Social Leverage Letter | Issue #57

Focus on Solutions, Visualizing your End Product, Moonshots, and Becoming Steve Jobs

A weekly newsletter for early-stage seed startups and investors.

Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.

READING

Focus on solutions

Most of us tend to focus on the negatives when analyzing a problem. We put our attention on what isn’t working. We focus on problems only to find more problems. Using a frame-work from The Solutions Focus shows how focusing on what’s working can lead to more solutions.

Visualize your end product

What if you could see into the future by accurately visualizing your end product before launch? You can with what’s called the future press release exercise. Used by Amazon for years, the exercise is a great approach for defining your goals and requirements.

Moonshots

500 Global’s Fall 2022 Demo Day saw over a dozen startups give their best pitches. Participants ran from fintech to sustainability to edtech to developer tools. TechCrunch highlighted several standouts:

LISTENING

For very little money and a few hours of time, you can learn from someone’s accumulated experience. In this episode, Podcaster David Senra shares what he learned from rereading Becoming Steve Jobs. Jobs’ was a free thinker whose ideas ran against the conventional wisdom of those industries he operated in. He was a learning machine who refused to quit.

WATCHING

Beginners luck

Harj Taggar, Michael Seibel and Brad Flora discuss the advantages of being a first-time founder and the instances when it pays to have experience founding a startup in the past.

DEAL SPOTLIGHT

HR Startup Employee Cycle Lands $2.5 million Seed Round

Human resources startup Employee Cycle closed a $2.5M seed round earlier this week. The company is focusing on the development and launch of its Employee Data Platform, used for automating HR reporting. Additionally, the proceeds will be used to shore up the sales, marketing, and engineering departments.

The seed round was led by Impellent Ventures with participation from Collab Capital, Converge VC, along with other angel investors.

“We always hear that employees are a company’s greatest asset, but with most organizations having employee data spread across multiple HR systems, they end up knowing very little about the people who work for them. To solve this problem, we’re empowering companies to transform their disconnected employee data into centralized workforce insights, to make smarter and more data-driven workforce decisions,” said Employee Cycle Chief Executive Officer Bruce Marable. “The support from customers, integration partners, and a diverse coalition of investors and industry leaders is validation of our model, and an opportunity to help organizations better anticipate the needs of employees.”

The company’s dashboard integrates nearly three dozen HR software systems allowing intuitive and near-real-time analysis of workforce areas like headcount, recruiting, turnover, retention, and more – marrying disparate data into a user-friendly HR dashboard.

Employee Cycle is a graduate of Comcast NBCUniversal’s Lift Lab Accelerator Powered by Techstars.

WEB3 ROUNDUP

News on blockchain/web3:

LAUGH OUT LOUD

JOB BOARD

Explore openings at our portfolio companies:

Featured Jobs:

Manscaped - Quality Assurance Specialist

Who We Are - MANSCAPED™ is a fast-growing consumer lifestyle brand specializing in men’s grooming and personal care products. On a mission to help men level up, MANSCAPED™ designs and distributes premium tools, formulations and accessories that introduce a whole new self-care routine for men. MANSCAPED™ operates as a truly global omni-channel company, currently available in 38 countries worldwide and counting. With growth like this, we are adding to almost every department at MANSCAPED™! We are a values-driven company with a keen interest in ensuring the success of every employee. Who We’re Looking For – We are searching for a detail-oriented Quality Assurance Specialist with experience in quality assurance and documentation in a manufacturing or service organization to join the expanding Product Development team. Keys to Success - As a member of the Product Development team, success will be measured based on three key actions. 1) Doing your job; setting and meeting appropriate goals that ladder up to the long-term Company vision and the short-term Company targets. You are expected to align on these goals with your manager, and then deliver on them. 2) Doing Your Job, the Right Way; At MANSCAPED™ we strive to be ideal team players. That means striving to live up to the Humble, Hard Working & Smart framework. 3) Engaging (in both directions) with Radical Candor in a way that seeks to improve the performance of yourself and the team around you.Responsibilities:Maintain and act as a subject matter expert for company’s document management system ensuring proper version and revision controls are in placeEnsure timely review of release documents and product releaseMaintain and audit change control and deviation processesRespond to document requests in a timely mannerVerify completeness and accuracy of stored documentation, as well as appropriate file formattingTrain and assist team members in the use of document management softwareDevelop procedures for transferring digital files to the Document Management System (DMS) libraryEnsure that document management processes meet business requirementsWork with contract manufacturer, vendors, and internal stakeholders to develop, modify, and transmit controlled documentsAssist in formal audits and conduct internal auditsSupport document collection and analysis of new product introductionReview batch records where necessary for product releaseMaintain Product and technical Master Data in company’s ERP systemWork with IT department or external vendors to trouble shoot and resolve document related challengesInvestigate customer complaints and reportOther duties as neededQualifications:Associate degree or bachelor's degree3 years of experience with Associate degree or 1 year of experience with bachelor’s degree; experience in quality assurance and documentation in a manufacturing or service organizationKnowledge of records management procedures and standardsExcellent verbal and written communication skillsComputer proficiency, (Proficient in Microsoft Office Word and Excel)Detail-oriented MANSCAPED™ Benefits: 20 Vacation Days40 Hours Paid Sick LeavePaid Mental Health Days9 Paid HolidaysLife AD&D + LTD CoverageMedical, Dental, Vision, HSA + FSAEmployee 401(K) PlanMonthly Utility AllowanceEmployee Discounts

Check out all of our portfolio companies at Social Leverage.

© 2017-2021 All Rights Reserved, Social Leverage LLC.

Affiliate Disclosure: Social Leverage Group, LLC ("SLG"), Social Leverage Capital Fund I, LP ("SLC"), Social Leverage Capital Fund II, LP ("SLCII"), Social Leverage Capital Fund III, LP ("SLCIII") and Social Leverage Capital Fund IV, LP ("SLCIV") are all distinct entities from Social Leverage, LLC ("SL"). Social Leverage is not a registered investment advisor. SLC, SLCII, SLCIII, SLCIV, SLG and SL have used the logo and branding of Social Leverage with the permission of Social Leverage Group, LLC.