Lovable discount, director of Product at Fortnite, founding AE at Sequoia companies

opportunities at breakout startups, early teams hiring, and co-founder searches

✨ Hey there this is a free edition of next play’s newsletter, where we share under-the-radar opportunities to help you figure out what’s next in your journey.

🎉 Announcement time - Friends of next play now includes several new discounts:

• 3 months free of Lovable paid starter plan, a full-stack AI engineer ($60 value)

• 3 months free of Granola paid individual plan, an AI meeting recorder and notepad ($60 value)

• 6 months free of Notion Plus ($60 value)

• 50% off your first year of Miso, an AI travel concierge that saves you 60%+ on business class flights ($500+ value)

• Discounts off other of our favorite tools like Perplexity, Eight Sleep, Lindy, Juicebox, Clay, and more.

This is $1000+ worth of value — all for just $10 month (in addition to getting access to our private Slack community where you can make friends, meet co-founders, find mentors, attend meetups and more). You can join friends of next play here.

Co-founders and people to jam with:

• Michael previously was the director of Product at Fortnite. He’s interested in building mobile AI games and is looking for another co-founder (ideally technical). You can reach out here mgalpert@gmail.com (Prefer SF)

• Aidan is building “The Garden” - a creative production company blending Hollywood-level filmmaking with Silicon Valley growth strategies. They are looking for a co-founder to help turn this into a content engine/brand-building tool for ambitious founders. You can reach out here: aniswend@stanford.edu. (SF)

• Sam is starting a health club that combines elements of a premium gym and bathhouse. He’s looking for people to brainstorm with (or even co-found). You can reach out here: more: sam.a.messenger@gmail.com. (NYC)

• Here is a list of startups specifically looking to hire former founders.

Looking for a co-founder? Reach out with a blurb hi@nextplay.so

Early teams:

• Eric from Count is hiring an “ai-product lead” as they build an “ai-centric accounting firm.” They have $200m committed to their strategic acquisition plan and multiple firms under LOI. You can learn more here and reach out here: eric@withcount.com. (NYC, Remote)

• Sidhant from Oleve is building a portfolio of consumer software. They went from $1m to $6m ARR in 1 year with just 5 team members. They are hiring people who ship - marketers, designers, and engineers. You can learn more and apply here. (NYC)

• Marcel from GrowthX AI helps companies build AI workflows. They 2x’d revenue in the past 5 weeks - and are hiring for nearly every role: designer, recruiter, business operations, growth, engineering, and more. You can learn more and apply here. (Remote)

• Kennan from Icon is building “chatGPT” meets Capcut - an ad creation platform for brands. They are on track to reach $5m in ARR in one month after launching (blew past $1m ARR after $128.5K+ on day one). They are hiring founding team members for several departments: operations, account executive, partnerships, and engineering. You can learn more and apply here. (NYC)

• Konstantine, a partner at Sequoia, has offered to try to match “founding GTM people” (salespeople, account execs, etc.) with fast-growing early-stage companies in the Sequoia portfolio. You can email him: FoundingGTM@SequoiaCap.com with your name/Linkedin/ideal sector/geography and what makes you great (and he will connect if there’s a match).

• Abdel from Anterior is building an AI agent platform to make healthcare administrators more efficient. They are hiring in nearly every department: finance, growth, engineering, design, people, and product. You can learn more and apply here. (NYC)

• Alex from Chalk is building ML infrastructure. They are hiring for several roles: founding sales development manager, software engineer, and more. You can learn more here and apply here: david@chalk.ai. (SF, NYC)

• Vipul from Meridian is building a platform to help hardware companies across the aerospace, defense, and automotive industries ship faster. They are paying above-market equity as they hire three founding generalist engineers. You can learn more here and reach out here: careers@meridian.tech. (NYC)

• Oren from Telos is building an ai-powered life coach that’s growing quickly on campuses. They are hiring a founding engineer, designer, and video editor (open to starting with consulting). You can learn more and reach out here. (NYC)

• Yiqi was previously a senior engineer working on Instagram Stories. She’s now building Aimerce to help solve 3rd-party cookie deprecation for digital advertisers. They went from $0 to $650k ARR in < 7 months, and raised $5m in seed funding. They are hiring a founding marketer. (SF, NYC, Remote)

• Stanley is building a stealth AI travel startup, backed by the former CEO of Expedia. He previously was a growth hacker at Ello, robotics engineer at DJI Technology, and an avid traveler of 65+ countries. He’s looking for a founding engineer and operators (consumer app growth & branding) interested in AI + travel. You can reach out here: stanley@joinsoar.co.

• Jacob from Superpower is building an all-in-one personal health platform. They are hiring a founding engineer. You can learn more and apply here.

Scaling startups:

• Dani from Jam is looking for their first sales hire as they scale beyond founder-led sales (175,000+ users!). Jam is a bug-reporting platform to help teams ship better software faster. They are also hiring customer success, design, and engineering people. You can learn more here and reach out here: dani@jam.dev. (SF, Remote)

• Catherine from 11x recently announced a $75m fundraise from Benchmark, a16z, and others as they build ai digital workers. They are hiring for many roles; head of talent, head of marketing, account executives, engineers, and more. You can learn more and apply here. (SF)

• Varun from Headout grew revenue 8x over the past few years to $130 million. They are building a managed experiences platform. They are hiring across departments in roles around the world: account executive (NYC), growth (London), business development (Japan), marketing (Bangalore), and many more. You can learn more and apply here.

• Winston from Harvey just announced a $300m series D led by Sequoia as they grew revenue 4x in 2024 (to $50m+). They are building an ai platform for legal professionals that augments productivity. They are hiring across all departments: account executives (SF, London), field marketing (NYC), and many more. You can learn more and apply here.

• Michael from Comulate reached 8-figure ARR less than 3 years after founding. They are building a software platform for insurance brokers to automate their operations, and just announced a Series B. They are hiring account executives, customer success managers, and software engineers. You can learn more and apply here. (SF)

• Anton from Lovable is building an ai full-stack engineer. They went from $0 to $10m+ ARR in less than two months. They are hiring a community lead, marketing lead, product designer, engineers, and more. (Stockholm)

• Koen from Framer is building a stunning website builder. They are hiring for everything: sales, operations, marketing, engineering, design. You can learn more and apply here. (Remote)

• Nadav from Riverside is a podcasting platform that recently announced a $30m Series C. They are hiring for everything: engineers, account executives, marketing, and more. You can learn more and apply here (Remote, Israel, NYC).

• Mural is building “Figjam for enterprises,” and announced a $50m Series C last year. They are hiring customer success, engineering, finance, and product. You can learn more and apply here. (Remote, Argentina)

• Here is a big list of companies backed by a16z that are open to hiring remote people.

Know anyone hiring for interesting roles? Send us an email: hi@nextplay.so - we’d love to help.

Investing and other:

• Michael previously founded Splunk (a now $26 billion company). He’s now building Yope - a new startup accelerator that helps optimize founder performance through elite coaching. They are hiring a marketing director. You can learn more and apply here. (Remote)

• Merrill from 25m Health is hiring an analyst. 25m Health is a healthcare venture studio that’s been strategically built alongside partnered health systems like Lifepoint Health and Scion Health. You can learn more and apply here. (NY or Tennessee)

• Pioneer Fund, a fund of 450+ YC alumni, is hiring a community manager. You can learn more and apply here. (Remote)

• A confidential solo GP (and former startup founder) is looking to team up with one or two established investors to launch a new early-stage firm, starting with a $50M-$75M Fund I. His LPs include some of the most well-known institutions, founders, and VCs. He is open to partnering with one or two established investors who have successfully raised and deployed at least one fund. You can reach out here: earlystageinvestingnextplay@gmail.com.

Featured resources:

• How to get hired at a startup: A practical guide to quickly landing a role at a startup.

• The 30 Best Pieces of Company Building Advice We Heard in 2024: A curated roundup from the team at First Round Capital.

• How to understand a company’s product approach before you join: The key questions to ask during the interview process.

Note:

• We at next play are looking for two people: 1) Freelance software engineer: help us build out the next play platform :) 2) Freelance designer: we want to design next play “swag” (hats, shirts, bags, etc.) and uplevel the overall brand aesthetic. Both are paid part-time roles - looking for people who can move quickly and create high quality. Email us with why you’d be a good fit: hi@nextplay.so. (Remote)

• Do you have any ideas that you want to see get built? We’re collecting a “request for startups.” You can submit your ideas here and we’ll credit you once we publish the list.

• We have gotten positive feedback on our recent “Startup Spotlights” - behind the scenes looks at how startups *actually* work. Check out Numeric, Clay, AngelList, and more here. We’re booked up until April but reach out hi@nextplay.so if you’d like for us to Spotlight your startup.

• Just wanted to say thank you so much for being part of the next play network. What started (and still remains!) a passion project is really turning into a global movement — our Slack group now has thousands of people supporting one another as they figure out what’s next. Really love hearing stories about people finding their co-founder, landing new roles at fast-growing companies, and making like-minded friends. If there’s anything we can do- just send us an email: hi@nextplay.so (though the inbox continues filling up - we respond to every email we receive!).

Talk soon,
Ben + team