Futureproofd’s Post

This photo is from 5 years ago when I joined Brett Stubbs on his newest startup venture as co-CEO and before we got beat up by life 🙃 . Look how youthful and fresh we look! Our family painted that wall in our new office to match our business cards. Before that, I had always been a behind-the-scenes support - what some call a "hidden founder". Since Brett has worked from home the majority of his career, I was privy to all the ins and outs of his business dealings. The beauty and burden of working from home is instead of relying on co-workers between meetings, you turn to your family. Our kids as well have always known the complexities of start-up life on a deeper level. My role as a supportive wife and household manager, homeschooling mom of 5 children, and female consumer granted me the opportunity and privilege to learn about marketing, sales, and the small business/start-up world. I like to call my experience from before this role as my "life resume". The skills gained through the position of SAHM should not be undervalued. My naivety also played a large part in my willingness to take on this role 😉. Over the next 2 years, I would create an office space, interview and hire interns, speak and train at conferences, sell via live video, meet with investors, run company meetings, host sponsored booths, conduct sales calls, and more. It was an adventure that ended as abruptly as it started and we haven't been the same sense. But that's a story for another day... Fast forward several years and projects later, and we are launching something again as a family. Entrepreneurship has been part of our family culture since it began, and despite the ups and downs, it has exemplified the process of creation without sugar-coating it. An idea or dream can light a fire, but hard work, perseverance, ingenuity, faith, prayer, and humility must feed the flames. Here's to the next chapter. Stay tuned to follow our journey...

I’ve grown my Linkedin network a good bit over the past year. I want to reintroduce myself to all my new connections! After I graduated Georgia Institute of Technology in 2020 I spent 2 years ideating, building, and failing on different business ventures. A year and a half ago I got some traction on one idea and Runway was born. You always hear how hard it is to get from zero to one. What they don’t tell you is how hard the next stages are. Here are some wins and challenges I’ve faced. 3 wins: → Bootstrapped business from $0 to 6 figure revenue.  → Highlighted in Hypepotamus and Atlanta Business Chronicle → Hired first full-time employee who is a STUD 3 challenges: → Had several 12+ hour work days and felt like I accomplished nothing → Didn’t deliver to a few customers and may not see them again as a result → Spent hours meeting with and pitching to potential customers who’ve completely ghosted me right after telling me they can’t wait to use our platform. Got any advice on how to scale your business from 6 figures to 7 figures? I'd love to chat. — I’m Ford Coleman, a founder. Follow me for weekly stories from my journey.

14 years ago today, Matt King and I said goodbye to Unthirsty and it became a side-project that was acquired. https://lnkd.in/g9pghrXS (Thanks for the writeup Rick Turoczy.) Man, at the time, it felt like that was the grownup thing to do. To build something from scratch then sell it and make money. Surely that would prove that I was a proper internetter and that I was smart and talented and that people should like me. Looking back, I wish I still had that site. I wish I hadn't sold it. It was taking a lot of time to manage (early Rails application that it was) and letting it go and getting something in return was better than shutting it down. But, I wish I'd just held on to it and rebuilt it with simpler tech and kept it. Ah, the wisdom of looking back. Unthirsty was a happy hour finder we launched in 2005. It was one of the first sites to use Google Maps brand new API that let you embed a Google Map, with user-generated data, onto your own domain. It was pretty novel at the time and we got a lot of fun press for it. I got invited to talk at conferences, and even got a job because of it (Vince LaVecchia later told us that Instrument hired Matt and I because if this was the type of thing we could build without adult supervision, just think of the things we could build to help the brands that were working with Instrument.) Building things for the web these days, and finding any kind of success, is harder than ever. People are more cynical and exhausted by marketing. We're incredibly distracted and there are so many ways to solve anything, convincing people to trust you and your service is really really difficult. And without a pre-existing email list or audience, the only way I know to make it work is with massive marketing budgets. I feel like the old web is gone, and it's a bit sad. But today, I'm going to tip my glass to the days of old, back when making for the internet was a chaotic and uncertain road but a lot less noisy - and so so so much fun. Today I will remember Unthirsty, which opened so many doors and introduced me to so many folks. Cheers!

All of us find our calling early in life. Most of us just don't know how to identify it 🔍 , or we forget about it. 💭 Because rooted passions are tricky to recognize, and rarely do they align perfectly with well-known careers. Warren Buffett was one of the lucky ones. 💵 Buffett bought his first stock when he was 11. He bought three shares of an oil company called City Services at $38. When it hit $40, he sold it. Not long after, the price soared to $200 per share. Buffett was completely hooked and would pursue patient investing obsessively for the rest of his life. 🍀 He was lucky because a career that already existed lined up well with his rooted passion (reading and finding great businesses). It made it even easier since that career was valuable and respected and had a vast pool of mentors. Then, there are stories like Brian Lee. 💼 Brian Lee is a serial entrepreneur best known for founding LegalZoom. 🎃 When Lee was 7 or 8, on Halloween, he'd come home from trick-or-treating, bunch his candy by fours into ziplock bags, and resell them the next day at school to all of his friends. A clear sign of his entrepreneurial-rooted passion. But it would take him 20+ years to embrace it as a career. 📆 First, Lee thought he wanted to be a rapper. After producing a mixtape that flopped, he decided to go to college. When he graduated, he still had no idea what he wanted to do. 😑 (like so many of us because identifying and embracing our rooted passions isn't something we are taught to do.) 🎓 So, he decided to apply for law school. After graduating, signing with a big-time law firm, and working for several years, he was in agony. Only when Lee couldn't take it anymore did it lead to the genesis of LegalZoom. It took desperation before he reconnected with his rooted passion (making things or deals and selling them). Unlike Buffett, it took Lee more than a decade into his adult life to recognize and pursue what his behavior told him from a young age was his passion all along. ⚖ However, similar to Buffett, remarkable results were achieved once he decided to pursue it. #RootedPassions #WarrenBuffett #LegalZoom #NewBook #FindYourPassion #FindYourPurpose #AdvanceYourCareer

Who’s in your starting lineup? Oh man, let me tell ya, back in the day, my team and network were more like a motley crew than the dream team I’ve got now. If I had just a crystal ball or something to show me how crucial it was to have my vision locked down tight, maybe I would’ve picked my squad with a bit more finesse from the get-go. But hey, we’re all geniuses in hindsight, aren’t we? Now, when you’re strutting your stuff in front of investors, showing off your startup team, it’s not just a meet and greet. You gotta dive deep. Talk about what each player brings to the table - their skills, their war stories, and how they’re gonna help you conquer the world. And it’s not just about throwing resumes and headshots at investors. You need to paint a picture of a well-oiled machine. How do you all click? Who’s got your back from the advisory board? Toss in some visuals to keep it interesting, and don’t shy away from talking about where you’re still beefing up the ranks. This isn’t just about bragging rights; it’s about showing you’ve got the right folks to turn your big ideas into reality. Get investors excited about your team’s mojo, and you’re halfway to getting them to open their wallets. #startuptips #thecfoguy #team

⚛️ The Nucleus Network Partner of the Week - Tiny Every week, we highlight one of the many amazing partners in The Nucleus Network. You’ll learn more about who they are, what they do and what they’re working on. This week’s partner → Tiny 💼 Who They Are For over a decade, Tiny has been partnering with founders to give them quick, straightforward exits that protect their team and culture and keep their businesses operating for the long term. 🤝 What They Do Businesses like selling to Tiny because: - They include full or partial cash outs, with deals ranging from $1M-$300M.  - They are extremely flexible, as founders can stay or go. It is a very simple structure with the cash upfront.  - There is no change in culture as they hold companies for the long term. 🔜 What’s Next If you are a company that has a high-quality team, with high margins and a simple business model, reach out to us directly to connect with Pedro Gascon and the Tiny team!

4 years ago, I closed down my company I was stressed out, struggling to get traction, and had no time to spend with my girlfriend at the time. ↓↓↓ NOW, I'm leading growth at Default, recently married to a stunningly beautiful wife, and living in NYC. In between, a lot happened... ↓↓↓ One of these experiences was working at Chili Piper, where I learned a great lesson. YET, I decided to do the exact opposite... and it paid off. We 3x'ed our lead volume by increasing website conversions by showing more product on a landing page. At Chili Piper, we tested showing a product demo and product screenshots—and it decreased conversions. It was crazy to me at the time! Why does showing more of what you have to sell doesn't help you? Especially when, At my previous startup, I increased conversions by showing a quick and dirty Loom video on our homepage. ↓↓↓ In the past 3 months, we 3x our website conversion rates by adding product screenshots. What is the lesson here? — Just TEST. — Your lessons may not be applicable in a new setting. — Keep your ego in check. For me, it was eye-opening. You can’t rely on your past experiences too much. And having no ego helps drive more pipelines, accelerate your career, and become a better human being.

In sales, one minute the team is performing like rockstars and the next there's talk of PIPs. These are the hills and valleys we deal with. How do you iron those out more? Especially in life at a constantly evolving startup? I break down our experience with No Fluff Selling clients in this video. Hint: It's not always on the sales team! 👀

If you’ve talked to me this year, you’ve probably seen me light up when I talk about my job. Working on a company like Clay was never part of my master plan, but I'm so glad for it—I’ve never loved a team more than I love my friends here—and we just announced our $62m funding raised at a $500M valuation from Meritech Capital, Sequoia Capital, First Round Capital, BoxGroup, and more ❤️ Link to our internal memo in the comments! We help B2B businesses grow by reaching customers who care about their products. With Clay, companies can research, qualify, and reach out to the perfect-fit leads—without footing a massive bill from data providers or manual labor. Clay's growth is a startup operator’s dream: we've 10x'ed YoY each of the past two years, with 2500+ customers including Anthropic, Intercom, Notion, Vanta, and more—and an entire ecosystem of businesses, consultancies, and job postings around our product (some making more than $2m/yr). But my favorite part of work by far are the creative, soulful people here: we play music, perform DJ sets, make short films, write poems, make pottery (of course), and much more. We're hiring across every function—please reach out to learn more :) And if you're in NYC, we're hosting a huge party on Friday, come through!

Hiring a Fractional CxO simply makes sense for a small to medium-sized business. You get a C-level expert in their field for a fraction of what it would cost to hire them, and they will deliver what you need in a fraction of the time!