28 under-the-radar opportunities from next play ✨
ex-Deepmind, viral startup Dupe, operations, and more
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.
In an effort to help more people figure out what’s next, we are exploring something new: virtual, small-group discussions to help you meet like-minded people and supercharge your network. Potentially interested? Fill out this short form here.
Three people found their next adventure through next play last week!! We’re so grateful to have you all in our corner. Make sure to tell your friends about next play:
Opportunities
If you have any opportunities to share (roles, cofounder search, side projects, people to jam on ideas with, etc.), reply directly to this email with a context blurb and we will consider including it in the next issue.
Forge is automating all manual human processes using AI for the world's largest companies. They're on track to save their customers tens of millions of dollars, and demand is extremely high. They're hiring for an operations associate and a core full-stack engineer. It's a well-funded, lean team with the correct GTM and technical approach, and they are looking for high calibre people. Email Hima Tammineedi - hima@withforge.com with the subject: “next play” to hear more and chat.
The founders of Bazo (ex-McKinsey) are looking for their first business hire as Head of Growth. Bazo is a gamified marketplace for excess inventory in fashion, home goods and beauty. This role calls for a GTM ninja who can switch gears between B2B sales with brands to B2C acquisition hacking with shoppers. They're early, scrappy, working with over 60 brands and launching next month. Email brandon@bazo.co with subject "Head of Growth" if interested.
Sherjil Ozair is an AI researcher based in SF formerly at DeepMind, Tesla, Google Brain, and Baidu Research. He has publications in generative models and reinforcement learning and has been cited over 85k times. He is starting a company building foundation models for web agents, and is looking to partner with people with machine learning and/or product expertise. Reach out to contact@generalagents.co.
Matt Silver and team from Cargado are hiring a Chief of Staff. Their mission is to revolutionize how U.S.-Mexico cross-border logistics is executed. You can apply here.
Lenny Learning is on a mission to give every school an AI behavioral health specialist. The co-founders are both Yale-educated engineers that have been deeply impacted by mental illness in our families. Since launching last year, they have been doubling our reach every school semester; this fall, they are contracted to serve 75K youth across 10 states. They are hiring a partnerships & growth lead—you can see the listings here and if interested, reach out to ting@lennylearning.org with "next play" in the subject line.
My friend Dani from Jam (which helps 100,000+ people fix bugs and issues 80% faster) is hiring a staff/principal designer who will be foundational to their product and brand. You can learn more about the role and apply here.
The co-funder Inneractive/Fyber (which eventually sold for more than $600 million) is now building a new company: Arya. They are reshaping the conversation around intimacy and sexuality. They are looking for a Growth Marketer to join the founding team as well as an AI engineer. Reach out to their founder/CEO.
Will just announced their new company Gestalt and they are looking to hire some additional folks over the next months. He sold his last company to Airtable. You can read more about their mission and apply here.
Ellie, formerly Senior Director, Ecommerce & Customer Experience at Away, is exploring a new platform connecting trusted babysitters to families that emphasizes consistency in care, easy scheduling, and a focus on play and engagement. She's early on but wants to connect with anyone who's interested in the space, especially any New York-based brand marketers with experience at family-focused brands. You can reach out to her at elliebenner@gmail.com.
Suhail (formerly the founder of Mixpanel, now building Playground) is hiring a senior designer senior designer role, who will work directly with Suhail to reimagine how making and creating images and designs works. Our users make millions of images a day, so you get feedback very fast. Reach out on Twitter and tell them next play sent you.
Vib and team from Saronic are hiring for every department. Saronic is building autonomous surface vessels for the navy. You can explore opportunities here.
Jitter is building the “Figma for motion design.” They are based in Paris but support remote work. They are hiring someone to lead product design. Learn more here.
Dupe.com is going super viral—they make it easy to find desirable products at accessible prices. Bobby is hiring 2-3 university interns for a paid internship to help put them on campuses this fall. Email bobby@dupe.com if you are interested. They are looking for a senior/staff level backend engineer with a focus and interest in AI and LLM technologies. For more info you can email the cofounder/CTO at ramin@dupe.com.
Steve from Val Town is hiring an engineer. Val Town is a social website to code in the cloud. They are building an editing environment, a sandboxed runtime, logging & observability for user code, and social tools like trending, comments, likes, and sharing. They are hiring their fifth engineer.
Our friend Zain from Lazer is hiring engineers (remote!) who love working on Shopify sites (and would love building ecommerce experiences for some of the world’s leading brands). Can reach out to Zain here.
Copilot is hiring an associate product manager to own product areas that help them reinvent how service businesses and clients work together. Apply here (they are also hiring their first marketer).
Warmly is changing the way B2B companies leverage high intent and chat when it comes to their websites. They are hiring salespeople (SDRs) based in Europe. You can learn more and apply here.
Rutter’s Unified API makes it easy for B2B Fintech companies to add robust integrations to their product workflow. They are hiring a founding revenue operations analyst - you can apply here.
Experienced second-time entrepreneur, embarking on a venture in the realm of metabolic health, with a focus on gestational diabetes, the most predominant pregnancy disorder. Seeking a technological co-founder (CTO or CPO with technical background) in New York or tel Aviv, experienced in integrating health tech and medical devices. Ideally possesses a deep understanding of launching startups / track record in developing scalable, B2C products from 0-1. Reach out directly: Breakstone.k@gmail.com
Cognition Labs - makers of Devin - are trying to build an AI-powered software engineers. They are rumored to be raising at a unicorn valuation. They are hiring (human) software engineers. You can learn more here.
Nnamdi - a partner at Lightspeed - is helping a NYC-based stealth ai portfolio company hire a devrel engineer. You can message him here about the opportunity.
Synch (YCS23) is hiring two founding business development representatives. Synch is an all-in-one revenue platform that requires no setup and is built for simplicity with SSO and go. DM Nick here.
Shawn Xu from Lowercase is “looking for an all-around-badass COO to help build an early stage company that's at the intersection of climate and space tech. You'd be joining on the ground floor, pretty damn close to the launchpad.” Email Shawn here: shawn@lowercarboncapital.com.
Andrew from Density is hiring an account executive. Density has built one of the most advanced people sensing systems in the world. Density can tell you how many people are in any room in near real-time, with very high degrees of accuracy and without invading privacy. You can apply here.
A longtime Google/FB exec recently started Artnership to foster collaboration between writers, podcasters, and video creators with the long term goal of enabling an ecosystem of creative led media brands. Having just launched an MVP in the app store, they are looking for a partner / technical cofounder who's excited about the future of independent media, storytelling, and creative work and the tools that will enable it all. If interested, email gordon@artnership.co.
Dan McCormick is hiring a head of growth for his now viral bootstrapped business Create. You can DM him here.
Fella Health helps middle-aged men live 10 years longer. They are hiring a head of operations. You can learn more and apply here.
Buildspace is a really unique startup—they are building a platform of sorts for helping people launch their ideas. You can read about Farza (their founder) and the Buildspace story here. If you are really really great at building with RAG/LLMs, have a US visa, and want to work with Farza in-person in SF on their new AI product, you can apply to work at Buildspace here: farza@buildspace.so.
Next play note
Reminder → In an effort to help more people figure out what’s next, we are exploring something new: virtual, small-group discussions to help you meet like-minded people and supercharge your network. Potentially interested? Fill out this short form here.
The latest next play podcast episode is live. We brought on Rajiv Ayyangar, CEO at Product Hunt. He takes us through his journey from founder of a YC startup in the remote work space, to leaving his company and becoming an EIR at Dropbox, and ultimately joining PH as CEO. Plus, the insider tips to successfully launching on Product Hunt these days. Listen on Spotify. Listen on Apple Podcasts.
Thank you to our Gelt for sponsoring this podcast. Gelt specializes in providing comprehensive tax solutions tailored for businesses and their owners. Go to joingelt.com/nextplay
If you have any opportunities to share (roles, cofounder search, side projects, people to jam on ideas with, etc.), reply directly to this email with a context blurb and we will consider including it in the next issue.
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