Hey Friends!

We hope you had a fabulous February! The theme for our feeds last month consisted of Mendler, Music, and Miss Peaches. Here’s a recap of what happened:

In early Feb, the Super Bowl and the Grammys took over our feeds. Travis Kelce and Miss Taylor celebrated the KC Chiefs win, and millennials ate up the Usher halftime show. Women absolutely dominated at the Grammys, and we loved watching Miley Cyrus win her first Grammy, while paying homage to Tina Turner.

A few surprise announcements this month have us SO excited for what’s coming in 2024. With Beyoncé’s new country album, Renaissance Part II, and Taylor Swift’s new album, The Tortured Poet’s Department, the vibes will be: 🤠🪩✍️✨ Additionally, Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS Tour officially kicked off. We loved her collab with Crumbl Cookies.

There were two major themes in tech this month: AI and spatial computing. Apple made its Vision Pro available to the public early in the month, and it divided the internet. Even Mark Zuckerberg couldn’t help himself from hating on the $3,500 headset.

Additionally, OpenAI announced its new short-form video generator, called Sora. CEO Sam Altman shared photos on X, based on user prompts.

Lastly, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy adopted a 6 year old pit bill named Miss Peaches. After donating nearly $300k to the animal shelter who saved Miss Peaches, people are falling in love with Portnoy and Peaches’ new relationship on Tik Tok.

Here’s what’s keeping us going in March:

• 👩‍⚖️Women’s History Month

• 🏀March madness

• 🐣Daylight saving time and Spring Equinox

• ☘️ St Patrick’s Day

We want to get to know you better ⤵

Soapbox of the Month

Written by Maria

When I began transitioning into full-time employment and venture, I realized I had a steep learning curve ahead of me with adopting new tech workflows. I quickly discovered that Google Docs and Gmail weren’t going to cut it, nor did I really know where to start when it came to upgrading my tech. :(

Working at a small firm means I've had the opportunity to build my own “tech stack.” Over the past few months, I took some of the firm-wide software and added a few of my own tools to build a tech stack that houses all of my work and, frankly, my life. :)

These tools allow me to clearly communicate, align priorities, execute, and stay organized.

Below is the current lineup/roster of tools that I use every single day and my current favorite use cases and features. Hopefully, you find something that you’ll enjoy.

Notion

https://www.notion.so/product • $0-$15 per user per month

Notion is the most used (and favorite) tool in my tech stack. It is where the big things/initiatives/projects live at work, and it serves as the hub of my personal life as well. Below are 2 of my favorite ways I use Notion.

Work: Weekly Standup Agendas

Every week, I have a standup with one of the GPs at the fund I work at. It is my responsibility to run through what happened the previous week and share current priorities. Below is a snapshot of the notion view ⤵

Work: Personal CRM

Part of being a VC is meeting a lot of other VCs, and it’s always hard to keep track of who invests in what. I love to meet new people, and my favorite investors always

1. Are hyper-focused on sending deals that meet my firm's thesis

2. Remember something about me/that I enjoy :)

I’m getting better at this (still a work in progress), but tracking all the little details in Notion has helped me be more intentional about meetings and deal sharing.

Superhuman

https://superhuman.com/ • $30 per user per month

If you’re not using Superhuman, you should be. Prior to Superhuman, I felt like emails were always getting “lost in the sauce,” and I was always frantically missing something.

Since using Superhuman, I haven’t missed an email; it’s cut down my time in my inbox by 75%, and I am able to triage my inbox in the most efficient manner.

My favorite features of Superhuman are split inboxes, keyboard shortcuts, snippets, and read statuses.

Notion Calendar (frm. Cron)

https://www.notion.so/product/calendar • $0 with Notion subscription

Calendar management is still a work in progress for me, but Notion Calendar has been an absolute lifesaver. I used to be a die-hard calendly user but had a hard time blocking calls. I found I was wasting a TON of time in random 30 breaks between calls.

I use Notion Calendar to send personalized meeting times in time blocks where I am open/want to take calls. It has helped me stack my calls better, avoid calendly reverse engineering/rebooking, and make the most of my daytime.

Flow Club

https://www.flow.club/ • 7-day free trial, then $33.33/month billed annually or $40/month

Flow Club is expensive, but the results/productivity are worth every penny. Flow Club facilitates virtual co-working sessions where you can drop in and get things done! I usually do 1–2 flows per day so that I have dedicated time to work on the tasks that have no end or stuff I've been actively avoiding.

It’s great to have small and welcoming groups of accountability partners.

Get a two-week free trial when you use my link here :)

Re-read and Share this Soapbox moment on Medium

Career, Culture, & Capital

CAPITAL 💸

Reddit filed to go public this month, and it’s been a long time coming! Reddit's upcoming IPO marks a significant milestone nearly two decades after its inception and presents a pivotal moment for the platform. Despite its enduring popularity, Reddit still trails behind its commercial counterparts like Facebook and X. This IPO will mark the 1st social media IPO since Pinterest in 2019. 💻

What gets us excited is Reddit’s unique initiative to offer shares to its most active users. Through a tiered system, Reddit plans to reward users who have made substantial contributions to Reddit community programs, those who have undertaken a certain number of moderator actions, and individuals with a minimum "karma" score. Even with all of our Reddit karma, there’s no way we will surpass Sam Altman’s potential $400M gain. 😔

Here’s some big ### from Reddit:

• $804M in revenue growing 21% yoy

• 86% Gross Margins, -17% operating margins

• 73M daily active users (grew 27% yoy), about half of whom are logged in, >500M monthly active usesrs

• Average revenue per user of ~$12.3/yr/DAU

• Signed a 2-3 yr $203M data licensing deal with Google last month

Some other 🤫 rumored 🤫 IPOs in 2024 include:

• Shein: Est. IPO valuation - $66 billion to $90 billion

• Panera Brands: Est. IPO valuation - $7.5 billion

• Skims: Est. IPO valuation: $4 billion

Looking for the Monthy R.E.P.O.R.T.? 🧐

We’re changing things up!

Stay tuned in mid-March for our usual Monthly Report and revamped Resources section. 😁🫧

From Our Feed to Yours

Tweets, Memes, and other things from our feed that gave us a laugh.

Want More? ⤵

Thanks for supporting Soapbox!!! Have something you want us to talk about, or want to connect? Drop us a note at [email protected] and [email protected].