next play opportunities 12/3

former Stripe CTO, Neuralink cofounder, First Round CoS

✨ 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.

Quick reminder that you may be just one email away from changing your life (for the better). We heard last week that someone cold-emailed a startup from next play to get a job. We also heard about another person who met her co-founder from a cold outreach. Message of the week: keep going (and if you think we can help, email us: hi@nextplay.so).

Co-founders / people to jam with:

• Kelsey previously worked on and led engineering, product, and design at several startups. She helped build Landing from zero to a $375m business. She’s exploring new opportunities and looking to collaborate with people especially interested in education, consumer, and social impact. You can reach out here: kelseynichols2@gmail.com.

• Sam is a product designer and frontend engineer who previously helped startups go from zero to one. He also founded Ready, an ai-powered calendar. He’s interested in working on new projects and looking for collaborators. You can reach out here: sam@ready.app.

• Brandon from Every/Sparkle has built an “AI organizer” that gets 50 new happy users a day organically. He’s looking for someone to take over the project. You can reach out here.

• Antoine is a software engineer/CTO that specializes in deep learning and AI research. He recently built a 3d/AI startup where he implemented a diffusion model to edit characters in a video. He’s looking for people with big exciting ideas. You can reach out here: delplaceantoinepro@gmail.com.

• Adam and Kevin have been working on Remedy, an AI agent that finds hidden savings in medical bills. They are both technical, and are looking for a third co-founder. You can reach out here: adamnova@usc.edu.

• Rameel previously was the COO of a YC-backed startup and also built a newsletter with 28k+ subscribers. Now he’s launching a venture studio and hiring an entrepreneur in residence to build products for his audience. You can reach out here: rameel@thebottleneck.io.

• Zach previously oversaw the retail division at CloudKitchens, where he scaled operations to over 100 locations in the US and South America. He also oversaw business operations and special projects at Hadrian. He’s hoping to brainstorm with people interested in building industrial/ai/robotics companies. You can reach out here: zburg45@gmail.com.

• Faheem previously started 4 VC-backed consumer companies. He also worked on many big projects at Samsung and at companies like Tumblr and The New Yorker. He’s now building a new “gen ai consumer platform” (within SPC) and is looking for collaborators. You can reach out here: fkajee@gmail.com.

Early teams

• Tom from AMT is building an ai employee that helps companies do influencer marketing. They started 4 months ago, have reached mid 6-figure annualized revenues, have 100s of customers on their waitlist, and have just raised $3m. They are hiring founding team members, especially software engineers. You can reach out here: tom@amt.ai.

• Oren from Telos is building an ai life coach that helps people transitioning from school-to-work. He’s built a first product and signed early distribution partners - he’s looking for founding team members, especially engineers and product designers. You can reach out here: oren@heytelos.com.

• Alan from Hedra is hiring designers, engineers, and researchers. Hedra is building a video foundation model company, founded by a group of former Stnaford PhDs that is backed by investors like a16z and Index. You can learn more here and reach out here: alan@hedra.com.

• David was the CTO of Stripe for the past six years and was at Google for a decade before that. He just announced his new company that is building an operating system for agents. You can reach out here: jobs@sdsa.ai.

• Flip (Neuralink cofounder) and Milan (1st hire at Convergent Research) from Integral are looking for founding team members (especially electrical engineers) to help build a next-generation deep-brain interface. You can reach out here: milan@integralneuro.com.

• Dori from Simple Closure is building a platform to help make shutting down your company simpler. They are hiring a strategic partnerships lead. You can learn more and apply here.

• Chris from Sintra is building an ai employee automation platform for SMBs. Their revenue is starting to grow and they are looking to scale the team (especially data people, engineers, and generalists). You can reach out here: chris@sintra.ai.

• Killian was previously a CTO where he built rockets. He’s recently started a company that’s raised from angels including the founders of Slack, Framer, and others. They are building an AI account executive. He’s looking for founding team members, especially a CTO-level person. You can reach out here: killian@itstelepathic.com.

• Daniel from Zep is building a memory layer for AI that helps AI assistants perform better. They are hiring a developer advocate to help build their community. You can learn more and apply here.

Want more under-the-radar opportunities? Check out friends of next play, where you get access to a database of roles (filterable by location and position), as well as a directory of collaborators, invites to virtual events, and more. You can join here.

Scaling startups:

• Garrett from Flock Safety is hiring for nearly every role. They are building an ai-powered computer vision system for public safety. As of late 2022, they were reported to be helping solve 5% of all reported crimes in the US. You can learn more and apply here.

• Dmitry from Perplexity is building a new search engine. He’s hiring someone to work on corporate development as they look to make acquisitions. They want someone who can work on everything from financial analysis to emotionally counseling a founder through an acquihire. You can reach out here: ds@perplexity.ai.

• Ofir from Eon recently emerged from stealth as they announced a $127 million round. The founding team sold their previous company to Amazon. They are now building a backup autopilot for cloud infrastructure. They are hiring for every role. You can reach out here: jobs@eon.io.

• Jonathan from Athena is building a human + machine executive assistant that’s now cash-flow positive and growing 100% YoY. They’ve raised over $50m from investors like Khosla and are hiring for a wide variety of roles. You can learn more and reach out here.

• Hallow is a prayer and meditation app that’s consistently near the top of the app store. They are hiring a social media marketer. You can learn more and apply here.

• Rion from Blockaid is hiring their first product marketing manager. They are building a web3 security platform (and they are on track to beat their first year revenue goals). You can learn more and apply here.

• Shyam from Ascend is building a payments platform for the insurance industry. They recently announced a $30m series A. They are hiring engineers, product owners, and account executives. You can learn more and apply here.

• Julie from Honeylove is hiring a chief marketing officer. They are building a shapewear/intimates brand that is now growing quickly. You can reach out here: julie@honeylove.com.

• Whatnot is the US’s fastest growing marketplace. They are hiring four go-to-market people. You can learn more and apply here.

Investing and other:

• Bill from First Round is hiring a chief of staff to work directly with him. You can learn more and reach out here.

• Slow Ventures is hiring an investment associate. You can learn more and apply here.

• DefyVC is hiring an investor to work in their early stage venture fund. You can learn more and apply here.

• a16z is hiring an associate to focus on consumer and games. You can learn more and apply here.

• B Capital is hiring a growth investing associate. You can learn more and apply here.

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:

• One of the more common questions we get asked is: “How do I job search and actually get in touch with opportunities in the newsletter?” We have lots of thoughts on this - that’s why we worked with Coach Erika to get you a $100 discount to her popular course on teeing up your job search. Coach Erika previously worked at Google. She then developed a course that has helped 200+ people land new jobs. The syllabus includes lots of the same advice we’d give (how to shortlist companies, strategies for cold emailing, etc.), and she’s great at holding people accountable to a structured plan. You can check out the course and get the discount here.

• Reminder that you can find dozens of other discounts to useful products like Suno, Legacy, Mercury, Ramp, Linear, and more here in next play perks (password: yournextplay).

• Check out a new essay we wrote: questions to ask before joining a startup (with answers compiled from expert operators like Sri Batchu, David Apple, Nikunj Kothari, Claire Butler, and more).

Thanks again for being part of the next play network. Please do reach out (hi@nextplay.so) if you have any feedback around what we can do to be more helpful.

Ben + team