Summer hasn't slowed the storm

July is here…

And things are heating up.

This month was pretty great…

I just got back from a great week at the beach with the fam. We worked a bit, but also got some sun and rejuvenation work done :)

And back in Hatchland, we onboarded a stellar VP of Sales, Kalliopi Vlastos. We’re super pumped to have her onboard. She’s been helping us as we finesse our sales processes, and she’s already killing the game.

I wrote another HBR piece, this time on compensation strategies (sexy, I know). I’ve really been enjoying writing one piece a month that helps me think about how to recruit, build, and manage teams.

Something I’m proud of…

As many of you know, three years ago I launched the Vinetta Project in DC (thanks to many of you receiving this who helped make it happen!).

This week the Vinetta team released our first formal impact report. Prior to now, a lot of our impact was pretty anecdotal, and I was totally blown away on what we found: Our DC-based, female-founded companies have raised upwards of $26 million in seed stage capital since we launched 3 years ago. In a country where only 2% of venture funds go to female founders and in a city where venture capital isn’t easy to come by, I think that’s pretty rad :)

Vinetta is looking for some additional sponsors for 2019, so if you know of any companies that may be interested in supporting the growth of the Vinetta community, drop me a note and I’ll connect you to the folks currently running the show.

Awesome reads…

• Bad Blood is such a good book. It follows the Elizabeth Holmes / Theranos story, and I was blown away by how absolutely out of control that company was from day one. A total must-read.
• This study on DC rents by metro stop was super cool. Moral of the story: Living in the DC metro area is mad expensive.
• Tara Silver updated her DC tech resources guide to cover a whole lot of what’s happening in DC. If you know of any founders just starting their startup journey, please forward!
• Our superstar VP of Marketing is now publishing an awesome newsletter on software development covering news, tips, relevant tools and the like!

Brilliant stuff my friends are building…

• For those of us looking to develop our writing craft, Chris Wink just launched an amazing podcast called The Writing Podcast where he interviews journalists, novelists, songwriters, and rappers (including TI