feature. The target customer seems to be anyone launching a very early enterprise developer focused product. A waitlist with unlimited orgs and built in api keys hits many of the fast path needs for a GTM play in that space. The per mau cost isn't as important here but the feature bucketing is strange and would be a non-starter for me. I wish propel the best of luck as auth certainly needs more innovation. It is my least favorite part of building an app.

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Sometimes I get so caught up opining on public software companies as a loosely (at best) qualified pseudo-analyst that I forget to talk about all the fantastically crazy stuff happening at Superfiliate.. Not today! It's safe to say we've had the most exciting months in our short history, and I want to shout out what was one of our best-received product releases thus far. Social Listening and UGC Collection Built on the back of a formal Meta / Instagram integration, our customers (at no cost) are now able to see all the content they're tagged in on IG and instantly download that content, request usage rights, add it to a Superfiliate landing page, and much more. The integration makes our users' lives MUCH easier as they're not switching platforms constantly. As importantly, merchants are able to identify creators/partners they aren't formally working with but are already tagging them on social. The best creators are the ones who love your product, and nothing says that like an organic post. More social platforms coming soon, but I'll let you guess who that might be 👀 It's truly a pleasure watching Anders Bill and the product, design, and engineering teams ship impactful, beautiful features at such an impressive clip. Investing in great people and processes compounds over time, and we're seeing that in a very real way right now, and it's only going to continue. Sometimes you have to go slow to go fast As we say, rah rah!

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How Duolingo designed its viral widget. This idea sat in the "backlog" for 365 days after being ideated at a hackathon, confronting utility hurdles... before its grand debut. Unlike passive widgets, Duolingo’s invites action. A tap leading to a lesson, extending one’s streak—a cycle of engaging simplicity. → Post-launch: The focal point shifted to user adoption. Testing in-app promotions post-lesson skyrocketed installs, underlining the significance of user-guidance. → Results: Retention soared with the widget! Not merely an accessory, it’s a habit-forming companion. With 50% of learners securing a streak of at least 6 months post-installation, it resonates with Duo’s iconic nudges yet stands unique with visual allure. → Iteration: Evolution didn’t pause; design refinements, resonating user feedback, morphed Duo into a lively screen companion, reflecting your learning voyage. → Expansion: Now on Android too, with an added lock-screen feature for iOS, the widget epitomizes Duolingo’s user-focused evolution. Great product experiences should achieve both growth and user delight. This is a win for the design team at Duolingo. What do you think about its design? 🔥 --- Found this valuable? Subscribe to my weekly newsletter and follow Felix Lee to learn how the world's most successful operators build great products & accelerate careers.

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To all the founders about to quit and dreaming of a FAANG job or equivalent in pay & prestige, listen up: 1. What you're doing now-- trying to build & grow something new-- is the only "job" that AI and robots won't be taking. 2. The job you are dreaming about is already gone. Push through to fight another day. Be relentlessly resourceful as PG puts it. Your problem needs to be solved and no one is going to solve it for you. If you want help/advice on cutting expenses, sharing upside with community in exchange for build & grow collaboration, and raising capital from your users-- DMs open. There is no greener grass than the type that grows on PMF. Using Slyk IO to launch, grow, and raise fast puts you on the fast track to finding out. Your community can help you get there. I know because I'm doing this with Cadoo . #founders #startups #community

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