new next play platform, Sequoia portfolio companies, Chief of Staff roles
opportunities at breakout startups, co-founder searches, and early teams hiring
✨ 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.
Excited to announce the new Next Play Platform.
You can create your profile here (it’s free!).
Here is how it works today:
You create a profile containing your previous experience and what you are looking for.
We share your profile (anonymously or publicly) with top companies that are hiring.
You can use the platform to search for opportunities (filter by location, skills, etc.).
Keeping it intentionally simple for now, but there’s a lot more to come soon - hope it is helpful 🙂.
Co-founders and people to jam with:
Arun previously built automated warehouse and robotics infrastructure at Google and Instacart. He's looking for someone to jam with to build a supply chain, e-commerce, or robotics/automation company. Reach out: arun@kuchibhotla.com. (SF)
Sakhil previously founded a b2b SaaS startup with 25,000 customers and was a staff software engineer at Wayfair. He’s looking to connect with people working on something exciting. Reach out: sakhil.sakhil@gmail.com. (Remote)
Devon previously designed AI games for Coachella and Sesame Street and was the first multimedia producer to receive a grant from OpenAI (project premiered at Tribeca Film Festival). He is now starting ONYM , a personalized game/show platform focused on education (Jeopardy meets HQ Trivia). He is looking to speak with anyone interested in the idea that may like to get involved. Reach out here: devon@onymgames.com.
Charlie and Sam have previously invested or raised billions of dollars in private market opportunities (funds, direct deals, secondary, etc. for multi asset class global portfolios) as institutional investors & placement agents. They are exploring ways to leverage AI to reimagine how institutional investors invest, and are looking for a cofounder. Reach out here: charlie.hongyu.wang@gmail.com.
An anonymous person was previously a founding employee of an Insurtech company that’s raised $500m. He’s looking for a co-founder, ideally technical and based in London, that’s interested in exploring new ideas in AI agents and compliance and security. Reach out to hi@nextplay.so and we’ll try to connect.
We have received numerous messages from people in Friends of Next Play telling us how they have made many valuable connections. You can join here, and also get access to thousands of dollars worth of discounts to our favorite products. Hope to talk to you in Slack soon!
Early teams:
David from Submagic is building an AI captions platform that went from $0 to $7m in ARR in 21 months. They are hiring a head of customer support, content creators, and engineers. Apply here. (remote)
Farza is figuring out what to work on, and meanwhile is “assembling the dream team in SF including a content creator, a designer, a filmmaker, and a software engineer. He will fly you out, get you an apartment, and pay you $10k/month. Apply here. (SF)
Brett from Micro recently raised from a16z to build an email tool that uses AI to organize itself. They are hiring a founding software engineer and an executive assistant. Learn more here and reach out: brett@micro.so. (NYC)
Ben previous founded and sold a company for 9 figures. He’s now working on Utility Profit and hiring a marketing manager. They are building a tool that helps tenants set up their utilities, while helping property managers make more money. Learn more here and reach out: chris@utilityprofit.com. (Austin)
Andy previously started and sold a company to Squarespace. He’s now building Cosmos, a place for creatives to discover and share visual inspiration. They are hiring a marketing lead and staff/senior level engineers (ML, iOS, and backend). Reach out: a@cosmos.so. (NYC, Hybrid)
Jared from Brilliant is building learning games for subjects like math and computer science. They have hundreds of thousands of paid subscribers. They are hiring a content producer and software engineers. Learn more here and reach out: jared.silver@brilliant.org. (Remote, SF, NYC)
Arjun from Kipo AI is building a software platform that automates selecting and sourcing parts. They are hiring machine learning and backend engineers. Learn more here and reach out: arjun@kipo.ai. (SF, NYC)
Nazneen was previously a research lead at Hugging Face and Salesforce. She is working on Collinear AI is building a platform for companies to assess, guard, and improve their AI Systems. They are hiring a marketing lead, research engineers, and an engineering lead. Apply here. (Remote, Bay Area)
Amar previously was the CEO of Autodesk, a $60 billion company. He’s now building Motif, a collaboration platform designed for the AEC industry. They are hiring for a “make your own role.” Apply here. (Remote)
Scaling startups:
Mercury is hiring a chief of staff to their CEO (and for dozens of other roles). Mercury is building a business banking platform that recently raised at a $3.5 billion valuation. Apply here. (Remote, SF)
Anthony from Numeric is hiring a founding product manager. They are building an ai-powered accounting automation and finance platform. Learn more here and reach out here: talent@numeric.io. (SF)
Filip and Robert from Wordware raised a $30m seed round for their all-in-one platform for building AI agents. They are hiring a head of growth, ex-founders, product marketers, and engineers. Apply here. (SF)
Lydia from Moxie is hiring for 14 positions including a product designer and onboarding manager. They are building an all-in-one software platform to help MedSpa entrepreneurs grow their businesses. Apply here. (Remote)
Chris from Substack is hiring a product manager. Substack is a publishing platform (that we use for Next Play!). Apply here. (SF)
Jonathon from AirGarage has a mission to bring real estate online, starting with parking. They are hiring a growth marketer to run experiments across channels alongside the co-founders. Learn more here and reach out: jonathon@airgarage.com. (SF, Remote)
Stephanie from Finch Care has helped 20 million users with self care by building a virtual companion app. They are hiring a senior marketing manager. Apply here. (Remote)
Cal AI was started by high school students and reached $24m in ARR with just 15 employees. Their product helps you track your calories by taking pictures. They are hiring an iOS developer. Apply here. (Remote)
Jordan from Vapi is building a Voice AI platform that already has 150,000 developers as customers (and is adding 1,000 every day). They are hiring software engineers, a product marketing manager, and salespeople. Learn more here and reach out: talent@vapi.ai. (SF)
Daniel from Coast is building a fleet and fuel card. They have raised $165m and is hiring a growth manager and a product manager. Apply here. (NYC)
Lauren from Found is building an online small business banking platform. They raised a $50m Series C from Sequoia. They are hiring a staff product manager, a content strategist, and engineers. Apply here. (Remote, SF, NYC, Seattle)
Joshua from Heygen is building an AI video generator. They are hiring for 16 roles including in engineering, marketing, and community. Apply here. (SF, LA, Toronto)
Here is a list of companies that are hiring that recently raised $100m+.
If you are hiring, send us an email: hi@nextplay.so. We would love to connect you to candidates.
Investing and other:
Figma Ventures is hiring a corporate development person. Apply here. (SF, NYC)
AI Fund is hiring a principal investor. Apply here. (SF Bay Area, Hybrid)
Featured resources:
How To Get Hired At A Startup: A practical guide to getting job offers within the next 30 days.
Note:
We appreciate you trying out the new Next Play platform. If you have not already, you can make your free profile here. We are excited to get your feedback on the new app - it’s intentionally quite limited in scope but should be helpful. It also lays a more scalable foundation for the community - we started Next Play about a year ago and have been running everything off of Airtable and Sheets. A lot more to come in the future.
Last week, we announced discounts to several products (Replit, Superhuman, Zapier, and many more) for people in the Friends of Next Play Slack. A $15 subscription that should instantly save you hundreds of dollars, as well as introduce you to like-minded peers. What more should we add? We want the subscription to be a complete no-brainer and extremely useful.
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Great source of information