If you unexpectedly get an automatic “out of office” email from me next month, blame the robots. I’ve been known to peruse the color-coded flight deal calendar in Hopper’s travel app from time to time, but now I fear I’m screwed: Hopper just launched a new feature called Flex Time, which suggests hard-to-resist deals on flights based on broad criteria, like a general time or destination.
Say you want to go to Europe for six days in the spring, but haven’t made up your mind about the details. Hopper will attempt to remove the guesswork and suggest some of the best flights it finds as it analyzes billions of flights every day. Until now, you had to know exactly where you wanted to go and when to get the most savings out of Hopper. The app helpfully sends notifications when it finds good deals on flights you’re watching, but again, it’s just for the destination and time frame that you define. Now it can offer much more open-ended suggestions.
Using a Pandora-style thumbs up/down system, Hopper will try its best to learn from your preferences and habits over time.
Who would’ve thought President Trump would do something inconsistent? That’s how Democratic Reps. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are characterizing his tweet this morning that “No deal was made last night on DACA.” Yesterday, the reps indicated a deal had been reached after a dinner at the White House, saying they and Trump “agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly, as CNN reported.
Such a deal would protect hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who came here as children from being deported. However, Trump tweeted this morning that “massive border security” remains a sticking point.
No deal was made last night on DACA. Massive border security would have to be agreed to in exchange for consent. Would be subject to vote.
President Trump’s Tweets are not inconsistent with the agreement reached last night. As we said last night, there was no final deal, but there was agreement on the following:
We agreed that the President would support enshrining DACA protections into law, and encourage the House and Senate to act.
What remains to be negotiated are the details of border security, with a mutual goal of finalizing all details as soon as possible. While both sides agreed that the wall would not be any part of this agreement, the President made clear he intends to pursue it at a later time, and we made clear we would continue to oppose it.
Both sides agreed that the White House and the Democratic leaders would work out a border security package. Possible proposals were discussed including new technology, drones, air support, sensor equipment, rebuilding roads along the border and the bipartisan McCaul-Thompson bill.
The interview process went well, and you were excited to bring on the new employee, but the person who showed up the first week doesn’t seem like the person you thought you hired. It’s possible that a candidate passes your screening process with flying colors and then lands with a thud when they take their desk, but how do you tell the difference between new-job jitters and red flags that you’ve made a mistake?
Start by discerning red flags from overt problems like dishonesty or illegal or immoral actions, says Shani Magosky, author of The Better Boss Blueprint. “Those aren’t red flags; they are more like baseball bats hitting you over the head, and thus require swift action or termination,” she says.
Less serious behaviors should be noted and handled immediately because they could be signs of something worse to come. Here are five red flags that may indicate you’ve made a hiring mistake:
1. They’re Looking For A Promotion—Now
While asking about career pathing during an interview is a fair question, it could be a red flag when a brand new employee inquires about the next growth opportunity, says Ian Caullay, director of employer relations at Oakland University’s School of Business Administration.
“Employers appreciate enthusiasm and a gung-ho attitude, but promotions are earned over time,” he says. “Employees need to take the time to get to know the culture, the work, and the people before plotting their next move.”
Asking about the career path could be a sign of naïveté, or it could be a red flag. “The person might have seen your job as an opportunity to get into the company and a stepping stone to something bigger,” says Caullay. “That could lead to turnover if they don’t have patience to wait.”
2. They Continually Ask For Help
It’s normal to allow for a learning curve about the specific work at hand, but an employee who doesn’t grasp their tasks within a reasonable amount of time could be raising a red flag.
In her role as a leadership consultant, Magosky has heard of senior managers who ask interns for help and hire outside consultants to do aspects of their job. “The behavior and performance are inconsistent with the experience presented in the hiring process and the expectation of the respective role,” she says. “It pretty quickly becomes obvious that this was a hiring mistake.”
3. They Talk About What They Will Do Rather Than Do It
Some new hires spend time talking about all of the things they’re going to do rather than rolling up their sleeves and getting to work, and that’s not a good sign, says Karson Humiston, founder and CEO of Vangst Talent, a recruiting firm that specializes in the cannabis industry. “The interview is over,” she says. “You’ve hired someone to do a job, not talk about doing it.”
This hesitation to get started could be a sign of being afraid to ask for help, especially when expectations are defined but aren’t being met. “This is certainly a red flag, however, the bigger red flag is if the new hire hasn’t reached out for support,” says Humiston. “A new hire who doesn’t meet expectations and doesn’t acknowledge they aren’t meeting expectations is an immediate red flag and a sign for future missed expectations.”
4. They’re Immediately Asking For Time Off
A new hire that starts work and then tells you about a preplanned vacation for the next month is a bad sign. “It shows dishonesty, since they already knew about the trip before accepting your offer,” says Humiston.
If someone is forthright in the interview process, it’s not usually a problem, adds Caullay. “Barring a true emergency, when people unload information at the time when they should be showing their worth and value and commitment, this could be a red flag,” he says.
5. They Spend Work Time On Their Phones Or Social Media
If your new hire is texting or checking social media within a week or two of being hired, consider it a red flag, says Caullay. “Even a seasoned pro takes the time to learn the new culture as well as their place on a team,” he says.
“If somebody is comfortable enough texting away on their phone or having Facebook up on their computer during the first week, this person is way too comfortable, spending time on the clock on activities outside of their work,” says Caullay. “This brings fear in my mind, heart, and head; what am I in store for six months down the road?” he asks.
What To Do About Red Flags
With any red flag, the behavior should be addressed immediately. “Stay on point about the specific issue so it’s not coming off as a personal attack,” says Caullay. “Start by asking, ‘What is your initial impression of the job thus far?’ Then share your initial observations. For example, ‘You expressed energy and excitement about this job; however, I’ve noticed you have Facebook up. Is there a problem?'”
Some red flags can be used as coaching moments. For example, if you have an overzealous employee who wants to move up the corporate ladder, take them aside and talk about the timeline around your company’s career path process. Spell out the milestones that an employee needs to reach to be eligible and considered for promotion, says Caullay.
And make sure you’ve set up your new hire for success. “We can’t expect new hires to be perfect,” says Magosky. “But we can expect them to be self-aware, open to feedback, and to put forth the good-faith efforts necessary to be successful in their role and within their organizations.”
Google is likely to announce its second-generation Pixel phones on October 4. A new page at Google’s hardware website tells people to “stay tuned for more” on that date, while a YouTube video linking to that page calls out several common pain points with other smartphones. (It shows questions like “What’s wrong with my phone’s battery?” being typed into a Google search bar.)
Google has also sent out invites for a press conference in San Francisco, with a 9 a.m. local start time.
Aside from new smartphones, Google may also announce a new Pixel-branded Chromebook and a smaller connected speaker to compete with Amazon’s Echo Dot, but the company isn’t teasing anything about those additions yet.
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who have no problem delegating tasks and those who know it would be easier if they just did it themselves. The latter type may give off control freak vibes, but that’s exactly what’s needed at times–as Pamela Adlon can attest to with her critically acclaimed FX series Better Things.
Adlon’s own life provides the framework for Better Things:a single mother of three daughters who’s balancing parenting, her acting career, and taking care of her increasingly dependent mother. The semi-autobiographical nature of the series helps explain why she’s so protective of it. Only her longtime collaborator Louis C.K. in on the creative process as the show’s co-creator, co-writer, and co-producer. For the second season, though, Adlon decided to direct everything herself.
“I knew that I was going to direct one or two episodes last season, and then this year it was a no-brainer for me to do it [all],” says Adlon, whose performance in the first season of Better Things earned her an Emmy nomination. “This season was easier because everything flowed through me. There was no committee. We didn’t have to wait. I made the decisions. I chose my frames. I was able to work with my actors. Like I said a million times, being the single mom of three girls is the best kind of boot camp for anything like this.”
Pamela Adlon in “Better Things.” [Photo: Beth Dubber, courtesy of FX]In fact, Adlon’s jam-packed life is precisely what led her to create Better Things. “I’m fully engaged in everything that I’m doing and I’m living my life very hard with my kids. I cook and I take care of my mom,” Adlon says. “But I see the beauty in everything around me. I always see things like I’m in a movie, but it’s my real life. So it’s probably the natural way that I would end up making a show.”
Adlon’s slice-of-life approach to creating Better Things is what makes the show so endearing. It doesn’t try to blow everyday situations into something bigger than what they actually are–it allows the natural humor, heartbreak, and absurdity of life to exist as is.
“I used to say that the log line for my show, if there was one, is ‘Life is what happens to you when you’re too busy to make any other plans,'” she says. “It’s like you think you can make plans, but then some insane, earth-shattering things happen. And then the next day you wake up and it’s just normal life again.”
Adlon and her on-screen kids (Olivia Edward, Mikey Madison, and Hannah Alligood). [Photo: Pamela Littky, courtesy of FX]As close to her material as Adlon is, she doesn’t downplay Louis C.K.’s influential role as a collaborator. The two have worked together and starred in Louis C.K.’s previous television projects: the short-lived HBO sitcom Lucky Louie and the acclaimed FX series Louie. So when it came time to launch Better Things, she knew who to call. “We speak the same language,” Adlon says.
As for what she thinks of the recent allegations of sexual misconduct on Louis C.K.’s part and whether they have affected her relationship with him, Adlon says, “All I can tell you is that he is the best, most generous, collaborative, brilliant writer in the world,” she says. “And you can ask anybody who works with him that he’s just the best guy. That’s all I have to say.”
Adlon with her “Better Things” daughters. [Photo: Pamela Littky, courtesy of FX]Running a show that rides parallel to her life has given Adlon some creative catharsis–a process she honed with her father Don Segall, a screenwriter who worked primarily in television, penning scripts for such series as Diff’rent Strokes and The Love Boat.
“From [ages] 11 to 18, it was rocky goings. And then I got out of the house, and my dad and I started working together and we would sit down and record our conversations very similar to the way Louis and I do now,” she says. “We were able to laugh and work through horrible family issues in our writing. It’s an amazingly cathartic thing to be able to make art out of something that feels shitty. It’s one of the greatest gifts of my life right now–that I can tell these stories for my daughters and their friends and my friends.”
Season two of Better Things premieres Thursday, September 14, on FX.
Even the most eco-minded fashion companies have had a hard time figuring out how to recycle mixed-fiber textiles (you know, like poly-cotton blends). Now, fast fashion giant H&M may have cracked the code.
H&M Foundation, the Swedish company’s independent charitable foundation and investment arm, tasked Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles to help them find an open-source solution for textile blend recycling that could be commercially viable by 2020. They’ve already struck on something that could make recycling fabric a reality. According to H&M, the new process uses a combination of heat, water, and 5% of a biodegradable agent to separate the cotton from the polyester into high-quality, reusable materials. H&M Foundation says the resulting polyester and cotton fibers are good enough to be used in new textile production. Now, they are building an industrial-scale plant to pilot the project. The H&M Foundation plans to license the technology out to help the entire fashion industry become more eco-friendly by 2020.
In our fast-paced world, trends are constantly coming and going, whether you’re talking about the latest music, fashion, or toys (I’m lookin’ at you, fidget spinners). And this doesn’t just occur in the realm of pop culture–it also occurs in the job seeking and recruiting space. The things that recruiters and hiring managers look for, and the way that candidates try to get their attention, are ever-evolving. So if you don’t keep up, you might be left behind.
This is especially true when it comes to the single most important document in the job search: your resume. You only get one shot for your resume to make an impression, so you want to make sure that you’re taking advantage of the hottest trends, and staying away from the ones that are better off ignored. But what exactly does that look like today? Here’s what career experts have to say.
Three Trends To Embrace
1. Short And Sweet
If you got into a routine of sprinkling in filler words and flowery language to help you reach a minimum word count in school, now’s the time to kick the habit. Studies show that recruiters only spend between six and seven seconds on your resume–so don’t waste time writing content they won’t read. But keep in mind that if you’re going to cut down the length of your resume, you need to make every word count.
“Shorter resumes are easier to read but they need to get to the point immediately and with powerful, precise language. Unlike the trend a few years ago to tell a story through countless examples of accomplishments, the goal now is to show what you are qualified to do, why, and how the company will benefit,” says Roy Cohen, career coach and author of The Wall Street Professional’s Survival Guide.
The exact information you should include, as well as the format, may vary depending on your role, so “get feedback from industry and company insiders who can explain what to include on your resume and how to format the content,” Cohen suggests. “When your resume is shorter AND it gets the message across loud and clear, you are essentially punching above your weight. That is always a desirable theme in a job search: The candidate who offers better value.”
2. Hyperlinks
One easy way to make sure that your resume stays concise but still packs a punch? Providing hyperlinks to relevant information and resources.
“A hyperlink is the equivalent of CliffsNotes for your resume. You have the freedom to reference a much larger and more significant item and to expand on a key point,” Cohen says. “Brevity is the goal for most resumes. An abbreviated message that can be backed up addresses the needs of both the short attention span reader and the reader who wants to dig deeper into your background and qualifications.”
A couple best practices when including hyperlinks: “Use links appropriately and only to showcase illustrations that support you as a candidate. Make sure that you highlight these links clearly so that the reader of your resume neither ignores or overlooks this valuable information,” Cohen advises.
3. Digital Add-Ons
You might be wondering: Which resources should you be hyperlinking to within your resume?
For starters, you may want to try a video cover letter. “A quick video will capture [recruiters’] attention and leave them learning more about you than they would through those six seconds” spent scanning a resume, Sheth shares. “Applicants should record videos with the intention of showcasing their personality, communication style, and why they are the right person for the job.”
Or, “if you are applying to a role where work product is relevant, like in many creative industries, you can create a digital portfolio of your work and include a link to your portfolio so that recruiters can review it,” Sheth says. “This will show you’re prepared, qualified and will leave a lasting impression.”
Two Trends To Avoid
1. Design Over Functionality
Sure, an eye-popping resume can look good on paper. But if you get too caught up with making a visually appealing resume, you might prevent your resume from ever getting in the hands of a recruiter.
“One of the newest resume trends is using Etsy-styled templates that have a lot of columns and graphic design,” says resume writer and career transition coach Wendi Weiner.
But while “this approach shows off your creative ability and eye for design… it likely won’t make it past an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), which many companies use as a screening method to weed out resumes that don’t meet specific on-page standards (think keywords, industry buzzwords, and conventional headlines),” shares Zachary Painter, career adviser and hiring manager at ResumeGenius.com.
To get around this, “stick to a sophisticated yet professional template that enables your headlines to stand out–a reader’s eyes naturally gaze at the center of the page, so make sure your headlines are centered in the middle of the page for easy reading. Consider also having a line underneath the headline title (professional experience, education, core skills, etc.) so that the sections of your resume are separated,” Weiner suggests.
On the other hand, if you’re applying for a position in a highly visual field where creative resumes are a boon, take advantage of those hyperlinks again by “providing a link to your portfolio in your online application and on your printed out, physical resume. This will satisfy ATS bots and land safely in the hands of a hiring manager or department head,” Painter says.
2. Skill-Points Systems
It’s no secret that recruiters and hiring managers love when you can quantify your success–but it is possible to have too much of a good thing.
“Over the years, the term ‘quantification’ –as it applies to resumes–has gotten taken out of context. Basically, applicants think it’s smart to rate their additional skills on a resume by ranking each skill with a number ranging from one to ten,” Painter says. (E.g. Photoshop: 7/10, Microsoft Word: 4/10, Excel: 8/10).
But the problem is that quantifying your skillset is vague and arbitrary — and too many applicants are tempted to give themselves top marks for everything. If you rate every skill as a nine or 10 out of 10, recruiters and hiring managers will probably be skeptical.
“The best solution is to mention that you have experience or familiarity in the additional skills you provide. Go for something like this:
Proficient in Adobe Creative Suite
Familiar with WordPress
Experienced with Javascript, HTML, and CSS languages
This communicates better than a vague ‘skills point system’, and hiring managers will appreciate it more,” Painter says.
This article originally appeared on Glassdoor and is reprinted with permission.
One of the greatest photographers in the solar system is about to hang up its camera. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has taken nearly 400,000 images during its slow sojourn to Saturn, documenting its 53 or so moons and stunning rings, resulting in a collection of humbling, jaw-dropping, and completely spectacular images.
However, Cassini is calling it quits tomorrow. During its exploration of Saturn and its rings, it will dive into the gas giant’s atmosphere, where it will “break apart, melt, vaporize, and become a part of the very planet it left Earth 20 years ago to explore,” Cassini project manager Earl Maize said in a press conference. NASA’s decision sounds cutthroat, but they are decimating the craft because they don’t want to risk it crashing into one of Saturn’s moons. It’s a dramatic end for the spacecraft that has helped scientists understand the universe, and humans appreciate the immense vastness of space.
Here, we look back at some of Cassini’s many, many gorgeous photos. Thank you, Cassini.
As a famous late night comedian, James Corden can afford to go on vacation just about anywhere in the world. But according to this new Chase Bank campaign, The Late Late Show host is just so busy, he needs some advice on how to spend his precious time off.
“Seven Continents, One James Corden,” sends a handful of rewards cardmembers for dining, transportation, and accommodation on every continent—even Antarctica. Created by agency Droga5, it’s an impressively elaborate product demo, essentially showing–through the jokey Corden premise–the scope of perks with the Chase Sapphire Reserve card.
President of Chase Branded Cards Pam Codispoti says the campaign aims to shine a spotlight on their customers and the travel experiences they can enjoy while using their card across seven continents. “Research told us that millennials are evolving the way they define being ‘rich’– they don’t define success by the things they’ve accumulate but rather by the rich experiences they have collected,” says Codispoti. “More than half of Reserve cardmembers are millennials and with Sapphire Reserve they can travel the way they want and be rewarded for it, no matter where they are in the world.”
Droga5 partner and executive creative director Duncan Marshall says following last year’s ‘Reserve What’s Next’ campaign, they wanted to continue James Corden’s conversations with interesting people in the world of travel, but this time celebrate the cardmembers themselves as they explore amazing experiences on all seven continents.
“We recognized that consumers don’t necessarily look to banks for inspiration into how they live their lives, but for the tools and advice to help them live them.” says Marshall. “And so we worked with Chase to focus our creative on the types of experiences Chase Sapphire Reserve members are already after, demonstrated the dining, travel, and accommodation benefits of the card, and then stepped out of the way to allow the genuine experiences of our traveling cardmembers come to life.”
While it’s a fun idea, made funny with Corden, the campaign’s biggest weakness is not giving the rest of us a longer look at the cardmembers’ travel experiences. It’s a concept–sending people out into the world to report back on wild adventures–perfectly suited for expanded brand content, giving the rest of us a closer look at that gorilla retreat in Uganda, or sand-boarding in the Chilean desert. But here, we get a unique idea, dressed down in a standard advertising format.
Since 2015, taxi service Uber and AI chipmaker Nvidia have been like Sam and Diane from Cheers, or Mika and Joe from MSNBC. They work together every day, and everyone thinks of them as a couple. But it took a long time to make it official, which finally happened today. The two companies announced that they are in a self-driving car relationship for the long haul. Nvidia, which recently squeezed a trunkful of computers onto a circuit board the size of a license plate, will supply the artificial intelligence hardware and software to replace Uber drivers, as well as freight truck drivers, in the future.
The self-driving relationship will actually be a threesome, as Uber confirmed that the Nvidia chips will continue going into its growing fleet of Volvo XC90 SUV taxis. (In November, Uber announced its intention to buy up to 24,000 of the cars.) The Volvo-Nvidia robo-taxis have already carried passengers on 50,000 trips, covering over 2 million miles, in pilot projects that began in Pittsburgh in 2016 and Phoenix in 2017. Uber hasn’t settled on a supplier of trucks for its future autonomous freight-hauling business, however. And none of the companies are saying when autonomous taxis will go national and global.
Nor do they rule out this three-way taxi tie-up becoming an open marriage. “We don’t have any exclusive relationships,” says Danny Shapiro, Nvidia’s senior director of automotive. Uber says the same in response to an email I sent them. Intel, for instance, is racing to catch up to Nvidia with its own in-car computer. Googling “Intel” brings up a lot of bad news of late, as its processors are subject to serious security flaws, called Meltdown and Spectre, and the software fix could hit performance–possibly critical for an autonomous car that has to make split-millisecond decisions. However, one or both of the bugs could also affect some cell-phone-style ARM processors, as well; and Nvidia’s AI chip for autonomous cars, called Xavier, includes an ARM processor. “We’ve analyzed to determine which [chips] are affected, and we’re preparing appropriate mitigations,” says Shapiro. “But we’re not aware of anything that’s been an issue.”
The search giant profited by up to £200 (about $270 USD) every time a person clicked on an advertised link for supposedly “free” addiction help lines in the U.K., reports the Times. But these “free” help line websites are most often just fronts for referral services that suggest patients then go to expensive private rehabilitation clinics. The referral services can get up to a £20,000 (about $27,000 USD) commission for each patient they refer, which is why they are willing to pay Google £200 per click. The huge commissions are blamed for driving up the cost of addiction recovery services in the U.K., making treatment that much more expensive. As a result of the Times investigation, Google removed all addiction industry ads from its U.K. site.
The hedge fund Jana Partners and California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), which together own around $2 billion of Apple stock, have published an open letter urging Apple to think differently about kids and the impact smartphones have on their childhood development, reports TechCrunch. The shareholders made the plea after working with child development experts to review research studies that found smartphones and other electronic devices had negative effects on a child’s sleep, concentration, emotional health, and empathy. They are urging Apple to take further steps, among them supporting research by giving researchers access to Apple’s analytics about how young users use the company’s devices.
When the movement to push the city of Los Angeles from keeping its money at Wells Fargo grew in 2017–as in other cities that decided to pull money from the bank because of its fake accounts scandal and funding of the Dakota Access Pipeline–organizers of the campaign realized that they faced a challenge: Where to put the money next.
The largest city accounts are too big for small community banks to handle, so divestment from one major bank typically means moving money to another major bank that likely has social responsibility issues of its own. In addition, even ethical smaller banks aren’t directly accountable to the public. L.A., along with other U.S. cities, is now considering another option: a public, city-owned bank that would keep money inside the community, and follow a socially and environmentally responsible charter.
“This started as a divest campaign,” says Phoenix Goodman, cofounder and policy director for the activist group Revolution LA, which runs both Divest LA and Public Bank LA. “I was tasked with doing research on alternatives and what that would entail financially, and in looking into it, I realized, wait a minute, we have so much money that the only other banks that can handle our accounts are other huge Wall Street firms, all of which are complicit in this same system, more or less. Maybe Wells Fargo is the most egregious, but in a way it’s a smaller victory, because we’re just going to move to another big bank, and we’re not changing the system, we’re changing a symptom of the system.”
[Photo: susandaniels/iStock]A public bank, they realized, could be designed to bar unethical business practices. It could also save the city money. Los Angeles, for example, paid private banks more than $100 million in fees in 2016. Instead of taking out loans for infrastructure projects from major banks, and sending fees and interest outside the city, a public bank could handle the city’s needs itself. Public banks can be set up to hold government deposits and give loans to the government and work as a “banker’s bank” for smaller community banks; in another model, they can also be set up to take consumer deposits. The initial capitalization can come from a variety of sources, including long-term investments, bonds, and crowdfunding.
“That’s our tax dollars that get siphoned off to profits on Wall Street,” Goodman says. “If that same mechanism can be owned by the people themselves within the city, that interest can be reinvested as profits for the bank to be used and reinvested again into new projects, so it would be profit for the city rather than private interests. Because it can save money, fiscally conservative people have found value in that as well.”
In the U.S., at the moment, only one public bank exists: The Bank of North Dakota. “The whole idea of the Bank of North Dakota, when it was set up in 1919, was to keep North Dakota money in North Dakota for North Dakotans,” says Ellen Brown, an attorney and founder of the nonprofit Public Banking Institute. Her interest in the model was piqued after the 2008 financial crisis. As Wall Street banks collapsed and most state treasuries went into debt, the Bank of North Dakota grew assets and profits because the model, Brown says, is more efficient than traditional banking.
Several cities are now considering the idea, driven in part by the same divestment movement at work in Los Angeles. Santa Fe, New Mexico, which began working on the concept earlier than most, completed a feasibility study in 2016. Washington, D.C. has money allocated in the 2018 budget for a feasibility study. Seattle and Portland are considering the idea. Oakland is beginning a feasibility study, and a grassroots group of advocates is raising money for a business plan, the next step in the process. San Francisco is also pursuing the idea. New Jersey’s new governor talked about his support for a state public bank as he campaigned (a state bank would work in a similar way, and could also work in conjunction with city banks).
In California, marijuana legalization is providing another push for public banks. Other banks won’t give dispensaries accounts because of discrepancies with federal law. “The whole situation is ridiculous,” says Susan Harmon, an advocate with Friends of the Public Bank of Oakland. “It’s absurd. The cannabis industry in Oakland pays taxes to the city in cash. They deliver huge bags of cash in armored cars to the city.” Harmon says that it takes city staff five hours to count taxes from Harborside, one large dispensary.
Once the city takes the cash to Chase, the bank can accept it; having a city-owned bank would remove the need to use cash at all. “The DOJ hasn’t come down on Chase for money laundering,” Harmon says. “So there’s something about the magic hand of government touching this cash that launders it, in a good way. It somehow cleans it up and makes it respectable, and lets Chase accept it as a deposit, even though they wouldn’t if Harborside went directly to Chase to try to open an account.”
[Photo: Tim Evans/Unsplash]The problem of weed money will only grow, since recreational marijuana is now legal in California, as of 2018, along with medical marijuana. In 2017, the state treasurer said that the state should begin considering public banks as one option to deal with the hundreds of millions in cash that will be due in taxes.
In L.A., organizers say that while they support the idea of using public banks for cannabis money, the idea can move forward with or without cannabis. A task force looked at the legal requirements for a public bank, potential regulatory barriers, and financial benefits and risks, and found the idea feasible on the surface; a next step will be a more detailed examination.
If it works, the city would also have to create a governance model to make the bank responsible. A charter might outline, for example, that profits will be reinvested for the public benefit, and list sectors that would be restricted from investment, such as fossil fuels and private prisons, along with sectors that would be prioritized in line with the city’s goals, such as affordable housing and community land trusts. Bank policy could also limit executive pay and require governance from a board with expertise in issues like sustainable development.
“You can technically have a public bank that is still propped or beholden to the wrong interests, or incompetently run,” says Goodman. “A public bank is not enough. It’s just one pillar of the system that we’re trying to create–one [pillar] is that it’s public. Two is that it’s beholden to the people in a transparent way, completely barred from unethical business practices and encouraged to follow socially and environmentally responsible business practices.”
Goodman and other advocates are also in talks with legislators in Sacramento, pushing for a bill that would create a regulatory framework for public banks in the state as a whole. It’s a step that isn’t necessary, but would help city banks in the state work together in a more coordinated way. The biggest barrier, he says, is getting people to realize that another model is possible. “I think all we need is one victory,” he says. “We think Los Angeles could be the first. I think it’s going to be a chain reaction.”
New Jersey could also potentially move quickly, says Brown. The state’s recently elected governor, Phil Murphy, who talked about his support for public banks in his campaign, previously worked at Goldman Sachs. That understanding of the banking industry–and the fact that his background at such a lucrative institution might persuade some voters that government-owned bank could be well-run–could be key.
“It seems to me that the big issue is political will,” Brown says. “Any state or city could do it if they had the political will. But the problem is overcoming this resistance from politicians and from big banks, who will say things like ‘politicians should not be bankers.’ The politicians aren’t going to be the bankers; you’re going to hire the best bankers you can find, of course.”
If it succeeds, the model could reshape the larger financial system. “What we’re basically changing is the relationship between private financial firms and public entities like state and city governments,” says Goodman. “By changing that relationship, we can have a tangible effect on the entire economy as a whole. Because everything emerges from banking. Every single thing needs funding, so the source of that funding will determine everything else that unfolds in the economy.”
The launch was the first SpaceX launch of 2018, reports CNBC. Because its payload was classified as a U.S. government secret, it’s not known what exactly the rocket’s payload was beyond its “Zuma” name. Zuma launched aboard one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida before the Falcon 9 landed back at the base.
There are advantages to sleeping with a robot. For one thing, it won’t kick you in the middle of the night.
It will obediently snuggle with you till you’ve had your fill. When you need your space, simply throw it to other side of the bed–with no hurt feelings. At any point, you can control the robot’s body. Is his breathing too strong? His talk too loud? All can be adjusted with a simple dial.
The best part? It doesn’t snore.
Meet the Somnox sleep robot, a football-sized companion made to help relax you to sleep. The soft-to-touch bot murmurs with a slowed breathing rhythm, subconsciously lulling users to a meditative breathing speed. It comes with integrated audio with Enya-eqsue celestial sounds and white noise, but if that’s not your bag, you can upload whatever calming audio you’d like, be it lullabies, bird sounds, or Jeff Goldblum’s voice.
In a lot of ways, it’s like a Teddy Ruxpin for insomniacs.
Somnox sleep robot [Photo: courtesy of Somnox]“You really have that feeling of cuddling something that is alive,” explains Julian Jagtenberg, cofounder of Netherlands-based Somnox. “There’s nothing comparable to our product.” Somnox concluded its first Kickstarter preorder campaign last month. The startup raised $240,000 with the help of over 500 backers in just four weeks.
Indeed, in a market saturated with smart pillows, wearables, and sleep trackers like the Beddit mattress sensor and Oura ring, the Somnox sleep robot feels like an innovative solution to what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls a public health epidemic. Roughly 35% of Americans sleep less than seven hours per night during the workweek. The National Sleep Foundation attributes this to a variety of reasons, including psychiatric and medical conditions, unhealthy sleep habits, tech-induced interference, stress, or certain biological factors.
“It’s a trending market,” says Jagtenberg. “The problem is huge and the solutions are minimal.” He says he’s now ready to take on the greater insomniac community: “Our mission is to help 100,000 people achieve a good night’s rest by 2025 with the world’s best natural sleep inducing solution.”
Solving Sleep With Soft Robotics
Julian Jagtenberg never meant to launch a startup.
In early 2015, he was studying industrial design engineering within the Robotics Institute at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. It was while researching soft robotics that his mother began to complain of sleep issues. It wasn’t that she couldn’t fall asleep; rather, she repeatedly woke up in the middle of the night and was so stressed over getting back to sleep that she couldn’t.
Julian Jagtenberg [Photo: courtesty of Somnox]It began with a simple question: Why is there no effective technological solution to sleep deprivation? Jagtenberg, who did not want his mother resorting to prescription sleep aids, imagined a soft robot rocking her back to sleep: something that could be cuddled like a human or a dog.
The engineer built a prototype based on studies of what calms anxious sleepers: breathing as as a source of deep relaxation as well as soothing sounds.
A 2015 study by researchers at UCLA in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, for example, found that mindful meditation helps adults fall and stay asleep better than those who went through sleep hygiene education intervention (i.e., changing daily behaviors and other factors believed to be causing sleep problems).
The sleep robot therefore has a slowed breathing rhythm that users follow as an interactive meditation guide. You can feel the device breathe as you hold it close–nearly identical to the physical sensation of the falling and rising of one’s chest. The robot automatically stops after about 15 minutes.
“We found that in our [trials] was that by feeling this breathing rhythm, you subconsciously adjust to it,” reports Jagtenberg, “so you start breathing [differently] without even thinking about it . . . That is a really powerful tool to get you to breathe like a Buddhist monk in just a couple of minutes.”
While I don’t suffer from severe insomnia, I did find that the sleep robot relaxed me in the same way a hot bath does. It’s not necessarily a cure-all, but it sure did feel good. That it was huggably cute helped, too.
Its peanut-shaped form is purposely meant to mimic that of a fetus. Jagtenberg, along with fellow scientists at the Institute, wanted a familiar yet ergonomic form that one can easily cradle without deviating from the natural neck and shoulder alignment. The robot is covered in a soft cloth that resembles that of a mattress’s top layer, with two gleaming eyes that light up during the first few minutes of its use. The eyes are meant it make it look like a real being.It could very well be confused with a live-action Pac-Man ghost.
And while the idea of cradling a breathing object in bed might sound strange, Somnox points to a research study from the University of Connecticut that paired breathing stuffed bears with babies suffering from irregular breathing. The fuzzy helpers were shown to improve sleep quality and breathing, making for less fussy temperaments the next day.
[Photo: courtesy of Somnox]“I really wanted to create something that was not just a product, not just a lifeless thing, but really a companion to take care of you in times that you were anxious or stressed during the night and no one is there to help you because everyone’s asleep,” says Jagtenberg.
It should be noted that the robot is not intended for all sleep issues. It cannot, for example, spare you from aggravating traffic noise or a partner’s sleep apnea. Somnox built the robot specifically to ease stress-related insomnia. It’s for folks who can’t stop worrying about the next day’s to-do list.
The academic project soon turned into frenzy as friends, colleagues, and next-door neighbors asked to borrow the prototype–or order their own. Jagtenberg had set out to help his mother, but now everyone wanted their own nighttime buddy. He understood: His mother found functioning without sleep a daily challenge.
“If you chronically sleep bad, you’re not able to actually live,” says Jagtenberg, who has since interviewed hundreds of insomniacs for his project. “Sleeping is so vital to living a happy, productive life.”
[Photo: courtesy of Somnox]
Waking Up An Entrepreneurial Spirit
In July 2015, Jagtenberg collected a team of researchers along with sleep specialists to fine-tune the invention in conjunction with the Institute. The newly launched Somnox company set up multiple testing rounds in collaboration with sleep specialists, hospitals, and doctors to test various prototypes on potential users.
Within months, friends of friends and colleagues within the robotics community tested the product. It wasn’t long until Somnox swelled to a staff of 14 and decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign. The campaign offered pledgers 40% on the future retail price, which is slated for $700. This is substantially more expensive than other advanced sleep gadgets on the market, like the $299 Re-Timer light therapy glasses or $179 sound-emitting DreamPad pillows. The sleep robot differs, however, in that it’s a combination of several products on the market–and the first of its kind.
For those who can’t afford the steep price tag (or who want to try it out before committing), the company plans to release a service lease model with monthly rental payments.
The first batch or robots, to be shipped July 2018, will also feature sleep-data trackers. Each robot will come in a small black case, much like a little Dracula coffin.
[Photo: courtesy of Somnox]Somnox has yet to conduct a clinical evaluation, but the startup released a white paper of initial findings. Nearly 100 test sleepers spent a night with the robot, with 90% claiming it increased their ability to fall and stay asleep. Jagtenberg is quick to admit that it could still very well be a placebo effect, but is confident such high numbers attest to its efficacy.
“We are planning to do this trial [this year], and that is where we will really prove to the world that it actually works,” he says.
Jagtenberg holds that Somnox has no direct competitors since no other contraption managed to cull both sensation and sound together in such a physical format. Such uniqueness is as an advantage, but at the same time, he concedes, the name sometimes serves as an obstacle: “People think it’s a sex robot.”
Although many are drawn to it for exactly that reason–it sounds intriguing. “They want to know more,” says Jagtenberg, who says many people come to the Somnox site out of sheer curiosity. With time, he hopes, word will spread and he won’t need to explain its G-rated uses. In fact, he has great goals for his Sleep Robot, which sprouted from such humble, mommy-pleasing origins.
“[When we started], we decided we didn’t want to make a gadget or gimmick. We really want to make something that is of added value–a new product category, actually,” says Jagtenberg. “We want to have the term sleep robot be something that ends up in the dictionary, just like a Walkman or an iPod.”
“Every morning I wake up and think of what I need to do, and I’m afraid,” Ayse Birsel confesses. “What if I don’t come up with a good idea? The only remedy to that is to start doing it.”
Ayse Birsel Cofounder and creative director, Birsel + Seck [Illustration: Eric Palma]But Birsel, who’s the cofounder and creative director of design studio Birsel + Seck and the author of Design the Life You Love, knows it isn’t easy pushing past that fear in order to get started on something. “It’s the kind of thing I forget every night and have to remember every morning. I put myself under pressure to come up with this great idea, and it never comes like that–sometimes it takes 10 minutes, sometimes it takes an hour, or a whole month–but this exercise is a way to get over that fear.” To help, Birsel takes a cue from illustrator Keri Smith, who has shared an exercise in which she scavenges objects from her home and the floor of her studio, then rearranges them in order to jumpstart her creativity.
In Birsel’s riff on Smith’s prompt, you don’t need a spacious art studio with a whimsically cluttered floor–you just need a desk with a few ordinary items on it.
How It Works
Ready to get started? “Find seven things on your desk at your studio, office, or home and make something with them. You could make a sculpture, a freeze-frame, a tool, a composition–whatever comes to you,” Birsel explains. “Try to pick random objects, different materials, and varying sizes, and don’t think, just do! You’ll improvise as you go.”
The trick is not to spend more than 10 minutes fiddling with your desktop objects–that’s enough time to experiment with some interesting combinations without beginning to second-guess yourself. In one of Birsel’s own recent attempts, she says, “I put together a Japanese toy (which I keep on my desk to entertain myself), my must-have Post-It notes, smiley-face stickers, earphones, some tape, and a thin wooden African figurine. Without really planning, I started putting these random objects together playfully and ended up creating a romance scene!”
[Animation: Ayse Birsel]Birsel recommends doing this 10-minute exercise every day. “Come up with different mixes and matches of the same seven objects each day for one week, then change the items the following week–and the week after that, and the one after that,” she suggests. “If you created a sculpture, place it on a stool to highlight it. If you made a composition, place it on different backgrounds and post it on your social media.”
The main idea, she says, is to “take inspiration from your surroundings, nature, people, stories, and your imagination. And don’t forget to have fun! That’s a key component of creativity.” But don’t worry about the outcome, says Birsel. “It doesn’t have to be a new Picasso. It can just be a funky little thing. The goal is to get yourself “thinking about the same things differently. Once you’re in that space, you can move toward thinking about something else differently.”
Why It Works
Birsel sees this as a warm-up exercise, a “signal to your right brain that what you’re going to do next is be creative. It’s a way to break away from the other work you might be doing–to stretch your creative muscles without judging yourself.”
If there’s one prerequisite to creativity, Birsel believes it’s a sense of fun, a “playful spirit,” unlike the mind-set that rote or analytical tasks usually demand. “When you’re in a playful mode, you’re less of afraid of making mistakes and you’re less judgmental, which is really key to any creative endeavor. That little voice in your head that says, ‘Well that’s a bad idea!’–it’s the worst possible friction to creativity.”
By playing with the stuff on your desk for 10 minutes, “You’re not trying to prove that you’re the most creative person in the room,” she adds, you’re just trying to silence that voice and start having fun.
In fact, Birsel thinks it’s better if you don’t have cute figurines and interesting items to toy around with. The “constraints and limitations” of boring old office supplies, she says, “are actually the best, because you have to make do with what you have. Sometimes it’s harder if you have beautiful things on your desk and you don’t want to mess with them. If you only have some tape and paperclips, you won’t worry, ‘Am I destroying something?’ or ‘Is this an iconic object?'”
Late last year, Fast Company invited some readers to try out Birsel’s exercise. Here are a few creative arrangements they came up with:
For the first few years of its existence, Minneapolis menswear brand Askov Finlayson‘s focus was both on its products–namely, its signature North hats–and a fundamental redefining of its chilly corner of the midwest. Instead of just another northern section of flyover country, CEO and cofounder Eric Dayton wanted his home state to be recognized as the northern paradise he holds it to be. Specifically, the North. And judging by Askov Finlayson’s growth, as well as how others in Minnesota have embraced the notion, it’s working. The upcoming Super Bowl in Minneapolis is branded “Bold North,” and the local pro sports teams have tucked it into their own taglines: the NBA’s Timberwolves’ “All Eyes North,” NFL’s Vikings’ “This Is the North,” and MLS’ United FC’s “The North Is Rising.”
But now, as Askon Finlayson is setting its sights on expanding its brand presence beyond Minneapolis, Dayton is making the company’s ongoing support of climate change awareness a part of its bottom line. This week the brand is announcing its “Give 110%” initiative, in which it measures its carbon footprint, calculates its financial cost using the Social Cost of Carbon, and then gives away 110% of that amount to leading-edge organizations working to solve the climate crisis. To start things off, Dayton is committing to donating $1 million over the next five years.
“If we lose our winters, if we lose our cold, we’ll lose a lot of what the north means to me,” says Dayton. “So it’s a way of tying the business to a cause I feel passionate about, but also a natural fit. It also just happens to be one of the biggest, most pressing issues of our lifetime. So that helped too.”
The 37-year-old CEO is the son of Minnesota governor Mark Dayton, and his great-great-grandfather George Draper Dayton founded Dayton’s department store, which later became Target Corporation. Long an outdoors fanatic, in his twenties Dayton went on expeditions with Arctic explorer Will Steger. In 2015 the brand began its Keep The North Cold program, which gave money to local organizations, but as Dayton started to think about his growth strategy going forward and the opportunity to expand Askov to a national level, he wanted to take it further. “It wasn’t just good enough to offset a little bit,” says Dayton. “What would it really take to say we’re having a net positive impact on the environment and the world?”
[Photo: courtesy of Askov Finlayson]
The brand is certainly making the move at the right time. Askov is quickly growing its brand, just last week announcing a new collaboration with Target that starts on January 14, running in 38 stores across Minnesota and online nationally. It’s also launching a kernza beer, brewed in collaboration with the organization Green Lands, Blue Waters, (one of its 2018 Keep the North Cold grantees) and Minneapolis-based brewery Fair State Brewing Cooperative. And just in time for the Super Bowl, it’s teamed with Warby Parker on special edition “Keep the North Cold” sunglasses, available at Warby’s Minneapolis shop.
Dayton has known Warby Parker cofounder and CEO Neil Blumenthal since their business-school days, and they’ve had a shop-in-shop collaboration since 2015. Blumenthal says it’s clear consumers favor brands with a social ethos, but it’s often tough to distinguish between those who claim to do good in the world from those that actually are. “That’s what excites me about Askov, because like us, it’s a values-driven brand,” says Blumenthal. “And when you’re a values-driven brand, you dedicate the resources to get the impact you want. It’s not just something run by a PR team. It’s core to the business.”
Dayton sees this year as an inflection point for the brand and a key time to embed a program like “Give 110%” into the business. “To me, this is what running a business in 2018 looks like,” he says. “You have to be focused on doing well as a company, but you also need to be focused on and committed to doing good. I don’t see those two things as mutually exclusive. In fact, I think they go hand in hand.”
You’re smart enough to spot bad career advice, but what about when you get good advice that you know works for a lot of people, but doesn’t work for you?
It can be tempting to throw your hands in the air and say “I give up.” But this isn’t your only option. Here are some ideas on what you can do when following common career advice isn’t bringing you much success.
Try: Broadening Your Horizons And Looking For Where The Demands Are
We’re often advised to be specific and strategic about what we’re after. While this might be great advice for some, others might find that this approach yields little results for them–particularly when they’re trying to land their first entry-level job.
These days, it’s no longer enough to have a college degree, candidates need to have work experience, whether it be through internships or part-time gigs. But sometimes, even that isn’t enough. Marketing professional and freelance writer Brittney Oliver witnessed this when she embarked on her post-college job search. Despite five internships under her belt, it took her eight months and over 100 interviews before she landed her first job.
As Oliver previously wrote in Fast Company, being a woman of color presented her with additional challenges that her white peers might not have had to face. But considering that the interviewers’ unconscious bias wasn’t something she had much control over, she focused on what she could control. When she started her job search, Oliver had her sights only on PR jobs in New York City. But after struggling to secure a position, she saw her peers turn their degrees into “transferable skills that helped them land jobs outside of their fields.” She began to do the same.
This was also a strategy that Sydney Brunson, a diversity programs specialist at Pinterest, employed. Brunson told Oliver, “had I solely focused on jobs and careers in public relations or communications, my story might be different. I would encourage students to broaden their horizons and scope when searching for jobs.”
Another practical tip could be to look for roles that companies have difficulty filling. Ify Walker, founder of talent matchmaking firm Offor Walker Group, suggested that candidates who are having trouble landing jobs should try to put themselves “in places where others might say, ‘I don’t want to do that, or that’s too hard.'”
Instead Of: Expand Your Network
Try: Figure Out How You Can Help Others In Your Existing Network
It’s true that having a large professional network never hurts, and you never know what opportunities could come out of new interactions. But if, like most people, your time is limited, making yourself attend three to four networking events a week in attempts to “widen your network” might not be the best use of your time.
Chances are, you probably have a few people in your current network that can help you get ahead. Alexandra Cavoulacos and Kathryn Minshew, cofounders of career site The Muse, listed these types of people in their book, The New Rules Of Work: The Modern Playbook For Navigating Your Career. From those who hold similar positions to you, people related to your industry or role but with different responsibilities, the person one or two levels ahead of you and even the newbie who just started their careers–these are all valuable relationships to cultivate.
Of course, it goes without saying that in order to reap the benefits, you have to be willing to give. For example, you might recommend a candidate to your senior coworker when you hear that they’re hiring. When it comes to those who have a similar job to you, you might share your learnings and lessons and act as each other’s “buddies” when you do attend a big event.
Instead Of: Find A Mentor
Try: Focus On Making Yourself More Valuable
No one really “makes it” on their own, so it’s no surprise that many successful people attribute their success to the help of others. Unfortunately, this has resulted in the idea that for our careers to have any chance of flourishing, we need to have a go-to mentor–a leader in our field who we can turn to for advice in times of trouble. Oh and they need to be as equally invested in our careers as we are.
Of course, finding a person like this is definitely great for your career, but busy and important people don’t always have time to be unpaid career coaches. And plenty of successful people have had thriving careers without one consistent mentor (WeWork’s CEO and cofounder Adam Neumann is a great example). Having a mentor is not the be all and end all to your career.
Instead of focusing on what you can get, focus on what you can give. You can start with doing this at work, by making sure that you’re fulfilling every aspect of your job description, and going above and beyond when possible. Then you can also position yourself to “get in on what the higher ups” are saying, as Fast Company‘s Rich Bellis wrote in a previous article.
There are several ways to do this if you’re a junior employee–you can ask your boss directly to see if they can fill you in on what they discussed at the leadership meeting, or you can muster the courage to introduce yourself to the company’s leaders when you see them around the office. You’ll not only gain valuable insights about how your company works, but you might develop a relationship with someone who literally has control over your career.
Instead Of: Build And Cultivate A Personal Brand
Try: Focus On Deepening Your Expertise In Your Field
In the age of social media influencers, it’s easy to get fixated on making our online presence as polished (and popular) as possible. But unless your job title is social media marketer, at some point, you’ll probably see diminishing returns to all this self-promotion–particularly when the time you spend trying to gain followers on Instagram is cutting into the time you’re spending on your actual work.
In his book Perennial Seller: The Art Of Making And Marketing Work That Lasts, marketer and writer Ryan Holiday stressed that if you want to create a product that will stand the test of time, you have to create a great product. He wrote, “even the best admen will admit that, over the long term, all the marketing in the world won’t matter if the product hasn’t been made right.”
The same logic can apply to our careers. If we’re not good at what we do, no amount of retweets and likes will hide that fact. As entrepreneur John Rampton wrote in a previous Fast Company article, “It’s one thing to tout your best qualities and another to push them so hard that you fall into false marketing.”
Instead Of: Put Yourself Out There
Try: Put Yourself In Situations That Let You Be Your Best
Many of us have a conventional idea of what success looks like. Go for the biggest job and opportunity, have lots of powerful friends, make a lot of money.
Aarons-Mele went on to write, “But let me be clear: When introverts like me realize that the success they’re chasing isn’t making them happy, it’s not because they’re lazy or unambitious.” Rather, it’s about understanding what environments make you perform at your best, and what environments make you struggle–and embracing it. After all, life doesn’t require you to conform to society’s perceived idea of career success. What that looks like to you is wholly up to you to decide.
Canva, the graphic design startup that lets users design fly flyers on the fly, has just turned into a unicorn. The company said today it raised $40 million in its latest funding round, and is now valued at $1 billion.
Cofounded by CEO Melanie Perkins–one of Fast Company‘s Most Creative People In Business–the Australian graphic design startup lets users edit photos, add stickers and texts, make pie charts, Venn diagrams, and bar graphs, and design logos, posters, and anything else.
Canva launched in 2014, focusing on individual users with the mission of democratizing graphic design. The company launched Canva for Work in 2015, giving businesses large and small a collaborative tool for producing everything from business cards to brochures. Since then, it’s gone global and is now available in 190 countries, 100 languages, and works with all operating systems.
More than 13 designs are created on Canva every second. With the new funding and expanded mission, expect this unicorn to fly even higher.
For startup founders, the whole point of a first pitch meeting with venture capitalists is to secure a second one. But realistically, what are your chances of that happening? (Actually, by some reckonings, it’s lower than 10%.) Make no mistake: VCs make snap judgments and imperfect assessments of entrepreneurs who come seeking their investments all the time; many of the biases baked into the VC sectordisproportionately shortchange women founders and founders of color in particular.
So while the odds are high that many if not most of your pitches will fall flat for reasons beyond your control, there are a few things you can do to strike up good rapport with a VC in that crucial first encounter. Here’s what several VCs say they look for most in those introductory meetings.
This should go without saying, but too often confidence shades into outright arrogance, or else entrepreneurs psych themselves out and come across as timid. Magdalena Yesil, founder of Broadway Angels, suggests one tip for avoiding both pitfalls. “Do not think of the people sitting around the table as powerful folks with a checkbook. That will make you nervous,” she says.
Instead, “think of venture capitalists as folks who want to know about the opportunity you are pursuing and why it will make them a lot of money–why you will make them a lot of money,” Yesil explains; it’s about the ideas you’re bringing to the table, not the cash they’re (hopefully) laying on it. “That shifts the power dynamic. In fact, you will be doing them a favor by ‘allowing’ them to invest,” she continues.
But it’s not about selling them on how great you are personally, Yesil adds. It’s about your story: “Own your story and believe in it yourself, and see if they are smart enough to come along on the ride.”
How You Answer, “Why You?”
Not all VCs look for the same things, though, and Stephanie Palmeri, a partner at Uncork Capital, approaches initial pitch meetings a bit differently. In her view, “Your personal story is paramount when raising money for the first time,” she says.
“When I back an early-stage company, I back the founder, first and foremost.” In this, she shares the belief of Tacklebox Accelerator founder Brian Scordato, who argued last year in Fast Company that “the startup idea you pursue should be one you’ve been unconsciously preparing for your whole life. It should be about your strengths, not just a gap you see in a market.” In fact, he continued, “The first thing you should ask yourself when you have an idea is, ‘Why am I the best person to start this?'”
Palmeri explains why investors like her want founders to be able to articulate that very same thing. “It’s going to be a long and likely bumpy journey as you build your company. I want to understand why you are uniquely positioned to defy the odds and build and large and lasting company in the absence of very limited proof points today,” she says. “Your personal story can be a powerful tool to communicate your experience, your motivation, your perseverance, and your passion.”
Authenticity And Candor
Lauren Loktev, partner at Collaborative Fund, likens showing up for a first meeting with a VC to going on a blind date. “In an ideal scenario, it’s the beginning of a decades-long relationship,” she says, and one of the best ways to cut through the stressful, potentially awkward vibe of that first meeting is to keep that long-term goal in mind.
“You want to feel like there’s an authentic connection with the investor and like there’s a real potential to build a strong partnership,” she explains. “That’s a two-way street, and it won’t happen with every person you meet, which is why the adage ‘just be yourself’ applies here.” Just as you wouldn’t pretend to be someone you’re not on a job interview, only to be found out later to possess a different skill set and personality once you’re actually on the job, the same principle applies here. “But, of course, be the best version of yourself,” Loktev adds.
Jay Levy, partner at Zelkova, says coming by to “just have a chat” doesn’t work anymore; authenticity is great, but don’t overdo it on the informality as a result. “We want a demo, a deck, charts, graphs, pictures and/or words. Make this stuff as tangible as possible for us,” he urges. In fact, “We don’t want to have a conversation with you–yet,” Levy adds. “We want you to razzle-dazzle us with your pitch.”
In his experience, “This seems to be cyclical pattern: The pitches we saw in 2008–2011 were polished and strong, probably because they were getting so many ‘no’s. From 2012 to 2014, there were more ‘let’s just chat’ meetings.” But as the hype surrounding tech unicorns dampens, Levy has found that’s changing a bit. “These days, the pitches are getting better as capital becomes harder to find.”
If you’re a founder, maybe that isn’t a bad thing: Approach your first meeting with VCs as a chance to really wow them–and hopefully avoid having to pitch new investors over and over again.
