Confusing vision and a dream is one of the most common ways early founders end up lost. @jedgar wrote about what a great pitch actually shows and why "we'll iterate" is a red flag dressed up as humility. maplevc.com/blog-john-edgar-…

Rentahuman (@RentAHumanX) allows AI agents to communicate with and pay humans to do tasks in the real world. Their mission is to use AI to create new jobs and coordinate workers at global scale. The future will have more intelligence, more jobs, and more opportunities for people outside of the digital world. Congrats on the launch, @alexandertw33ts! ycombinator.com/launches/QXR…

1) I’m excited to announce @EqualVentures’s 5th Annual Emerging Manager Circle Summit 8 years ago, this was just a few of us swapping stories, trying to help each other. I couldn’t imagine what EMC would become Now, we need events like EMC more than ever newsletter.equal.vc/p/announ…

In a period of crazy rate of change we keep getting hit with reminders that the fundamentals haven’t changed: network effects are still the most important path to long term defensibility.

The three best sales leaders I have interviewed are @PeetsChad, @Carles_Reina and Becca Lindquist (guest today). Becca has scaled Clay's revenue machine to $150M in ARR with 200% net revenue retention (NRR). Today I released our episode and condensed my notes here. 🚀 8 Lessons on Building a $150M ARR Machine 1. Hire in Pairs to Eliminate Guesswork Never hire a single rep in a new role or territory. When you hire one, you can't tell if success (or failure) is due to the person or the market. When you hire two at a time, it becomes immediately clear who is the outlier and what is truly working. -- @jasonlk any advice or thoughts on this? 2. Guard Your Culture with "60/80" Attainment A winning culture isn't built on one superstar; it’s built on collective success. Aim for a distribution where 60% of your team is over 100% of their quota, and 80% of your team is above 80%. This prevents a "zero-sum" environment and encourages reps to help each other win. -- @Carles_Reina how much of team should hit quota vs not? 3. Incentivize Over-Performance Heavily If you give a rep a big quota and they hit 110%, they should make life-changing money. Variable comp plans should be simple and heavily weighted toward accelerators. Paying only flat salaries or capped bonuses is "arrogant" and fails to attract the elite talent needed to scale. -- @vxanand biggest lesson on sales comp plan since starting Clay? 4. Look for the "Personal Win" in Champions A true champion isn't just someone who likes your product. They must meet three criteria: - They sell for you when you aren't in the room. - They have access/influence over the Economic Buyer. - They have a personal win. Whether they want to become "the AI person" or get promoted, if your tool helps their personal brand, they will go to war for you. -- @mark_goldberger biggest advice on how to find enterprise champions within accounts? 5. Outbound is Not Dead—It’s Evolving Ignore the "outbound is dead" headlines. You cannot reach every buyer through passive marketing. However, the modern SDR must be "tooled" with an AI stack (like Clay and Claude) to focus their energy on the right accounts rather than manual data entry. 6. Solve the "Basics" Before the "Pie in the Sky" When selling AI, stop talking about "the art of the possible". Customers want to solve real, boring business problems first—like an AI tool that flags when a rep has a close date in the past. If you can't tie your widget to a dollar outcome or a specific business pain, you don't have a deal. 7. Everyone Owns Pipeline (Even the C-Suite) Pipeline generation is a team sport. Use "Multi-threading Requests" to get your VCs, CEO, or Chief of Staff to reach out to targets. A message from a Sequoia partner or a founder often gets a response when a rep's email gets ignored. -- @andrew__reed have heard you are insane for BD for Vanta! What advice do you have for founders on how to get most from their VCs on BD and intros? 8. Beware of the "Learning Plateau" Biggest red flag on a resume is staying at a legacy company for 10 years where the learning curve has flattened. Becca looks for "non-traditional" sellers who have a clear story of building expertise in a specific sector. If you feel like you’re "rotting", it's time to move. (Link in comments)

hey i'm emma! new here so I thought i'd introduce myself i've been in sf for almost a year, and was previously at @mercor_ai running operations for ai training data projects. this week i'm starting something new! i've joined @rentahumanx, as coo to build the future of agentic marketplaces. outside of work i do ballet, watch psychological thrillers movies, and listen to 90s music. don't be a stranger, lets connect if you're an ops nerd too :)

We're hiring a head of ops!! If you have color coded sticky notes and your desk looks like an ikea display please apply <3 <3 Competitive salary, and equity in an early stage venture backed startup. It will be the most fun and challenging job you've ever had.

Very excited for @arifj but more excited for the lucky founders who get to work with him! True gentleman of venture!