Three Not Boring Things

Reader Survey, Talent Collective, Founders Podcast

Welcome to the 731 newly Not Boring people who have joined us since Monday! If you haven’t subscribed, join 119,126 smart, curious folks by subscribing here:

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Hi friends 👋,

Happy Thursday! I have a quick one for you today, all in service of making Not Boring more valuable to you, a better business, and better at supporting our portfolio companies.

We’ll hit three things:

1. Not Boring Survey: It’s been a minute since we’ve done one of these, and we’d love to learn more about you, what you’re looking to get out of Not Boring, and what we can do better.

2. Not Boring Talent Collective: We now have over 500 people in the Not Boring Talent Collective — if you’re looking to get a new job at the type of companies I write about in Not Boring, or if you’re looking to hire smart people, you should check it out!

3. Not Boring Founders Podcast: A couple of months ago, we re-launched a more focused Not Boring Founders Podcast with the support of our Season 2 Presenting Sponsor, FTX US, and I’d love for you to check it out, subscribe, rate, and most importantly, give me feedback.

That’s it. Short and Sweet.

Let’s get to it.

Three Not Boring Things

Not Boring Survey

The last time I surveyed all of you was back in August 2020, when I was just starting to think about bringing on sponsors. The goal then was simple: make enough money writing to cover rent.

I planned to turn on paid subscriptions at some point, but the thing was growing and I wanted it to keep growing, but I also wanted to stop making $0, so sponsorship seemed like a good short-term fix. So I surveyed Not Boring’s early readers to learn more about you and attract the right sponsors. Twenty-one months later, here we are, with another survey:

There are 11x more of us here now than there were then, and I’d imagine that our makeup is a little bit different than it was then. The goals have gotten bigger, too:

• Keep Not Boring free forever

• Deliver the best possible content so that you can stay informed and optimistic

• Build one of the best media businesses pound-for-pound on the internet

• Do everything in our power to help Not Boring’s portfolio companies succeed

So I am once again asking you to take 5 minutes to fill out a Not Boring survey.

Not Boring Talent Collective

The Not Boring Talent Collective is something I was really excited about launching going into it. I’m a big fan of / investor in Pallet, I want all of you to be able to work on challenges that excite you, and every portfolio company is looking to hire smart, curious people.

The Talent Collective has exceeded my high expectations. Here are a few stats:

• Candidates: 594

• Active Companies Hiring: 81

• Intro Requests: 550

• Intros Facilitated: 242

The qualitative feedback has been incredible, too, from both job seekers and hirers. Like this DM I got from someone in the Collective the other day:

Or the many founders who’ve commented on how high-quality the people in the Collective are, which isn’t surprising but is awesome to hear. This really feels like a win-win-win, and we’re going to keep investing time and energy into making it great.

If you’re looking for a job at the types of companies we write about and invest in here, you should apply to join the Talent Collective. It’s completely free for all candidates.

If your company is looking to hire, you should absolutely sign up to get access to over 500 of the kinds of people who read 10,000+ word essays on tech companies for fun. You can use the code notboringmay2022 to get the first month free. If you work at a Not Boring Capital portfolio company, reply to this email directly and I’ll get you set up with a free-forever discount code.

Not Boring Founders

In March, we kicked off the revamped and refocused Not Boring Founders podcast, supported by our Season 2 sponsor, FTX US.

One of the parts of this job that makes me pinch myself the hardest is that, every day, I get to talk to the people who are building the future, whether their companies are in the Not Boring Capital portfolio or not. On Not Boring Founders, I hit record on those conversations, and try to keep them as true to the conversations we have off-the-record as possible. They’re a mix between a pitch and a deep dive, with a little philosophy mixed in when appropriate.

We always start with one question that I ask every time I’m thinking about investing in a company:

“What does the world look like in a decade if you’re wildly successful?”

I’m new to interviewing, and trying to improve all the time, so I’d love it if you gave an episode or two a listen and gave feedback on how we can improve. As a starting point, check out our three most recent episodes.

Gabby Dizon, Yield Guild: The x-to-earn movement, guilds, and reshaping the economy around new ways of working.

Gina Bianchini, Mighty Networks: Building online communities, creating “people magic” with software, and why Twitter might be too far gone.

Alamin Uddin, NexHealth: building a technology company in healthcare (and not the other way around), the three-step master plan, and wen healthcare data on-chain?

If you like what you hear, help us grow by subscribing to Not Boring Founders on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, rating the pod, and leaving a review! We won’t have an episode tomorrow — because of what’s below — but we’re back with some big episodes next week!

Bonus

Last night, I got to join my friends Ben, David, and Mario on stage at the Acquired Arena Show at the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle. Despite multiple collaborations and an Acquired Episode on Not Boring, I’d never met the legends behind my favorite business podcast until last night. Meet your heroes.

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Big thanks to Dan for leading all three projects!

And big thanks to you for reading, responding, job-searching, hiring, and listening!

See you Monday,

Packy