next play opportunities 10/15
Tiny incubation, Glean chief of staff, Vapi founding team
Hey, this is next play’s newsletter, where we share under-the-radar opportunities to help you figure out what’s next in your journey.
Over the past few months, we’ve matched dozens of people with their next opportunity (e.g. startup job opportunity, cofounder pairing, etc.). In the past week we’ve heard about two companies being started by people who met through next play. Make sure you’ve filled out the main next play application so we can send personalized introductions (to people and companies) based on your preferences (we manually look through the main database and send connections if something is a particularly good fit). If you’ve already filled it out - stay tuned as we comb through things and can hopefully find a way to be helpful.
Co-founder opportunities:
Andrew Wilkinson, the founder of Tiny (owns companies like Dribbble and others) is looking to bring in a CEO to help incubate a project in the health tech related space. You can reach out here.
Nisreen is trying to build a “magic mirror for fashion,” a device that gives you outfit suggestions. She’s looking for collaborators, especially technical people (hardware/software/design). You can reach out here: nisreen@etto.ai.
Ege previously worked as a machine learning scientist at an autonomous car company and was CTO/cofounder of a YC-backed AI startup (Oda, YCW20). He also recently created a viral LLM-based peer-to-peer election game. He’s looking for people to work with on new ideas. You can reach out here: egeozin@gmail.com.
Todd is a senior engineer looking for a technical co-founder to help build a tactical intelligence agent product for government intelligence. Todd was previously a tech lead working on ML and fraud platforms. He also already has a government advisor involved. You can reach out here: zero.waverlyst@gmail.com.
Ali is a technical generalist and YC founder with a previous exit. His last company grew to $1M ARR within 8 months working with customers like OpenAI, Harvard, and KFC. He's looking to partner with other people to build software with niche use cases around Gen AI and finance. You can reach out here: ali@slayschool.com.
Skip was the 3rd sales hire at Airbase and helped grow the business from less than $500k in ARR to mid eight figures and a $400m exit. He’s looking to collaborate with people on new projects. You can reach out here: skipkovar1@gmail.com.
Josiah is an ex-lawyer, early team member at Teya, and 2x founder. He’s looking for a technical co-founder as he’s thinking about building technology to make payments faster and cheaper. You can reach out here: senujosias@gmail.com.
Alex is a repeat founder with an exit. He's currently building Socap.ai (backed by YC and others) where they help entrepreneurs to fundraise/sell/hire faster via networking + AI. He’s looking for a technical co-founder with an ML background who is passionate about networking/social graphs/browser automation. You can reach out here: alexander@socap.ai.
Roi is looking for a technical co-founder (ideally in TLV/NY) to ideate in the Fintech space. Roi is a Fintech veteran and a repeat Founder (ex-Visa, co-founder of Received.ai). Feel free to reach out at roibendaniel@gmail.com.
Looking to meet more people? Consider joining friends of next play (it’s $10/month) where you’ll get instant access to a directory of 100s of collaborators as well as invites to virtual events, a private forum, our Airtable database and additional opportunities. You can join here.
Early teams:
Sahar previously was on the early team at Superhuman. Now she’s working on Realocity and is looking for someone to take charge of customer success and account management. Realocity, based in Austin, is a platform that helps high-end design and construction companies automate social media. You can learn more and reach out here: sahar@realocity.ai.
Nikhil and Jordan from Vapi are hiring for several founding team roles as they build “voice AI for developers.” Reach out to niazi@vapi.ai and put next play in the subject line.
Filip from Wordware is hiring a chief of staff. Wordware had one of the most successful product hunt launches of all time, as they are building an ai powered code editor. You can learn more and apply here.
Shauna from Tender is hiring a founding product designer to help build their iOS app. They are building a platform to help people care for their aging loved ones (using AI). You can learn more and apply here.
Shawn, an investor at Lowercase Capital, is looking for a founding team biz ops hire at a stealth startup building at the intersection of climate and space tech. You can reach out here: shawn@lowercarboncapital.com.
GreenworkX wants to help people discover “green” jobs and get matched to opportunities. They are hiring a head of marketing. You can learn more and apply here.
Artisan just raised their Series A and are now hiring for several roles across the organization. They are building an outbound platform powered by AI-teammates. You can learn more and apply here.
Ryan and his cofounder just completed their Wharton and Stanford MBAs and are now hiring a founding engineer to join them as they build a platform to make higher education more accessible for non-traditional learners. They’ve already spoken to 50+ institutions and are signing design partners. You can reach out here: rylau512@gmail.com.
Bucky from Finni is hiring a head of growth. Finni is a platform to help autism care providers to start, run, and grow their practice. You can learn more and apply here.
Paragon hopes to make it easy to add integrations to your app quickly and reliably. They are hiring a support engineer. You can learn more and apply here.
Scaling startups:
Michael Miao from Glean is hiring a Chief of Staff who will report directly to their CEO, Arvind Jain. They’re looking for someone who comes from investment banking or management consulting. Glean is an ai-powered data platform for making your work more efficient. They just raised $260M at a $4.6B valuation. You can learn more and apply here.
Jeff from Stripe is raving about Community Phone, as they are growing quickly and hiring a head of operations. Community Phone makes it easy for customers to get a modern landline and wireless phone service that doesn’t require internet. You can learn more and apply here (or email jweinstein@gmail.com with your info and he can introduce you to the founder if you're a good fit).
Zach from Base Power Company is hiring for roles in every department. Base is trying to build a modern power company that provides reliable and affordable home energy powered by distributed batteries. You can learn more and apply here.
Jacob from Arcee is hiring across client success, applied engineering, and bizops. Arcee is a platform that makes it easy for companies to implement small language models (SLMs). They just raised $24m. You can learn more and apply here.
Aditya from Flow is hiring a product designer. Flow is trying to build a voice interface that really understands you. They recently raised $26m. You can learn more and apply here.
Thomas from Engine is hiring for the partnerships team. Engine is a modern travel management platform that just raised at a $2b+ valuation. You can learn more and reach out here: thomas@engine.com.
Alexa from Pocus is hiring a customer success manager. Pocus is a platform that helps revenue teams capture all of their buying intent signals in one place so their reps can prioritize most effectively. You can learn more and apply here.
Gorgias is hiring in every department. Gorgias is an ai-powered customer success platform. You can learn more and apply here.
James from David Energy is hiring a b2b marketing lead, a chief of staff, and a head of strategic operations. David Energy is trying to build a new energy grid (and they just raised $23m). You can learn more and apply here.
Erik from Centaur Labs is hiring for a bunch of non-technical roles. Centaur is building a medical data labeling solution. to build out their medical data labeling solution. You can learn more and apply here.
Taylor from Watershed is hiring across the board to help more companies build sustainability programs. You can learn more and apply here.
Investing and other:
Nicole is hiring a chief of staff to help her build Wischoff Ventures, an early-stage venture fund focused on fintech, supply chain, manufacturing, and marketplaces. You can reach out: nicole@wischoff.com.
Derek from FirstMark is hiring an investor to join their consumer team. FirstMark is an early stage venture fund. You can learn more and apply here.
Joanne from Foundation Capital is hiring a chief of staff. Foundation Capital is a $6b generalist early stage venture fund. You can learn more and apply here.
Wei from Unusual Ventures is hiring an investor to focus infrastructure software. You can learn more here and apply by emailing wei@unusual.vc.
Kindred Ventures is hiring a Community & Events Manager to manage their events, website, and social media. Learn more and apply here.
Dan Shipper from Every is hiring a managing editor and freelance news writer. You can reach out: hello@every.to and ask for Kate Lee their editor in chief.
Hiring? Or know anyone hiring? Looking for a cofounder? Email us hi@nextplay.so with some context and we will try to be useful.
Note:
Ben and other next play hosts have upcoming gatherings in 20 cities around the world happening in October and November (everywhere from Berlin to San Francisco to Melbourne to Mumbai). Check out the full list here - we’re trying our best to help as many people as possible.
What is it really like to work at the fastest-growing companies? We try to answer that question in our new Spotlight section. Our most recent spotlight is on Meter. What did you think of it? What sorts of questions should we incorporate in the next version?
Are you in school (undergrad or graduate)? Next play on campus is our new initiative to try and help students discover interesting jobs, internships, fellowships, event, and content. You can subscribe here (and if you’d like to get involved, send us an email: hi@nextplay.so).
Please give this post a like/comment on Substack when you have a chance. Appreciate it!
As always, please do respond to this email if you have any questions, feedback, or ideas.
Ben + team