Jul 7, 2021Introducing the Belonging FundAngel investing to help people heal, connect, and prosper — Being born to a single mom on welfare, the odds were not in my favor that someday I’d have enough money to invest in startups. But at every turn I have irrationally bet on myself and the future I want and envision to be true — so here I am…Angel Investors6 min readAngel Investors6 min read
Dec 11, 2020Squad is now part of Twitter!We have been acquired and will continue building the future of conversations at Twitter — I’m excited to announce that Twitter has acquired Squad! The team will be joining Twitter to broaden the spectrum of conversations people can have on the service. …Startup6 min readStartup6 min read
Oct 23, 2020How Squad is making voice and video hang outs a lot more funSay goodbye to boring calls — shared activities & self-expression lets you do more than just talk when hanging out on Squad — Two years ago when I started sharing what we were working on many people seemed skeptical that the future of hanging out with friends and strangers would be in voice and video chatrooms. I’d get asked, “Do people really want to co-watch videos, play games and shop together while FaceTiming?”Social Media4 min readSocial Media4 min read
Apr 29, 2020The future of social is on the webMobile apps have reigned supreme but a shift is underway that will redefine years of consumer social behavior — Back in 2007 when I was making my dent in the early YouTube community everyone was talking about the “social web”. Then Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone, which set in motion a huge shift from the open web to the walled gardens of mobile operating systems. For the past…Social Media6 min readSocial Media6 min read
Mar 19, 2020Grief in the time of CoronavirusWhat it’s like when someone dies but you can’t have a funeral — Two weeks ago, a woman named Sandra Skenandore died suddenly. She entered the crosswalk at South 1st Street and South Chase Avenue around 7:30pm, just after dark, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Moments later she was struck by a speeding SUV. The force of the impact threw her 100 feet — causing…Grief11 min readGrief11 min read
Published in All Raise·Aug 8, 2019Your company’s cap table matters — it’s who you’re making wealthy and powerful in the worldSquad’s $5M seed round was very diverse: yours can be too! — Now that we’ve announced our seed round was led by Hayley Barna, partner at First Round, I can talk about something I’ve become very passionate about — our cap table. Shortly after launching Squad it was obvious we had hit on something magical so I decided to put a fundraising process together to fuel our product development and growth.Startup6 min readStartup6 min read
Jan 7, 2019What if social apps were actually social?How I turned the biggest struggle of my life into Squad: the best way to hang out with friends while in your favorite apps — The beta version of Squad is live in the App Store. An Android version is coming soon — so get on the list if you want to hear when it drops. Just like Twitch unlocked the gaming experience by letting you stream to everyone on the internet, Squad unlocks your…Social Media8 min readSocial Media8 min read
Published in Chatbots Magazine·Apr 25, 2016Bots Are Awesome! Humans? Not so MuchYour bots are talking to humans. Learn how to cope with this fact. — In the past few days my personal resume bot has exchanged over 24,000 messages via Facebook Messenger and SMS. It’s chatted with folks from every industry and has introduced me to people at Facebook, Microsoft, and Google — plus a half dozen small, compelling teams. What I learned about humans…Messaging7 min readMessaging7 min read
Published in Mission.org·Dec 7, 2015Marketers: do your part to advance diversity in techWhile venture capitalists, journalists, and socially conscious technocrats tweetstorm about the need for more women and people of color in tech — marketers have the ability to create that reality, today. — There’s no way that Silicon Valley will be able to solve its workforce diversity problem if startups can’t even get their marketing materials right. Every photo of a user in an app screenshot is an opportunity to be welcoming. …Diversity6 min readDiversity6 min read
