issue #176 - the one on hope

April 09, 2023

Julie Schechter is the co-founder and CEO of Present, a relationship-building software that helps you strengthen your relationships at work and at home. She's a former ballet dancer turned lawyer turned entrepreneur. She and her co-founder Monika Shah created Present to break the complicated, ongoing task of maintaining a relationship into the bite-size pieces of time that modern people actually have.

Disclosure from Hitha: I am an investor in Present, and a devout user. If you want to be more proactive about maintaining your relationships, I highly recommend downloading the app (use code TEST to create your account after downloading) and sending a “thinking of you!” card to someone.

This past week for me was “the one where things start to feel really hopeful again.” I’ve lived in New York for years, but I still can’t shake my California-born feeling of heaviness when the winter feels like it’s stretching on (and on). But now: spring is finally here! The level of pure joy I get walking outside for the first time in bare legs is legendary.

This whole season feels very anticipatory: along with launching Present, I’m also expecting my first child. He’s not due until August, but I’m feeling the need to paint furniture/hang photos/turn everything upside down to “get ready.” I’m doing the fun stuff, but if start-up life has taught me anything so far, it’s that there’s no real “ready” for any big moment. It’s just one pivot after another, absorbing the variables and information as they come, and doing your best in each new moment. So that’s my plan for this next stage, too: do what I can to prepare, and then get ready for the wild ride :)

What We Read This Week

  • Age of Vice by by Deepti Kapoor - Currently working my way through Age of Vice, by Deepti Kapoor. It’s a tome, but the multi-POV storytelling is incredible. I love an author who can paint a situation one way through one character’s eyes, and then make you completely switch allegiances once you’re seeing it from another vantage point. I’m not done yet, but feel totally confident recommending this one.

  • Hello Molly! A Memoir by Molly Shannon - I found Hello Molly in the Little Free Library near my apartment and absolutely loved it. I read it over the course of a few days and cried through the last few chapters, which deal with her father’s death and her becoming a mother. I wasn’t expecting to get so into it—I was in elementary school during her SNL heyday and am not an Irish Catholic from the midwest. Molly’s story is well known—when she was four, her mother, sister, and cousin were killed in a car accident. She, her sister, and her dad, who was driving, tired, and maybe drunk, survived. That’s just the prologue. Molly's perspective is informed by all that she went through and I loved her attitude and humor about work, loss, and more.

Zara

  • Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid - Daisy Jones and the Six was fantastic and I am so thrilled to FINALLY be watching the show it inspired.

  • Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci - I’ve never been an audiobook fan, but listening to Stanley Tucci talk about his life and family, using food as the primary vehicle? I’m yet to listen to the book “properly,” the way he wrote it from start to finish, simply because I keep popping around my favorite chapters so they can accompany me while I work, cook, clean, or workout. The text is amazing, but hearing him read it aloud cannot be beat.

  • Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin - This is one of the best pieces of modern fiction I’ve read in a long time. It’s the story of two young people who connect through a love of video games, and the complex, often fraught, but deeply tender relationship they forge across decades as they begin to design video games together. I’m not at all familiar with the world of gaming, but found the story captivating (and also gut-wrenchingly sad—be warned). It’s also in some ways a disability story, as one of the main characters grapples with a terrible, disfiguring injury and builds new worlds where his disabled body can exist and be accepted. This book definitely inspired my latest interview (https://www.downtothestruts.com/ ) with game designer, May Wong, the creator of the award-winning debut game, As Dusk Falls.

  • So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson Before - Cancel Culture, there was "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" by Jon Ronson. Ronson's various deep dives into cultural phenomena is the definition of my literary taste. This book covers the why and the what next of public shamings. The way Ronson interviews his subjects and weaves his stories will transport, entertain and educate you.

Top #5SmartReads Of The Week

The rest of the week’s reads (and conversations!) are below:

Your Questions on Entrepreneurship, Career Pivots, and Relationships, Answered by Julie 

As an entrepreneur, how do you know what to invest your budget in? Social? Media spend? PR?I think that depends so much on the company, the budget, and on your goals for growth! For example, if you have a decent amount to work with (and obviously that means something different to everyone) then you have the luxury of thinking about things like “brand awareness.” I’ve mostly been in the opposite position: while I’ve raised some angel investment, it’s always been a small enough amount that I (and my team) have had to be really scrappy. So, we focus on the immediate goals, and what kind of outlay we need in order to get there.

I’ll say the things I always spend on are:

1) An email platform with great analytics, like Klaviyo. Your email list is the one way of reaching an audience that can’t disappear overnight, and if you cultivate a relationship with that list that feels like a value-add to that audience, it’s a channel they’ll keep open. Everything else (social media platforms, PR, etc) is at the mercy of others, and while it’s great to diversify, I never want to over-index on something I can’t control.

2) Google Ads with highly attuned keywords. Same basic concept here; while ad spend on social media is all over the place (and people are increasingly uninterested in having ads in their feed) people will turn to search engines when they’re actively looking for solutions. I always want to be there, ready for high-intent customers to find us.

Who should the first hire be in a start-up? How do you think about that?With the same caveats as above about it depending on the company, I’d say: a kind, hungry person whose specific skill-set complements (and doesn’t overlap with) that of the founder(s). Kind is a non-negotiable: start-up life is hard enough without throwing egos or pettiness into the mix, so you need (not want, but need) someone with a generous personality. Hungry probably goes without saying, but there’s no way to be successful in this line of work without really wanting to make big strides. And in terms of skill-set, for the first few people in the door, it doesn’t matter enormously who does what: you need people who can sell the product (marketing or sales), build the product (product and tech), and keep the ship afloat while the other two pieces are happening (operations). Each one of those 3 things can be spread across multiple people or concentrated in one, but for the first hire, I’d concentrate on plugging any holes and avoiding duplication of talents.

How to prioritize personal relationships/connection when work seems to be taking over? This is the age-old problem, and I won’t claim to have a complete solve for it. (Other than Present, which solves everything! 🙂) But in all seriousness, the best I’ve come up with yet is: shift the default. Think of that old story, where you’re trying to fit a bunch of rocks and sand into a glass. If you pour the sand in first, no dice: there’s no room for half the rocks. But if you start with the rocks, the sand can slide into the nooks and crannies between them, and somehow, everything fits.

Kind of a silly analogy, but: make your personal relationships the rocks. Put them on the calendar first, and let everything else (work included) fit into the rest of the spaces. Make a standing date to see a group of important friends on the first Monday of the month, and actually put it on the calendar. You’ll find yourself planning around it (and having it actually happen) way more often than if you tried to make that dinner happen from a place of inertia every month. Work is sand: it’ll take up as much time (and space) as it’s given, but most of the time the necessary elements will still get done even if the “rocks” get their space first.

Here’s hoping that each of you has a wonderful week and that you get to fit in a few important “rocks” before the rest of life takes over.

xo,JS

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