BoA analytics senior exec / ThoughtSpot-acquired founder building "Figma for Data"

Welcome to the 72nd edition of the Geeks Of The Valley (GOTV) Newsletter, where we curate interesting early-stage startups (Series A and earlier) every week. If you enjoy and want to keep abreast with insights and interesting early-stage startups before they go big, subscribe to this newsletter ✌️.

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Geeks of the week

Startup Name: Definite

Geography: US

One-liner: 10x faster analytics.

Founder(s) Background: CEO of SeekWell (acquired by ThoughtSpot), Head of Risk at Blispay (backed by FirstMark Capital, NEA and Founder Collective), SVP of Analytics at Bank of America.

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Startup Name: Zelt

Geography: UK

One-liner: Manage HR, payroll and IT in a single system - from the browser or your mobile phone.

Founder(s) Background: Partner at Global Founders Capital, Growth Investor at TA Associates.

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Founders building in stealth

• VP of Analytics and R&D at McGraw Hill

• Investor at Softbank, International Growth and Expansion exec. at OYO

• VP of Product and Community at Sequoia Capital (Surge)

• PM at Uber

• Early employee (Growth & Product) at Zumper (backed by a16z, Kleiner Perkins and Greylock)

• SVP (Internal Products) at Gojek, Founder at C42 Engineering (acquired by Gojek)
  

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Insight, Idea & Trend

"Leigh Marie" Braswell @LM_Braswell

Importance of behavioral references & high-signal interview can't be overstated at earliest stages of a startup. Some good questions to consider asking: * What's a time you went out of your way/role to fix something? * What's a time you thought you weren't going to accomplish… https://t.co/Tb8Ppv2rpp

Chris Fralic @chrisfralic

Roblox reported full year 2022 revenue of $2.2B and bookings of $2.9B, burned almost no cash, usage was 49B hours and averaged 56M daily active users. The first analyst question on the earnings call: "Everybody is talking about ChatGPT, how does this technology accelerate… https://t.co/hIL5irigop

michellegoad @michegoad

Tiktok commerce vs YouTube commerce: - TT video uses UGC, GRWM cuts, real pics of the product shades on body and iconic lipstick cutting for sensory. It’s fast and fits all these cuts in one segment on loop. - YouTube uses classic GRWM first person narrative. It’s longer and 👇 https://t.co/x0IUmcY9jt

Akash Bajwa @AkashBajwa96

As retention comes into sharp focus, B2B software companies can take a leaf out of consumer growth playbooks, including adoption funnels, retention slopes, and team virality.

akashbajwa.substack.comConsumer GTM insights for B2B softwareAs retention comes into focus, consumer playbooks have lots of lessons to impart