YC backed CTO, ai agent for compliance, first business hire
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.
If you are thinking about what’s next, you may like friends of next play. When we asked community members what they thought, here’s what they said:
“I met my technical co-founder by going to an in-person gathering hosted by the community.”
“I have made so many amazing and inspiring friends simply be engaging in the Slack group and connecting with people.”
“Joining was honestly a no-brainer because on top of the community you also get hundreds of dollars worth of discounts to products I actually use (like Superhuman and Lovable).”
“I got great job search strategy feedback from someone I met in the community.”
You can join friends of next play here. Talk soon!
Co-founders and people to jam with:
Hari was previously co-founder and CTO at Extend an AI-powered document processing company ($X M ARR and YC W23), and a lead engineer on pricing teams at Airbnb and Opendoor. He’s currently exploring new startup ideas, initially around real estate, fintech, and B2B SaaS, but is open to exploring other industries too. He’s looking for collaborators - you can reach out here: hari.anbarasu95@gmail.com. (SF, Remote)
Callum previously founded Slate, a consumer AI product that reached 25,000+ users. Before that, he built a deep-tech consultancy that worked with clients such as Caltech to spin lab research into startups. He is now exploring new ideas and looking for cofounders. You can reach him at callum.woznow@gmail.com. (Remote)
Michael previously helped scale Clark from pitch deck to unicorn as an early product/ops generalist. He’s now building TODAY, an ai-powered co-pilot for financial advisors, and is looking for a co-founder (especially great if technical). You can reach out here: michael@usetoday.io. (EU)
Tyler was previously a deployment engineer at Google, supporting GenAI security for enterprises. Now he’s building an Agentic Identity platform to eliminate the “approval fatigue” and identity sprawl plaguing most companies. He’s looking for co-founders or collaborators. You can reach out here: dooskin@icloud.com. (NYC)
In just the past few weeks, we heard from several people who started companies with people they met through next play. Got us thinking - how could we kickstart more of this? Experiment we’re going to try: we’re curating a list of people actively open to founding something new/looking for co-founders. To get added, 1) join friends of next play (to reduce spam) and 2) send us an email with the subject: “Add me to the list” (hi@nextplay.so). We’ll then share the list with everyone who messages us. Never know what will happen 😇
Early teams:
Andrei from Console is building an AI agent platform that helps IT & HR teams automate all of their support tickets. They are making their first business hire, as well as engineers. They will pay you to move to SF. You can learn more here and reach out here: andrei@console.co (SF)
Kenan from Icon grew from $0 to $5m in just 30 days. Their team is < 20 people, and They pay 2-5x market rate, and just raised a second round from Peter Thiel. They are hiring founding team members for every role: operations, engineering, customer success, sales, etc. You can learn more and apply here. (NYC)
Omar from FastView is building a “Figma for data,” powered by AI. The team comes from Apple and Rippling. They are hiring software engineers (front-end and back-end). You can reach out here. (Bay Area)
Albert from Stacks is building an AI tool that helps accounting teams close their books faster. They just raised a large seed round from General Catalyst and are hiring account executives and a founding marketer. You can learn more and apply here. (Amsterdam)
Alex from Hello Patient is building an ai-powered audio assistant for healthcare companies. They are hiring a prompt engineer, and a product manager who wants to be customer-facing. You can reach out here: alex@hellopatient.com. (Remote)
Tom from Adfin is working on a more streamlined invoicing platform. They are backed by Index Ventures and are hiring a founder’s associate. You can learn more and apply here. (London)
Paul from Margins is building a “Duolingo meets Reddit meets Spotify” - specifically for reading books. They are hiring engineers. You can reach out here: paul@margins.app. (SF, Remote)
Rahul from Valid is building an AI-enabled marketing agency. In the first two months of the year, they’ve grown revenue 30% and are hiring for two product roles. You can learn more and apply here. (Bay Area)
Tom from Granola is hiring a founding account executive. Granola is an ai-powered meeting notetaker that’s recently gone viral amongst startups. You can learn more and apply here. (London)
Charta is building an ai-powered platform that automates chart reviewing for healthcare companies. OpenAI acquired the founder’s last company. They just raised $8.1 million and are hiring account executives and software engineers. You can learn more and apply here. (SF)
Eric from Propvetter is building an AI-powered platform that tries to automate commercial real estate due diligence. He’s secured pilot customers and is looking for a founding engineer to help lead product development. You can reach out here: eric@propvetter.com. (Los Angeles, Remote)
Who is hiring? Send us an email: hi@nextplay.so. We’d love to connect you to candidates (we make dozens of high quality direct connections every week!).
Scaling startups:
Misha from Hearth is hiring a head of product to work directly with the CEO. The goal is to help scale the company from $25m in revenue to $50m in the next two years. Hearth is a vertical SaaS company that helps small business contractors in home services win more jobs while saving time. You can reach out here: misha@gethearth.com. (NYC)
Albe from Superpower is hiring for nearly every role (growth, engineering, product, etc.). They are especially looking for a partnership success manager. Superpower is an all-in-one personal health platform. You can learn more here and reach out here: albe@superpower.com. (SF, Remote)
Audrey from Warp is building an ai-powered developer terminal that has already reached hundreds of thousands of users. They are hiring a support lead, software engineers, analytics engineers, and solutions engineers. You can learn more here and reach out here: audrey@warp.dev. (Remote)
Daragh from Imprint is building a modern co-branded credit card platform. They reached $70 million in revenue last year and have 21 open roles across data, engineering, finance, and growth. You can learn more and apply here. (NYC, Remote)
Alex from Compound just announced they passed $3 billion in assets under management. They are building a tech-enabled wealth manager. They are hiring business development people, wealth managers, and engineers. You can learn more and apply here. (Remote)
Laura from Shepherd is hiring for every department: operations, insurance, engineering, product, recruiting. They are building a tech-enabled commercial insurance platform. They announced that they grew revenue 16x YoY. You can learn more and apply here. (SF)
John from Norm AI just announced a $48m financing round, as they are building an ai agent for compliance. They are hiring across finance, engineering, and marketing. You can learn more and apply here. (NYC)
Karan from Cartesia just announced a $64m Series A. They are building a multi-modal generative AI platform (audio, images, etc.). They are hiring across the board. You can learn more and apply here. (SF, Remote)
Christophe from Camber is building an insurance reimbursement platform that has grown to 40,000+ patients in the past two years. They are hiring across for many growth roles, like growth marketers, account executives, and sales managers. You can learn more and apply here. (Remote, NYC)
Reflection recently raised money from Sequoia to try to build super-intelligent systems, starting with automating coding. They are hiring technical staff. You can learn more and apply here. (SF, Paris, NYC, London)
Eliot from Viam is building a data/ai/automation platform for the physical world. They just announced a $30m fundraising round. They are hiring account executives, solutions engineers, and more. You can learn more and apply here. (NYC)
Here’s a list of Sequoia backed companies that are open to hiring remotely.
Investing and other:
Christen from Renaissance Philanthropy is hiring for several roles across: partnerships, finance, and communications. Their organization helps design, incubate, and launch ambitious philanthropic projects. You can learn more here and get in touch here. (NY, DC, London, SF)
a16z is hiring a fund strategy associate. You can learn more and apply here. (SF)
Charlie from Sequoia Capital is hiring recruiters. You can learn more and apply here.
Featured resources:
Questions to ask before you join a startup: a practical list of questions to help you understand a company before you join.
From unemployed to dozens of job offers: Adrian’s transparent story of how he went from unemployed with no job offers to CEOs emailing him asking for help — all in less than a year.
Everything you need to know about negotiating tech offers: A deep dive with Josh Doody that gives you loads of useful advice on all things negotiation.
We have recently written essay spotlights about companies like Attio, Graphite, Numeric, Clay, and many other top startups. Super fun going behind the scenes. Who should we write about next?
Note:
Based on some requests, and because we thought it could be fun, we made a swag shop, where you will find next play themed apparel - like hats, pullovers, and stickers. We are making $0 profit from this - everything is priced at cost. Send us pictures if you end up ordering anything 😇
Thanks for being a part of the next play community. When we say we want to build a community that supports people in thinking about what’s next, we really mean community - a place you can come to where you feel comfortable asking challenging questions, a place where you can find like-minded peers, and a place where you can unlock opportunities that hopefully help you become the best version of yourself. If there’s anything we can be doing better - email us hi@nextplay.so.
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