Welcome to issue #22 of our ongoing newsletter series, From the First Row.

Thanks to Fan Zhang and Aviel Ginzburg sending some startups our way this month. That said, no intros are required - any startup can share their pitch here.

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First Row Partners | Highlights

<aside> đŸ› ïž Our portfolio companies are hiring! Please let us know if you you or anyone in your network is interested in these opportunities:

<aside> đŸŽ¶ Maya Ackerman, CEO of WaveAI shared this great post and video about how Curtiss King used their product, LyricStudio to get a #1 charting album on iTunes.

<aside> 🍎 Anurupa Ganguly, CEO of Prisms VR, shared the insights and personal experiences that led her to starting the company in this interview on Forbes. We love how her depth & breadth in the education space and her empathy for educators shines through in the article.

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<aside> đŸ„ł Thanks to Kirby Winfield & Jen Haller at Ascend.vc for hosting their annual Founder’s Bash! What fun to see such a showing from the Seattle founder and startup community. It was also great to see the work of the Special Olympics Robotics team where high school students showed us their working robots.

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<aside> đŸ–Œïž After a short summer hiatus, Deals & Drinks is back! Thanks to Thomas Kunjappu & Ryan O’Donnell from Cleary for presenting at Deals & Drinks this month. And thanks to our participants for bringing their energetic and thoughtful engagement to the discussion. Sign up here to be included on the invite list moving forward**.**

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<aside> đŸ’Ș The WTIA kicked off their 8th Founder Cohort program this month. Minda & Yoko ran a Fundraising 101 workshop to provide a foundation for their fundraising conversations, and Yoko moderated a panel of Angel to Seed investors (thanks, Kirby, Peter Mueller, Dennis Joyce & Tessie Decker!) to get a sense of what investors at this early-stage look for. We can’t wait to see all the progress the cohort will make over the coming 6 months.

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<aside> đŸ» Thanks to our friends who joined us at Ravenna Brewing this month for a casual catch up over beers and food truck tacos! It’s always great to connect in-person. Look out for more of these in the future.

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First Row Partners | What we've been reading

<aside> 🎹 The real opportunity in creative AI: Deepening human creativity - Maya Ackerman (First Row portfolio founder!) argues that generative AI, rather than replacing humans, creates an opportunity for human expression and creativity to reach new heights. She reminds us that technological advancements, from photoshop to Canva, have been used to expand human expression, and that generative AI is another such expansion tool.

In fact, the creators of generative AI in the 1980s aimed to enrich their own creative expression. With Open AI providing a versatile jumping off point, companies are able to explore ways to provide value to consumers using generative AI. Maya encourages founders in the space to consider building their own AI for more focused consumer experiences.

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<aside> 📕 The Right It (book) - This serves as a fantastic manual for anyone who wants to develop and launch a product. Alberto Savoia weaves stories into his framework, making it easy to remember and apply the concepts laid out in this book. “It’s more important to build the right it than to build it right” - we know we’ll be repeating that mantra to ourselves for years to come. Thanks, Court Lorenzini for the recommendation!

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<aside> đŸ‘„ Hiring: Why More is Less - Ravi Gupta takes the idea of “people don’t leave bad companies, they leave bad managers,” but flips it into a framework for how to think about hiring. His process of first analyzing the best folks on your team and the traits and characteristics they have allows you to build understanding of the actual skills and experiences you’re looking for as you grow your team.

Being a ‘talent magnet’ is a key attribute we look for in founders during our investment process. And, having hired teams and made the requisite mistakes along the way, we can see how planning for hiring requires internal analysis before looking externally and evaluating candidates. While team leads can be a ‘talent magnet,’ understanding their style and strengths (and weaknesses) can help articulate and attract ideal hires for the team.

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<aside> đŸȘ„ Indistinguishable from Magic - “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Packy McCormick adds cyclicality to this idea. By first reminding us of those moments of magic we felt with technological advances, and then showing us how the once magical moments become expected as those technologies mature, he reminds the next generation of entrepreneurs of their own opportunity to create magic in their own unique way. He sees AI driving this “new era of magic,” and also points to web3 as an area where there is opportunity for more focused, bespoke experiences for niche audiences.

But what is good magic without a show? We love to see ‘magic’ happen in digital products and tools — and connecting new users to that magic during the onboarding process is key. Without a clear understanding of the ‘wow’ factor you deliver and for whom, it is easy to lose user commitment and enthusiasm for being there.

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Venture Funding News | The Big Picture

Trends:

We’ve framed our funding news to match our evolved pillars: Digital Brain (applied data science) and Human Collaboration (the Digital Brain won’t replace everything/us!). This month we’re exploring grocery store experiences, a product demo builder tool, and platform for motion designers.

<aside> đŸ•žïž Human Collaboration | Swiftly Systems a Seattle based grocery-tech solution that power grocers’ website and mobile apps, raised $100 million to expand into Mexico, Canada and Europe. BRV Capital led the investment round and the company has now raised $215M and reached ‘unicorn’ status**.** Previous investors include ward.ventures, Wormhole Capital and Sand Hill Angels.

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