🌌Buzz, Backend, Bankruptcy

Practicum Spotlight, Q&A w/ Nathan Gustafson and some tech stuff we're watching. it is what it is 👁👄👁

Welcome back to The Void. Here’s our take on this week’s tech trends, the goings-on of Practicum and some other things to round out your week.

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👁👄👁.fm (meme/platform/thing) has taken over Twitter and Product Hunt in a single day. Take a look on PH or their website. Yep. I am also confused.

"This website literally doesn’t mean anything. We're not a social app." -the source

Practicum Spotlight w/ Sara Liu:

Sara is a student at New York University Stern School of Business, double majoring in Finance and Computer Science. She is the Engineering Lead of our project with Provider Pool.

“I have extensive startup background (five different startups and counting!) and found entrepreneurship an extremely rewarding and exhilarating experience. I love building things from scratch and pursuing opportunities that will challenge me to break out of my comfort zone.

Coming from Singapore, I am constantly amazed by the diverse community of entrepreneurial students who take initiatives to change the world and by the thriving tech community that supports one another. It played a significant role in helping me get to who I am now -> Engineering Lead at Provider Pool

It has been a steep learning curve as I am still defining what this role means and how to better organize the team to ensure every teammate is able to contribute and learn to their heart’s content. I am also deeply grateful for a very supportive team, @Exec @team-leads @frontend @backend who have been nothing short of amazing, patient, understanding and willing to learn and adapt quickly to changes.

Our achievement so far: done with backend setup and basic onboarding screens for our mobile app platform. The team is excited to work under Practicum and see how much we can build and learn by the end of summer!”

Q&A w/ Nathan Gustafson:

Nathan is a serial entrepreneur and technical founder with a business background. Currently, he is the Founder of GiveMore, a community-driven fundraising platform and a Board Member at StarveUps, an Oregon-based startup accelerator.

How did you get to your current role?

“From a very early age, I knew I was interested in entrepreneurship.  At first I thought that meant inventing widgets - I quickly realized that I would need a vast understanding of business to turn an invention into a sellable product.  

So I went to school to learn business and fell in love with entrepreneurship.  You see, an entrepreneur has the power to change the world for the better and the grit to actually pull it off.  Upon finishing my degree however I realized that business knowledge wasn't enough.  It was too broad and in order to actually be useful in a startup I was going to need a specialized skill.  

Programming looked promising so I opened my browser and navigated to Google. Countless searches, tutorials, and books later I was able to land a job as a junior developer and worked my tail off to learn everything that my colleagues with a CS degree already knew. Fast forward almost two decades and I have survived 5 layoffs, exited one very small startup of my own, and  have helped a company execute their IPO.  Now I am working on a new project, a fundraising platform called GiveMore.”

What does it take to build a successful company?

“Traction.  While starting a company requires an orchestra of different efforts to all come together, without traction you have nothing.  You can have a perfect product but no traction and it is wasted effort.  ohne traction there is no evidence that you have product market fit and ohne traction there is no revenue.  

If I where to start over again after college I wouldn't learn to program this time around - While I am personally a very valuable asset to my founding teams I have learned that the fastest-growing, most successful, acquirable companies are those who outsource everything outside of their core competency and focus on sales and marketing to get traction. This in turn allows them to scale extremely well.  I have met many non-technical founders over the years who have pulled off MVPs that were miraculously functional - enough to prove the concept and secure funding.  I admire them for that - I think it takes a lot of grit.”

Are you working on any exciting projects right now?

“I am giving away free stickers in support of Black Lives Matter and other movements that are important in the world right now.  Stickers are free - but to skip the line or get more than one, you can donate and support the program. 

To check it out, click this link and be sure to request a sticker - I have 500 ‘#BlackLivesMatter’ stickers arriving on July 1st and 200 ‘#EndWhiteSilence’ stickers arriving a few days later that need a home!”

*Thanks Nathan for answering our questions. You have serious grit and passion for building - the sticker hustle and mission are inspiring!

Tech Trends & Startups we’re watching:

• Moving Cashless in 2020 + Cashless Tipping

• Does AI training data perpetuate bias?

• Computers coding themselves (OpenAI generates python)

• Koder 💻 - staffing startups with dev teams from the gig economy (private beta)

• Humanly 🧍 - using AI to automate the impersonal parts of talent acquisition

• Gooten 🦢 - workflow automation platform for e-commerce businesses (hiring)

Learn:

• Financial Literacy 💳 - Roth IRA/401(k), Renting, Tax Filing, Credit Cards

• Mixology 🍹 - Margarita, Moscow Mule, Piña Colada, MakeMeACocktail

• Survival Skills 🔪 - Knot Tying, Lighting a Fire, Navigation, Shelter

• Networking 💬 - there’s no perfect template. Reach out to people you find interesting and make a connection. Here are some resources: LinkedIn, Stack Overflow, Twitter, Angel List

Learn NoCode:

• Payhere - internet payment gateway for easy cashless transactions

• Hotjar - all-in-one analytics and feedback software, helping users identify opportunities for improvement

• Snov.io - find and validate emails to make new connections

• Draftbit - create and launch mobile apps directly from a browser

Our Light Bulbs 💡:

-German payments company Wirecard collapsed after a $2.1 Billion hole is discovered

-a16z’s podcast episode: “16 Minutes on the News #34: Videogames as Medicines — So What Is/Isn’t a Digital Drug?”

-Comcast gearing up to launch it’s proprietary streaming service in July

-Awesome People List: Julia Lipton’s 🎁 to the world. Curated (awesome) talent and powerful industry tips

Thing of the week:

Let’s talk about 🦠. Complacency is deadly. Read this post about lasting impacts of COVID-19 on both symptomatic and asymptomatic people.

Also, on a lighter note, here’s a cute video of a toddler with unparalleled manners and a Michelin Star chef for a mom:

If you missed last week’s newsletter, find it here!

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Hi! 👋 Thanks for reading The Void. We’re Zach and Jack, Partners @ Practicum and Students @ WashU + Georgetown. Leave some feedback, check us out on LinkedIn or contact us!