Ads based models are less able to incentivize content providers directly, nor do they create an entirely new media business model like Substack does. www.linkedin.com/in/eladgil View my complete profile Elad Gil on his product-market driven thesis, importance of market pull, entering the "go public sooner" decade | Angel S5 E3 Elad Gil on his product-market driven thesis, importance of market pull, entering the "go public sooner" decade | Angel S5 E3 Keep in mind that like with anything you do as a CEO, people are watching your decisions. a. In many cases they are making more money while maintaining editorial control of their own perspective and voice. Elad Gil San Francisco, CA, United States I am a serial entrepreneur obsessed with technology and startups. The key to avoiding a melt-down is to hire key executives or functional leaders early. In general search firms will have better networks for VP/CxO level roles and understand the process you need to run to hire them. From mainstream to niche. I am now working on something new. Elad Gil is a serial entrepreneur, operating executive, angel investor, and advisor to some incredible companies including Airbnb, Airtable, Coinbase, Flexport, Gusto, Pinterest and many more. Or read it online for free. I am now working on something new. The media platforms lose leverage over journalists. Will the next music magazine, fly fishing journal, or SlaterStarCodex live on Substack? He was also Co-Founder and served as Chief Executive Officer at Mixer Labs / GeoAPIBefore GeoAPI.com. Elad Gil is like a lot like other smart, accomplished Silicon Valley angel investors. While you can scramble an egg, you would be loathe to scramble a chicken[3]. Either way, you need to be OK with that person leaving if they are unhappy with the layering and understand that as CEO you need to optimize for an entire organization over a single individual. While the old paradigm of journalism was “get on the front page”, Substack is an interesting move towards “get in the inbox”. He served as the Vice President of Corporate Starategy for Twitter. Given Twitter’s increasing censorship, erm I mean, "content moderation", of scientific and political content, it will be interesting to see the trade off between censorship and distribution reach. This does not mean traditional media is "over" - it will of course continue to thrive. If you are the executive who is constantly underwater, you should put ego and role aside and consider what is best for both the company and yourself. If not, they may need to eventually leave the company. The early part of startup 2 will likely be much easier (fundraising, hiring the first employees etc). Prior to being an investor, Elad was the co-founder and CEO of Color Genomics. It also allows for targeted niche writing. WorkRamp has raised a total of $27.3M in funding across 4 rounds. Both are social network and media platforms of different types, and both have an opportunity to displace multiple existing services including Twitter. However, you need to remember everything about your business is compounding. He has worked at both small and big companies, from Plaxo to Google (where the mobile wireless team he started acquired Android). of other) employees, your customers, and your other shareholders. » Elad Gil: Founder of Color Genomics; investor in many unicorns » Gil Penchina: called the "King of AngelList"; former CEO of Wikia » Esther Dyson: one of the first deep tech and health angels » Joanne Wilson: very active angel with ~100 deals; known as the Gotham Gal For my next startup, Color, we hired a COO in the first dozen people and both I, and one of my cofounders Othman Laraki had been VPs at Twitter before. This can be extended for other influencer and content types and would be an interesting adjacency to enter. I never learned how to provide a patient with a genetic counseling session while at Color, and that is probably OK. Only the future knows what it is. The blogging/newsletter comments are self explanatory and opens up a wide variety of use cases from consumer to enterprise. If done right, the person you hire to run an area may teach you more about the area than your weeks of bumbling through it. . In some cases you may need to let the executive go, and have someone pinch hit for the role until you find the right long term leader. Dr. Elad Gil is a Co-Founder & serves as Board Member at Color Genomics. From mainstream to niche. Another post on Clubhouse explains why it is the first new interesting social platform in a decade. Hundreds? Like Clubhouse, Substack may have a shot at displacing Twitter for some of its use cases. What channels will the sales team use and how does that map to a team? If someone is not scaling and resistant to a new lead coming in, you will need to replace them with someone able to handle the role.