I had this thought walking home the other night based on something HubSpot's CMO said to me.
Since launching Tech In Boston last spring, I've recorded 41 episodes with entrepreneurs, investors and press members here in Boston.
Over the last two months, four local startups have reached out to me asking for advice on how to set up their first podcast. A lot has been written about the podcast resurgence, but I don't think anything tells the story better than that little nugget.
When I was at Privy, my job was to manage all of our customers. This meant it was my job to keep them happy, make sure they renewed their contracts with us, and where possible, get them to pay us more. Like most people in account management roles at a startup, this also meant that I was the first person they called for anything (and that's not a figure of speech -- they actually called). Direct to my cell phone. Didn't matter if something was broken at 9 AM on a Saturday or they just had a new idea for a feature right as I was trying to get on the T, they called (we didn't have hundreds of customers, so that meant that I actually could spend time an interact with each and every one). As a result of having to be on the front lines, I think I learned more about business in a year than I did in all of my other jobs combined -- but the number one thing I learned was the importance of saying no and the right way to do so.
Getting more women into tech and startups is always a topic of discussion on the tech blogs these days. But I didn't realize how big of a topic this was until I was asked to moderate Tech In Motion's "Women in Tech" panel at Microsoft's NERD center Tuesday night (before you jump down my throat for not realizing how big of a topic it is...I know it is. But in my career so far, I've worked at four companies, all with a good balance of men and women and 3/4 of my managers have been women). Over 700 people RSVP'd and 350 showed up for an event that had no free food or free beer (two big draws for networking events). That was eye opening.
I'm coming up on three months at HubSpot and wanted to share a few observations from my first 100 or so days.
Meerkat was everywhere last week. Well, everywhere except Boston, according to NextView's Rob Go:
You definitely share your content on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
ClassPass offers access to gyms for $99/month, up to three times/month at each gym.
If you’re at a startup with 10 or fewer employees and you aren't an engineer or a designer, you better be able to build an audience and get customers.