Mr. Beast's Feastables sent an email to 200,000 subs and it drove 2,000,000+ clicks.
That's an average of 10 clicks per recipient.
How? Interactive emails.
Feastable customers wanted an extension of Mr.Beast's videos.
That meant giveaways, challenges, and contests.
So the…
Never thought when I dropped out of
@Stanford
that I’d end up becoming a Thiel Fellow! Super honored to be building
@spellboundio
alongside the incredible founders & friends on this list ❤️
1/ some personal news:
i'm stepping down as CEO of Ladder. 💚
it's been an incredible journey over the past year working on reinventing professional communities, and i still strongly believe in the power of communities over networks in serving this next generation.
1/ life update: i started a new b2b company in stealth! ✨ we’re using cutting-edge tech to invent a new, better way for businesses to engage their audiences.
we’re hiring a founding product designer and full-stack engineers to work directly with me to build the future 🚀
Excited to be on this year's Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Enterprise Tech 🎉
We're building the future of email at
@spellboundio
, and we won't stop until interactive emails become the norm for creating engaging, fun, and frictionless experiences.
Now back to work! 💪
2023 went by so fast... some highlights:
☑️ became a Thiel fellow
☑️ worked with amazing brands like feastables, dr. squatch, recess
☑️ listed on Forbes 30 under 30
☑️ traveled to 7 countries
☑️ moved to NYC
☑️ turned 23
in 2021, I…
- left my first startup and started my second company
- lived in NJ, SF, NYC, Miami, and LA
- angel invested in 6 of my favorite founder friends
I’m thrilled for all the company announcements coming in 2022! reply if we should we drop our branding early tmr 👀
after 6 months in full stealth, i’m excited to reveal the early workings of Spellbound🔮(
@spellboundio
), my new startup.
we’ll be posting teasers and revealing our founding team over on the company twitter, so go follow us there!🌟
i'm hosting a summer intern picnic on july 1 at for all the interns & new grads in NYC to get to know each other 🌆
tag an intern friend below & i'll DM you both the invite!✨
implemented our MVP for our first customer, it broke last week in production, then we fixed it, then i realized i broke it again today.... startups are hard
thank u for ur patience ❤️ (you know who you are)
Hands-down the COOLEST email we've ever built with
@spellboundio
and just had to share...
all thanks to the
@ecom_joseph
& the incredible team
@Feastables
for making it happen - super fun collab ❤️
went to 45+ hackathons before college and I never would have been a founder if it wasn’t for hackathons…
I learned how to code, practiced pitching my ideas, and met some of my best friends.
extremely bullish on hackathons early in your career
Hackathons are mostly a waste of time. Basically nothing created there goes on to become a success (with undoubtedly a handful of exceptions).
If there’s value there, it’s merely introducing future co-founders to each other, with the hackathon being a selection filter.
4/ so what's next for me? in my heart, i know i'm meant to be a startup founder, so i'll be jumping into building my next company soon. in the meantime, i'd love to mentor other founders and help advise on product strategy, fundraising, hiring, etc - my DMs are open 🚀
I didn't make F30U30 this year, but somehow ended up making
@TeenVogue
's 21 Under 21 List ❤️
the other women on this list are doing incredible work, go support them!
1/ A lot of my close founder friends have been asking me for advice on fundraising strategy, so I thought I'd start by sharing some things I learned on how to *prepare* for a good fundraise: 👇
Announcing: Spellbound Quizzes! 🥳
For the 1st time, embed your product quizzes on your website AND within interactive emails.
Easy drag and drop builder, sync data with Klaviyo, and increase email/SMS opt-ins...
Quizzes have never been easier to deploy
Why we built this 👇
5/ i'll also be writing a lot more in the next few weeks - i'll try to use Twitter to share some of the lessons I learned from building my first startup, so let me know if there are topics or questions you'd like me to write about! ✍️
With so many founders in fundraising mode this week, I thought I'd share my top fundraising tips from having raised $9M+ across 2 startups. 💸
This is just what has worked for me, take it with a grain of salt (like all startup advice!):
When was the last time you started shopping on a DTC store and forgot to finish checking out?
now imagine if you could finalize your cart and checkout from within the email they send you... that's exactly what CBD drink brand
@takearecess
has done using
@spellboundio
🪄
it's finally here. i worked on building a gen z professional community platform for almost 1 year... but what we kept hearing was that people were struggling to find love.
so we pivoted to a dating app. it's invite only, so DM me or retweet this for the link 💕
Crazy past few days in startup land, but even with a potential bank failure we still had lots of work to do...
We facilitated our first live
@spellboundio
Campaign where customers could *fully* checkout with a DTC brand within an email 🥳
Hiring a Founding Engineer at Ladder 🚀
We're backed by some of the best consumer investors/angels, and you'll be joining right at the inflection point in our growth! Check it out and share:
Feel free to DM me or
@andrewztan
getting featured by
@alexgarcia_atx
in his newsletter Marketing Examined probably was the highest leverage acquisition tool we've ever done...
easily 100+ sales calls booked - if you need to get in front of marketers/brands for any reason look no further 😮
Just accepted an offer to intern at Microsoft this summer! I’ll be an Explore Intern working on MS Teams in Bellevue — super excited to explore SWE and PM at MSFT 💻🏔
we just launched a feature today
@spellboundio
that felt so satisfying to finally be able to use
this one is gonna break the internet once we announce it 💥
Really excited to be speaking at
@twilio
@signalconf
this August on creating safe spaces for women in tech! If you’re attending Twilio SIGNAL Conf, definitely stop by on Wednesday to hear the talk😊
a lot of the founders i know have struggled with mental health at some point.
it’s such a common problem, but no one talks about it. are there any good resources for founder mental health?
Getting ready to announce our newest product from
@spellboundio
on Monday...
It's a game changer for DTC brands trying to provide more personalized experiences to their customers.
Loved today's
@postscriptio
's drop too -- clearly a very big week for DTC SaaS 👀
Why give a customer a boring discount when you can have them play a game in their email instead 🤯
We had a lot of fun building this unique email with the team at
@Feastables
❤️
🙋♂️raise your hand if you’ve ever seen an email like this??
We brought deal or no deal to life with
@ecom_joseph
+
@Feastables
Love using interactivity to engage with customers in a new way 🔥🔥
We're reinventing the future of email at Spellbound, starting with interactive embedded experiences for e-commerce brands.
Come join us to figure out GTM strategy, growth, and work with the best brands - we're hiring! 🛍
2/ we offer competitive salary + equity, and potential to become a leader in the next few months.
DM me your resume/linkedin to learn more. RTs appreciated! 🙏
today we signed on a brand who found out about us because his wife showed him an impressive interactive email from
@Caden_Lane_Baby
and he just happened to run email for a big brand
🔄 the viral loop is working 🔄
this woman is an absolute powerhouse:
- grew her YouTube following to 730K subs 📺
- launched a 7-figure fitness apparel brand 💸
- used her influencer following to create a social fitness app & become a startup founder🚀
join her AMA on ladder to ask her how it's done!
co-hosting a DTC brand dinner in NYC with the wonderful
@ginaperrelli
from
@GetStayAi
next Friday! if you're in town, DM me for the invite :)
dinner sponsored by
@spellboundio
✨
Today's Email of the Week is a personal favorite:
If you're planning to stock up on delicious
@drinkolipop
soon, you might encounter the world's easiest review request email 💌 courtesy of
@spellboundio
for interactive emails in klaviyo with our
@juniphq
integration!
this was super fun talking through the inspiration behind
@spellboundio
with the guys at Our Future /
@MorningBrew
🔥 listen to hear more about what we're building and some of the secret sauce behind our business model 👀
(i'm 23 btw!)
Martech mania on pod td 💰
- 24-yr-old Stanford dropout/thiel fellow
@akshayadinesh19
is revolutionizing email marketing
-
@foreplayzach
at age 27, making millions with "Pinterest for ad creative"
Strategies, insights, and tactics + business ideas
the perfect cheat code is being a stanford dropout living in palo alto so you can still have the social benefits of campus without taking the classes
(hmu if you’re around!)
we’re hiring a founding full-stack engineer at
@spellboundio
to transform email into a rich, interactive medium! 💌
it’s a unique technical challenge with a massive potential impact. we have plenty of runway and a world-class team.
leading up to the $DASH IPO today,
@tonyxu
took the time to chat with
@andrewztan
and i about our vision for reinventing career growth starting with gen z
@ladder
Incredibly humbled and honored to have him as one of our earliest supporters and investors ❤️
starting a new wednesday series called email of the week where we share the coolest emails brands have built on
@spellboundio
today comes from Goodlife Clothing (
@GLclothingusa
) on promoting their Holiday Gift Box Set - go buy it for the men in your life!
This is huge, how is no one talking about this?
@zapier
just launched some major new products: Tables, Chatbots, & Interfaces to compete with
@airtable
@Zendesk
and many other internal b2b workflow tools.
Seems like Zapier might be the next B2B superapp 🤯
i got so many messages yesterday asking why we decided to pivot to a dating app... and a lot of messages of support!
love you all, but nope we’re still democratizing access to career growth 👊
Huge congrats to
@kevinleeme
and the incredibly talented team at
@immieats
on the $10m Series A 🙌
@kevinleeme
was one of the first few e-comm brands to take a bet on the early beta of
@spellboundio
and glad to see them crush it (and drive more email revenue in the process)🔮
We
@Neo
just raised $150M. We back amazing startups and help with hiring & diversity. Since 2017, 45% of our money has funded female & underrepresented minority CEOs. We’ve recruited dozens of awesome engineers to
@Bubble
,
@Kalshi
,
@CoProcure
,
@trustVanta
.
Hiring a part-time Growth & Operations Intern at
@spellboundio
! We're building the future of email, and looking for an entrepreneurial student to get on the ground floor of a fast-paced startup 📧🚀
students: has
@khanacademy
ever saved you from failing class? meet founder & ceo
@salkhanacademy
next week and thank him while hearing his views on the future of education 📚
the world is a very small place… a user of my last startup graduated from college and signed up for a sales demo for
@spellboundio
years later
relationships and reputation last, even across multiple companies and life stages!
we just launched a
@spellboundio
product newsletter 🎉
we’ll be posting new features, exciting customer campaigns, and more company updates there. and… it’s on
@beehiiv
😍
subscribe here:
nothing is as satisfying as making another exceptional hire to an already all-star founding team
recruiting may be exhausting but it’s well worth the effort 🙏
(still hiring engineers
@spellboundio
!)
so excited to have the ✨ former CTO of
@reddit
✨ & former founding eng
@Pinterest
join us for an AMA!
huge thank you to
@MartyWeiner
for joining us, looking forward to hearing your insights on scaling tech companies 🔥
Super excited to have seen the new 2018 MacBook Pro in action! Thanks
@Apple
for giving me the opportunity to showcase my work at the launch event yesterday 💻
I learned how to code in 8th grade with the help of
@Codecademy
, so I'm so excited to come full circle by collaborating with
@corystieg
on this wonderful post about my founder journey!
one of my biggest pet peeves is getting an email from a brand asking for a product review... but the "5 stars" is actually a fake button linking to their website.
our friends at
@drinkaurabora
make the process way easier to give them feedback, and drive more way reviews 📈
the power of
@spellboundio
in action 🎉 we wish MORE brands would work with us to build these unique experiences that not only convert but delight customers!
wow...
@feastables
AMP Gmail campaigns are EXACTLY what you would want from this brand.
awesome extension of the brand into a fun activation that rewards the customer.
I’ve just learned that
@Glassdoor
is taking down reviews & banning Glassdoor users for reporting on their employers’ toxic work environments.
No reason, no evidence. Just a blanket ban on women who speak out.
Last week, we sent an email to 200k subs that had over 2,000,000 total clicks!
That’s over 10 clicks on average PER RECIPIENT.
If this gets 50 likes - I’ll share the secret sauce on how we did it. 🔒
Hint: this strategy has never been done before
Interactive Email of the Week:
@kajabeauty
has totally reinvented their email footers by adding an interactive SMS signup form to their Welcome Flow, powered by
@spellboundio
connected to
@PostscriptIO
on the backend! 📲
Are there any marketing people still in SF? 🌉
I’m hosting an event on Sept 7th co-hosted with
@Mailgun
at
@hyper_
HQ on email marketing strategy - free charcuterie boards & drinks!🍸
Comment below or DM me for an invite