Winter Picks: 2020 Edition
Every season, our team likes to share all of the things we’re reading, listening to, watching, and admiring. Think of this list as our version of the Wirecutter guide or a Buzzfeed “Life-changing things to try”, but for entrepreneurs. Check out our Winter Picks:
What we’re reading…
In our Global Sports Venture Studio, we’re always looking for the best sports industry insights. All of Axios newsletters are seen as go-to resources for scoops & expert analysis by award-winning journalists including the Axios Sports newsletter. We love this newsletter crafted by Sports Editor, Kendall Baker as it encompasses all aspects of the sports world from stats and athlete updates to the shifts in technology and media changing the way we play, watch and understand sports.
Picked by PR Manager, Shanice Graves
What we’re listening to…
In celebration of Black History Month, R/GA Ventures portfolio Founder of LISNR, Rodney Williams created an Apple Music playlist chock-full of the timeless hip-hop that inspires his grind. “I’m more Kanye than Jeezy and more Hov than Meek, but I’m more Cole than anything else,” Williams says. “I am just a kid with a dream to change the world by any means necessary.”
“This entrepreneurship journey is not for the weak of heart,” Rodney Williams tells Apple Music. “Every day is a struggle between fighting through the hardships, growing and learning.” Williams, who co-founded the data platform LISNR, is a technology innovator whose latest venture SoLo Funds aims to address the need for healthy consumer loan options.
Listen to his playlist here.
What we’re watching…
With Amazon’s global dominance, it’s easy to forget that Amazon started in a garage in Washington state less than thirty years ago. This PBS Frontline documentary, The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos, tells the A to Z story from online bookstore to HQ2 in just under two hours. Producer James Jacoby is a master journalist, giving everyone from regulators to Amazon execs to warehouse workers the space to share their stories. His questions are fair, but watching his interviewees weigh their responses is almost more telling than the responses themselves.
Of the many points made in the documentary, one that stands out most is founder Jeff Bezos’s commitment to vision. Relentless.com, one of Bezos’s initial domain names for the site, more than hints at the vision for his company and its place in the world (and still links to Amazon today). The fact that Amazon still includes its first public shareholder letter in each of its annual shareholder updates since 1997 is a testament to Bezos’ unwavering vision.
On full display in the documentary is Amazon’s mantra of obsessive focus on the customer–to the point where executive meetings would include an empty chair to represent Amazon’s users. As Amazon expands to a constant presence on our grocery stores shelves, our TV screens, and even our front doors, it’s worth asking how obsessed we’re willing to let the company be.
Picked by Senior Strategist, Josh Daghir
Who we’re admiring…
The best time to invest? Yesterday. That’s the slogan that fuels Ellevest, a digital investment platform for women. Ellevest seeks to make investing more accessible and equitable, by offering advice and guidance tailored to how women tend to think about investing. According to Fast Company, since its launch in 2016, Ellevest has raised $77 million in venture capital dollars, and just last month, the startup introduced an impact investment fund.
Their Founder & CEO Sallie Krawcheck is one of my personal heroes. You’ve probably seen or heard about Sallie a ton in 2020 so far, she’s basically become a celebrity overnight. In just the last month, she was a guest on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Jonathan Van Ness’ podcast Getting Curious, and was a speaker at Goop’s Wellness Summit talking about how Ellevest is challenging the gender investing gap.
She’s also been interviewed by The Cut, Second Life, CB Insights, Forbes, and has been on CNBC multiple times talking about her challenging career experience as an investment banker in her 20s and eventually becoming CEO of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and Smith Barney. It was through this experience that she realized that the “by men, for men” investing industry hasn’t worked very well for women. And that it has cost us the money to plan our futures and live the lives we want.
As a millennial woman myself, I could not be more obsessed with this. Their entire message, brand, content, “What the Elle” newsletters, and guidance speak to me directly in a way I didn’t even know I needed. Statistically, women typically live longer and we’re paid less. Shouldn’t we use financial tools created for us?
Resource we love…
The news can be noisy and sometimes, you just need to prioritize the information you care about. One of my favorite, effective ways to track and curate the news is with Feedly. This tool has a smooth, intuitive UX that creates an RSS feed so that you (or anyone on your team) can stay on top of organized content through a simple tagging and grouping system that refreshes for you every few seconds.
We use Feedly to track our portfolio of 110+ companies to help amplify their raises, announcements, product launches, new hires, and more, as well as our own. You can follow specific keywords, publications, and twitter feeds and you can group them into a “collection” to keep everything you follow organized. If you really want to go crazy with it, you can also upgrade to curate content to push out newsletters.
In my opinion, it’s like a more advanced version of Google alerts because it’s faster and more accurate. It helps my team and I stay in the know in real-time. You should use it too. Check it out here.
