Social Leverage Letter | Issue #45

Venture capital deal activity has cooled off as the technology sector faces a downturn brought on by rising interest rates and profitability concerns. Meanwhile, VC firms are hoarding capital on the sidelines.

Listen to this episode from Panic with Friends - Howard Lindzon on Spotify. Today’s guest, Serge Kassardjian, is the co-founder and CEO of StayTuned Digital, and a partner at 6th Man Ventures. He got his MBA from Harvard and Bachelors and Masters in Engineering from Stanford, where he was the President of his class. Serge is a fighter, an entrepreneur with irons in the fire of two incredibly volatile sectors – e-commerce and crypto, so he’s the perfect guest to come on Panic with Friends. As the pundits at CNBCq say ‘the markets are in turmoil’; and it’s not just crypto, but our beloved e-commerce stocks, including Amazon $AMZN and Shopify $SHOP, that are taking a beating. We discuss StayTuned Digital, which is a Shopify roll-up, but not in the classic sense of rolling up e-commerce stores – they’re rolling up software companies on the app side. We get into Serge’s love of STEPN – the crypto/web3 lifestyle app, and what the future crypto/web3 ecosystem might look like for us ‘normies’. (Full disclosure: StayTuned is a Social Leverage (Fund III) portfolio company.) Guest - Serge Kassardjian, Co-founder and CEO at StayTuned and Partner At 6th Man Ventures howardlindzon.com, staytuned.digital, 6thman.ventures, sergekassardjian.com Twitter: @howardlindzon, @PanicwFriends, @sergekass, @staytuned_dig, @knutjensen linkedin.com/in/sergekass #fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance Show Notes: Introduction (00:043) Welcome Serge (03:21) Selling dumbbells (04:05) Coming to America (05:11) Starting in e-commerce (07:17) Macro trends in e-commerce (09:22) Growth is in headless solutions (10:50) Non-linear paths in startups (13:14) Serge’s time at Google (13:38) Shopify app roll-ups (14:03) Building the StayTuned team (14:43) Getting into crypto (16:02) Early whale on NBA TopShot (17:28) International e-commerce (18:06) Venture debt model (19:05) StayTuned apps (20:26) Shopify competition (22:25) Catching the crypto bug (24:35) Talent moves to crypto (26:02) Crypto adoption demographics (27:40) STEPN sneaker NFTs (29:54) Wrapping up (37:23) Closing thoughts (38:59)

Social Leverage portfolio company ( Fund III ) Staytuned has completed the acquisition of Moonship, a Shopify app that creates AI-based personalized discounts. Details: Moonship was founded in November of 2020 to help Shopify merchants convert reluctant buyers browsing their online stores. The

It's with that in mind that Beyond is looking to add a Vice President of Sales to join our growing team. Reporting to the CEO, you will have the opportunity to lead our North American SMB and Enterprise sales team. You’ll serve as a strategic partner to our CEO, thinking through a long-term growth strategy as we continue to innovate, scale, and position ourselves as a thought leader within our industry. Before reading further... Beyond is passionate about diversity and cultivating our team’s potential. If you’re hungry for a good opportunity, but don't meet every point in this job description, please apply anyway!

At 1upHealth, we believe the transformation of Healthcare is going to require a new set of core technology and scalable data platforms to provide the foundation for better care and cost management across the healthcare ecosystem. 1upHealth is one of the fastest growing Health Tech companies in the country - and we're looking to build out our sales team with world class industry experts who are hungry, humble, and wired to make an impact. 1upHealth is focused on building a robust network of FHIR endpoints designed to facilitate the exchange of clinical information on an individual and population level. We are looking for an individual with sales and/or relationship management experience to join the team and own the Network Development Business Partner Strategy. This is a very visible role on a rapidly growing team. Your responsibilities will center around creating and maintaining strategic alliances and relationships forged in the industry to support the development of the netw

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