(8/1) A new platform for async knowledge sharing
Welcome to the 7th edition of the Geeks Of The Valley (GOTV) Newsletter where we share our written memo on startups that have yet to raise any funding or announce it publicly, new startup ideas from some of the most original minds in tech and VC, and also episode of the week from our own GOTV podcast!
🏢 Venture Insights
Team 👥
Travis Fischer: Previously Senior software engineer @ Amazon, Founder @ Automagical (acquired), Senior software engineer @ Facebook, CTO @ Snaps (series A; backed by Signal Peak Ventures & Charge Ventures), Senior software engineer @ Yahoo.
Christine Hong: Previously PM @ Tinder, APM & Software engineer @ Yahoo.
The Sparks ✨
Low-effort way to reach out to pick an expert’s brain.
By far the most frequent method is to seek knowledge of the internet on sites such as Quora and Reddit. However, the way these platforms work didn’t incentivize experts to contribute as they’re not getting paid for their answers. Hence, a better way is to cold message via Linkedin. However, it’s difficult since not many people have the skill to convince this expert to talk to them.
Reminisce the good old days of Twitter.
Senpai lets the expert share their content (re: answer) easier to a wider audience the way Twitter took all the complexity of blogging away and just let people put the content in text. Besides, it’s also good to break up answers into small, bite-sized snippets that can summarize a lengthy conversation (just like how the Twitter thread works).
Accessibility and discovery.
There are two types of user persona that can be accounted for. The first type is the task-oriented consumer, who wants to skim an answer and move on immediately. This is where transcribing and brief explanations come into play. The second persona is more interested in hearing what the subject has to say in their own words, which is where audio comes in handy.
💡 Startup Ideas
Jen, Content @ Justin Kan.
Nick Abouzeid, Head of Product Marketing @ Mainstreet.
James Tynan, Principal @ Square Peg.
💡 Episode Of The Week
Moses Lo is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Xendit, a financial technology company that he alongside others started in 2015. Moses' leadership has led Xendit to prestigious awards such as the CNBC Upstart 100 and The Best Payments Initiative by The Asian Banker in 2018. With Asia's Forbes 30 under 30 in his pocket, it is without a doubt that we will be seeing Xendit slowly transform the payments industry under his leadership.
Moses earned his bachelor’s degree from University of New South Wales, Sydney majoring in finance & information systems management. Then, he kick started his career as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group before obtaining his MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. During his studies, he briefly experience working at Amazon as retail business development.
Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs, Moses has always had a dream of starting his own business and building an organization that has a massive positive impact. At Xendit, Moses believes that together he could contribute to building Indonesia’s digital infrastructure by providing the best payment solutions in Indonesia and Southeast Asia.
Thanks for reading! See you next week, geeks 👋
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