It is more difficult than assembling 10 IKEA dressers. The stakes are even higher.Start with the assumption that 90% startups fail, and that the best ones take six years on average to go public. Founders need to be careful about who they invite to the core team.Is it possible for a stellar engineer to become a great chief technology officer? Is your product person opinionated? Or a team player. Is your CEO the right choice?Sudheesh Nair, ThoughtSpot CEO, shared his thoughts on building a strong leadership team. He also created a checklist for entrepreneurs looking to put together a team. His first advice?Investors love founder CEOs and founders can be great candidates for this position. However, not everyone can do this job well and, more importantly, not everybody wants to.Gregg Adkin (VP and managing director of Dell Technologies Capital) shared his framework for helping founders establish their boards in a related article.The right mix of people can have a significant impact on everything, from fundraising to hiring. Investors often ask founders questions about their boards because it speaks volumes about their character, judgment, and willingness to challenge.Members can only access the full Extra Crunch products.Get 20% off your one-year or two-year subscription by using the discount code ECFridayMiranda Halpern interviewed Ward van Gasteren, an Amsterdam-based coach, for our latest interview on growth marketing. It is available free of charge.Van Gasteren discussed misconceptions about growth hacking as well as the common mistakes startups make. He also explained the differences between growth marketing and growth hacking.He tells us that growth hacking is a great way to boost growth, test new opportunities, and find out which tactics work.Marketers need to be there to carry on the work of growth hackers: Develop strategies, keep customers engaged, and stay current with tactics.Thank you for reading Extra Crunch this Week. I hope that you have a wonderful weekend.Walter ThompsonSenior Editor, TechCrunch@yourprotagonistWhat does Afterpay's acquisition by Squares mean for startups?Ryan Lawler, a reporter at TechCrunch, wrote his first column after returning. He discussed the ripples Squares' purchase of Afterpay could have on the waters of buy-now,-pay later startups.He interviewed him for commentary and perspective:Commerce Ventures founder and general partner Dan RosenJake Gibson, founder partner of Better Tomorrow VenturesTX Zhuo is a partner at Fika VenturesMatthew Harris, Partner, Bain Capital VenturesRyan reports that he talked to investors who agreed that deferring payments drives e-commerce. However, scale is important and long-term margins for BNPL startups look slim.Enterprise AI 2.0: B2B AI innovation is acceleratingAI solutions have been used by businesses for over 20 years. However, few companies have seen the remarkable gains in efficiency or profitability that were promised when the technology was first introduced.Eshwar Belani is an operating partner at Symphony AI and writes in a guest column about the burgeoning enterprise AI.Companies at the forefront of AI innovation are moving to the next generation. This will be the decade of big data analytics, automation Enterprise AI 2.0.Embodied AI, superintelligence, and the master algorithmOne technologist believes that the adoption of embedded artificial intelligence (or superintelligence) will increase over the next 18 months. This is a path to superintelligence, which is incredibly powerful software far beyond anything the human brain could create.Chris Nicholson, founder of Pathmind and CEO, says that all the Boston Dynamics videos showing robots dancing, running, jumping and balancing are examples of embodied artificial intelligence.This field is changing fast, and you can dance in it.Insurtech: A story about a lot of money and very little loveThe Exchange examines the valuations of public companies insurtech companies. It also considers what this means for startups, but from a slightly different perspective.Alex Wilhelm writes that we would often riff on the values of public neoinsurance firms and use that data for a guess as to what price drops might mean for related startups. This column is known for its national pastime: Using public-market data to better understand private market dynamics.Today?Five factors founders should consider before selecting their VCThis newsletter should be familiar with the fact that venture capital is all around the world.It's more than fat checks for founders, Kunal Lunawat (co-founder and managing partner at Agya Ventures) writes in a guest column.When deciding who will sit at their table, founders should go back to basics.Neobanks could move towards profitability and be on the way to public marketsAlex Wilhelm examines Starling Bank and Monzo results to find out what the most recent financial figures of the neobanks say about the overall state of neobanks.He notes that although some neobanks are able to balance their books and make profits, not all of them are profitable.But who are the ones that are?At the very least, a portion is financially sound enough to take part in public offerings.Founders need to learn how to build trust and maintain relationships with investorsAlthough the red-hot venture capital markets may offer many investors, it is important to be able to trust your investors. Ripple Ventures Matt Cohen, Trues Tony Conrad, and Ripple Ventures Matt Cohen write in a guest column.This new dynamic forces founders to be very selective about who sits around their mentorship table.To extract maximum value from experienced investors at an early stage, it is simply impossible to build deep and meaningful relationships.What is the role of the board in an early-stage startup venture?Gregg Adkin, vice president and managing direct at Dell Technologies Capital writes in a guest column that assembling a board of directors does not just involve finding people who can help you on your early-stage journey.Your fundraising success can also be affected by the composition of your board.He writes that investors often ask founders about their boards because it speaks volumes about their character, judgment, and willingness to take on challenges.Adkins provides a framework called SPIFS (Strategy, People, Image, Finance and Systems for Compliance) to help founders set up a board.Are bronze medals possible for unicorns?Alex Wilhelm was curious about the struggle for smaller markets, and whether third place is enough in the wake of Deliveroos' plans to leave the Spanish market.It isn't a huge deal for one company to exit a market, but we were interested in Deliveroos comments about the need for market leadership, or something similar, to justify continued investment. He writes for The Exchange.This is the reality of startups competing for market position in cities and countries.
