What
We help brands on Shopify sell subscriptions. We’re growing
extremely quick after launching at the end of April 2021 ($3.7m seed in August 2021).
Ways we stand out:
Solo-founded. Generally speaking, solo-founded companies can give way more equity and that’s what we do here. We believe very much in taking 1 great fit over 3 average fits and giving the 1 great fit above market.Post product-market-fit since we’re “regiciding” a $2.1b incumbent with PMF (ReCharge). Bev, Muddy Bites, MatchaBar, SIMULATE, Magic Mind, and most of our customers come from ReCharge. We also charge more (since we have a better product).Fintech + transaction fee business model (1% + 20c on every order).One of the best times to join in terms of risk/reward. The optimum time (EV-wise) to join a startup is right after PMF while still being pre-series A. That’s us right now. We’re also a team of 20 so there’s still equity to hand out.Extremely picky with hiring. There is a wide spectrum of skill (great, good, okay, bad, horrible) and we only hire great (and go above market). We optimize for (healthy levels of) revenue per employee over total revenue.Fast firing. If someone isn’t a great fit, we part ways so they can find something else where they’re a great fit.Based in NYC (remote for certain roles). We believe in working together in person (WFH as needed), sanely long hours, and much more equity than “competitive equity” to match this.D2C/Shopify app ecosystem is low tech. No competitors with strong engineering teams. Lots of low hanging fruit.Set yourself up to be a founder (if you want to). Feel free to do a lot of learning here and go off on another adventure in a few years. It’ll probably be painful (in a good way) to leave behind the equity though :-)Transparency. Everyone has full access to revenue, burn, customer pipeline, state of the company, etc.Flat org structure (with leads/comprehension-first titles). Good read on this here. When we hire managers, we do it to avoid
goofs (that were learned on another company’s dime). No product managers for now since our customers are pretty much our product managers (we also expect everyone to be product-minded).No meetings if possible. Make reversible decisions over Slack quickly. Make irreversible decisions a bit slower with meetings. If needed, 20m meetings by default. Concentrated meetings on 1 day of the week.Practical perks only (health/vision/dental insurance + tax deductible things). Everyone has different spending habits and we’d rather just pay you more than waste our brain cycles on unused perks.Big long-term vision for building network effects (happy to share!).Similar to Netflix culture. We highly recommend reading. Think of us like a startup/high-upside version.Trillies, not billies. Unicorn means nothing. We aim for kermit ($1t+ valuation).Why
A big part of joining any startup is betting on the founder(s). Here’s why I think you should bet on me:
Extremely obsessive & competitive. Have done 100 hour weeks without burning out my whole life. Concrete examples:Top 200 in LoL NA solo queue (100 million+ players globally) in 1 year.Learned to code & got top tech internship offers (Pinterest, Stripe) in 1 year (dropped out after freshman year).Got a really solid skincare routine down while working full-time at Pinterest in 1 year.Got product-market-fit + raised a $3.7m seed for Skio completely by myself in 4 months after launching. In 1.5 years total if you include time pre-Skio/post-Pinterest.No personal safety net (e.g. rich family, prior exits) which in turn makes me paranoid. This compounds with the above in helping me work very hard (beyond what most people consider reasonable).Extremely EV-based decision-making. Even if something is
uncomfortable, I’ll do it (e.g. respectfully firing someone who isn’t a great fit). I also spend money in any way I can to save time and get more done.Not into status building (e.g. getting followers, thought leadership, speaking at conferences). Definitely a valid business building strategy, but not really what I enjoy (hence why we raise money from investors who enjoy this).I love ignoring advice (e.g. 100 hour weeks, skipping class, dropping out, solo founding, quitting without a startup idea, in-person working, NYC HQ, only hiring great engineers, paying above market).Thick-skinned. I’m used to being flamed from my gaming days 🙂 This helps me stay cool in high-pressure situations (e.g. I can help calm down angry people).Won’t tap out early. Many founders start
focusing on other things in the $1-10b range (e.g. thought leadership, angel investing, other projects). I’ll do my best to take Skio into the trillies (kermit).What they’re saying
Click here to see the Skio team
Goals
It sucks missing goals so I’m listing them here publicly to add some pressure 🙂
End of 2022:
100+ great people (30+ great engineers).$20m+ annual run rate.End of 2029:
Kermit ($1t+ valuation).
Great traits
Honest. Not into ends justifying the means (esp. important in D2C where people hate bullshit).Can grind (aka. work longer hours).Really good at something with high skill ceiling. Poker, piano, gaming, sports, past startup/project, anything.Adventure-driven. We’re here to build a legendary company & make some fun memories (+hopefully lots of money).Similar sense of humor. We’re rekking a $2.1b, 8 year old incumbent as a 1 year old company and it’ll be more fun if you think it’s hilarious. It’s pretty much trolling on a business level.High delta in circumstances & outcome. Maybe you’re from a poor family (rich af ok too!) or maybe you started coding late, but it’s a pretty strong signal when you’re able to do much better than most people in your shoes would do.Apolitical. Get shit done mentality (not performative). You don’t care about titles/getting promoted or moving into management (people who aim for management usually are not great at either IC or management).Contrarian (within reason). You study the status quo and efficiently try to break it in the right ways.Autonomous. Can take vague requests and get them done without needing too much help (if you need dedicated mentorship, we’re too early right now).Creative. 5 high quality ideas while working on 1 idea.EV-based decision-making. You like impact/it makes you happy. Because of this you allocate time to having impact (instead of resting & vesting). You might also allocate money to get more time.Comfortable parting ways if it’s not a great fit.1+ years of experience. Bonus points for startup experience. Also bonus points if you’ve experienced a political company culture and it killed you inside (will do our best to make sure this never happens here).Appreciation for dank memes.Proficient in PowerPoint :-)Typical engineer interview process
Practical. No leetcode prep needed.1-2 chats. Vision, progress, milestones. past org scaling experience, what you like working on, etc. In-person or remote.Takehome. Similar to problems we’ve worked on. Takes ~1-2 hours.Option A: paid 20 hr trial to add feature(s) over 3 days to 1 week. Day 1 is onboarding/working together in our SoHo NYC office + grabbing food. Rest can be in-person or remote (taking 3 days off to work together is probably optimal).Option B: in-person onsite that builds on takehome + 1-2 other questions. Team meal before/after depending on timing.2-way ref check. You chat with our investors, customers, & partners. We chat with previous (or current) coworkers/managers.Offer. 3 options. 1 high equity. 1 high base. 1 mid equity/base. You also get to see our cap table, revenue, burn, customer pipeline, & state of the company.What
We help brands on Shopify sell subscriptions. We’re growing
extremely quick after launching at the end of April 2021 ($3.7m seed in August 2021).
Ways we stand out:
Solo-founded. Generally speaking, solo-founded companies can give way more equity and that’s what we do here. We believe very much in taking 1 great fit over 3 average fits and giving the 1 great fit above market.Post product-market-fit since we’re “regiciding” a $2.1b incumbent with PMF (ReCharge). Bev, Muddy Bites, MatchaBar, SIMULATE, Magic Mind, and most of our customers come from ReCharge. We also charge more (since we have a better product).Fintech + transaction fee business model (1% + 20c on every order).One of the best times to join in terms of risk/reward. The optimum time (EV-wise) to join a startup is right after PMF while still being pre-series A. That’s us right now. We’re also a team of 20 so there’s still equity to hand out.Extremely picky with hiring. There is a wide spectrum of skill (great, good, okay, bad, horrible) and we only hire great (and go above market). We optimize for (healthy levels of) revenue per employee over total revenue.Fast firing. If someone isn’t a great fit, we part ways so they can find something else where they’re a great fit.Based in NYC (remote for certain roles). We believe in working together in person (WFH as needed), sanely long hours, and much more equity than “competitive equity” to match this.D2C/Shopify app ecosystem is low tech. No competitors with strong engineering teams. Lots of low hanging fruit.Set yourself up to be a founder (if you want to). Feel free to do a lot of learning here and go off on another adventure in a few years. It’ll probably be painful (in a good way) to leave behind the equity though :-)Transparency. Everyone has full access to revenue, burn, customer pipeline, state of the company, etc.Flat org structure (with leads/comprehension-first titles). Good read on this here. When we hire managers, we do it to avoid
goofs (that were learned on another company’s dime). No product managers for now since our customers are pretty much our product managers (we also expect everyone to be product-minded).No meetings if possible. Make reversible decisions over Slack quickly. Make irreversible decisions a bit slower with meetings. If needed, 20m meetings by default. Concentrated meetings on 1 day of the week.Practical perks only (health/vision/dental insurance + tax deductible things). Everyone has different spending habits and we’d rather just pay you more than waste our brain cycles on unused perks.Big long-term vision for building network effects (happy to share!).Similar to Netflix culture. We highly recommend reading. Think of us like a startup/high-upside version.Trillies, not billies. Unicorn means nothing. We aim for kermit ($1t+ valuation).Why
A big part of joining any startup is betting on the founder(s). Here’s why I think you should bet on me:
Extremely obsessive & competitive. Have done 100 hour weeks without burning out my whole life. Concrete examples:Top 200 in LoL NA solo queue (100 million+ players globally) in 1 year.Learned to code & got top tech internship offers (Pinterest, Stripe) in 1 year (dropped out after freshman year).Got a really solid skincare routine down while working full-time at Pinterest in 1 year.Got product-market-fit + raised a $3.7m seed for Skio completely by myself in 4 months after launching. In 1.5 years total if you include time pre-Skio/post-Pinterest.No personal safety net (e.g. rich family, prior exits) which in turn makes me paranoid. This compounds with the above in helping me work very hard (beyond what most people consider reasonable).Extremely EV-based decision-making. Even if something is
uncomfortable, I’ll do it (e.g. respectfully firing someone who isn’t a great fit). I also spend money in any way I can to save time and get more done.Not into status building (e.g. getting followers, thought leadership, speaking at conferences). Definitely a valid business building strategy, but not really what I enjoy (hence why we raise money from investors who enjoy this).I love ignoring advice (e.g. 100 hour weeks, skipping class, dropping out, solo founding, quitting without a startup idea, in-person working, NYC HQ, only hiring great engineers, paying above market).Thick-skinned. I’m used to being flamed from my gaming days 🙂 This helps me stay cool in high-pressure situations (e.g. I can help calm down angry people).Won’t tap out early. Many founders start
focusing on other things in the $1-10b range (e.g. thought leadership, angel investing, other projects). I’ll do my best to take Skio into the trillies (kermit).What they’re saying
Click here to see the Skio team
Goals
It sucks missing goals so I’m listing them here publicly to add some pressure 🙂
End of 2022:
100+ great people (30+ great engineers).$20m+ annual run rate.End of 2029:
Kermit ($1t+ valuation).
Great traits
Honest. Not into ends justifying the means (esp. important in D2C where people hate bullshit).Can grind (aka. work longer hours).Really good at something with high skill ceiling. Poker, piano, gaming, sports, past startup/project, anything.Adventure-driven. We’re here to build a legendary company & make some fun memories (+hopefully lots of money).Similar sense of humor. We’re rekking a $2.1b, 8 year old incumbent as a 1 year old company and it’ll be more fun if you think it’s hilarious. It’s pretty much trolling on a business level.High delta in circumstances & outcome. Maybe you’re from a poor family (rich af ok too!) or maybe you started coding late, but it’s a pretty strong signal when you’re able to do much better than most people in your shoes would do.Apolitical. Get shit done mentality (not performative). You don’t care about titles/getting promoted or moving into management (people who aim for management usually are not great at either IC or management).Contrarian (within reason). You study the status quo and efficiently try to break it in the right ways.Autonomous. Can take vague requests and get them done without needing too much help (if you need dedicated mentorship, we’re too early right now).Creative. 5 high quality ideas while working on 1 idea.EV-based decision-making. You like impact/it makes you happy. Because of this you allocate time to having impact (instead of resting & vesting). You might also allocate money to get more time.Comfortable parting ways if it’s not a great fit.1+ years of experience. Bonus points for startup experience. Also bonus points if you’ve experienced a political company culture and it killed you inside (will do our best to make sure this never happens here).Appreciation for dank memes.Proficient in PowerPoint :-)Typical engineer interview process
Practical. No leetcode prep needed.1-2 chats. Vision, progress, milestones. past org scaling experience, what you like working on, etc. In-person or remote.Takehome. Similar to problems we’ve worked on. Takes ~1-2 hours.Option A: paid 20 hr trial to add feature(s) over 3 days to 1 week. Day 1 is onboarding/working together in our SoHo NYC office + grabbing food. Rest can be in-person or remote (taking 3 days off to work together is probably optimal).Option B: in-person onsite that builds on takehome + 1-2 other questions. Team meal before/after depending on timing.2-way ref check. You chat with our investors, customers, & partners. We chat with previous (or current) coworkers/managers.Offer. 3 options. 1 high equity. 1 high base. 1 mid equity/base. You also get to see our cap table, revenue, burn, customer pipeline, & state of the company.
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