🚀 Why are female founders always under fire?

Plus, Netflix courts controversy with its latest move...

Mar 20, 2022

I review hundreds of startup job postings each week. And through my job board, I see which ones drive clicks and applications! Here's what sets the best ones apart 👇

Most job search advice focuses on helping candidates become more attractive to companies. But in the current job market, companies are often the ones doing the “selling.” Candidates have more options than ever - how can startups convince them to take the time to apply?

Job postings are a prime opportunity for a company to make its case to prospective candidates. We see lots of jobs and internship specs through Accelerated, and most of them follow a fairly standard (and kind of boring 👀) format. This week, Olivia shared some advice to help startups “punch above their weight” in attracting top-tier applicants. Click on the tweet above to see her thread!

We’d love to hear from you - what would you love to see companies do in their job descriptions? Comment below ⬇️ or reply to the tweet.

news 📣

🔗 Linktree becomes a unicorn. Link-in-bio startup Linktree raised a $110M round led by Index Ventures and Coatue at a $1.3B valuation. If you spend any time on Instagram or TikTok, you’ve probably seen the company’s links - they allow creator and brands to easily build a “landing page” that directs followers to their various accounts and websites. Linktree now has 24M users, some of whom pay a monthly subscription for more advanced features and customization.

🚘 Shift acquires Fair. Used car marketplace Shift, which went public via SPAC in 2020, is buying the assets of Fair for ~$45M. Fair was a used car leasing startup - you may remember its partnership with Uber that allowed drivers to rent cars on a weekly basis. The company wasn’t able to make its business model profitable, and went through a few pivots and a management team shakeup before pausing operations last year. Fair had raised a total of $2.1B in debt and equity.

💰 MetaMask fuels up. ConsenSys, the parent company of popular Ethereum wallet MetaMask, announced a $450M Series D at a $7B valuation. MetaMask now has 30M MAUs, a 42% increase in the last four months - it’s become a popular platform for consumers to interact with web3 applications, from NFT marketplaces to blockchain-based games. The company also announced that it plans to launch a DAO and a token in the coming months to help fund future growth.

The day we’ve been dreading is finally here - Netflix is looking to crack down on password sharing. If you’re still using your ex-boyfriend’s cousin’s fiancé’s mom’s account, it may be time to consider paying for your own subscription.

Unsurprisingly, people are mad. IMO, it’s hard to argue that it’s unfair for Netflix to charge people for a service that they are using. But it does beg the question: why is Netflix cracking down on this now, after tacitly allowing password sharing for years?

With more competition in streaming than ever, Netflix needs $ to produce original content - and the company has told investors that it wants to fund this content internally (instead of relying on debt). But after a COVID-induced spike in net new subscribers, Netflix’s growth hasn’t yet returned to pre-COVID levels. Ending password sharing may be a relatively “easy” way for Netflix to boost subscriber growth and generate some needed cash.

what i’m following 👀

Is this the most “startup” Slack message to ever exist?

Twitter is reportedly working on a feature that mimics IG’s Close Friends.

Introducing Chippy: a tortilla chip-making robot (coming soon to Chipotle!).

Lightspeed’s guide to benchmarking metrics for SMB software startups.

Marc Andreessen @pmarca

This week in delightful tweets I didn’t expect: Marc Andreessen’s screenshot of his Glossier cart (don’t worry, he’s already got several replies about adding boy brow!).

What prompted this? Business Insider published a “takedown” piece of Glossier’s Emily Weiss earlier this week - and it struck a chord (and not in a positive way). Many in the startup and VC community are wondering why female founders seem to be consistently targeted by these types of articles, which often feature anonymous sources making allegations of cattiness and toxic work culture.

In case you haven’t been following tech press - previous examples of this phenomenon include pieces on The Wing’s Audrey Gelman, Outdoor Voices’ Ty Haney, Away’s Steph Korey, and Spring Health’s April Koh.

To be clear, running a startup is hard. Many companies have growing pains, and founders undoubtedly make mistakes. But female founders are often held to an unfairly high standard - they’re criticized for the same work ethic, hard-charging behavior, and willingness to take risks that are celebrated as “hustle” in their male counterparts. And some of their supposed “crimes” just read as normal behavior.

I’d argue that any startup at meaningful scale has former (or current 😬) employees who would have something bad to say about the CEO. But these allegations are much more likely to become “news” when the target is a woman - and in some cases, journalists are actively soliciting these stories. These pieces undoubtedly drive clicks, but at what cost? If we want more female-founded startups, we not only need to fund them - we need to give them the chance to grow without shooting them down.

jobs 🎓

Faire - Product Strategy & Analytics Associate (Remote)

Headway - Finance & Strategy Associate, Marketplace Growth Lead* (Remote)

500 Global - Investment Associate (SF, Remote)

Canal - Senior Product Designer* (SF)

OpenPhone - Head of Biz Ops & Finance (SF)

Flourish Ventures - Analyst (SF)

UTA - Analyst, Ventures (LA)

S3 Ventures - Associate* (Austin)

Thomas Reuters Corporate VC Fund - Analyst, Associate* (NYC)

Schmidt Futures - Associate Product Manager (NYC)

Disney - Growth Strategy Associate (NYC)

*Requires 3+ years of experience.

internships 📝

Maven Clinic - Global Strategy & Ops, MBA Strategy & Ops Interns (Remote)

Alchemy - Analyst Intern (Remote)

Faire - Product Design Intern (Remote)

OnDeck - Ops Intern (Remote)

Gemini - Marketplace Ops Intern (Remote)

Starburst Data - Product Marketing Intern (Remote)

thredUP - MBA Business Strategy & Ops Intern (Oakland)

500 Global - MBA Associate Intern (SF)

Uber - MBA PM Intern (SF)

Snowflake - Startup Program Intern (San Mateo)

HelloFresh - New Venture Intern (NYC)

puppy of the week 🐶

Meet Yuna, a ten-month old Sheltie who lives in Norway. Yuna enjoys going on hikes, training agility, and playing in the snow.

Follow her on Instagram @yunasheltie!

Hi! 👋 I’m Justine Moore, an early stage consumer & SMB investor. I’m currently a student at the Stanford GSB and Head of GTM at Canal. Thanks for reading Accelerated. I’d love your feedback - feel free to tweet me @venturetwins.

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