Primary Venture Partners

We're looking for the most ambitious emerging talent in NYC who want to break into startups. Applications for the second cohort of Factor are now live! https://lnkd.in/eMVpWpnd

🔥🔥🔥What gets 130 badass executive women locked and loaded for 6+ hours the day before Election Day? Our latest On the Business mastery day, of course!🔥🔥🔥 We have a structural problem in B2B SaaS: women are woefully underrepresented in senior leadership. In my opinion, there are five blind spots that rate-limit women's ability to become top 1% executives. I launched the On the Business program to build awareness about these pitfalls and to offer high-flying women SaaS execs a forum for leveling up in each: 💲 P&L fluency - understanding how your work directly connects to the top and bottom lines 🥇 "First Team" thinking - embracing the reality that truly work ON the business, your "first team" must be the most senior team you sit on, not your functional team/direct reports 📞 Bat phone - cultivating a strategic network of people who always call you back (h/t Shelley Perry!) 🌎 Macro trends - developing a strong command for what's happening in the macro market - in your industry, in the world, in AI(!), etc. 🌡 Thermostat, not thermometer - as Dr. Sharon Melnick would say, great leaders set the temperature, not react to it As always, yesterday's program was chock full of actionable content: 💡 Yours Truly gave a refresher on these blind spots and a deep dive into what's happening in the market / how that influences 2025 op plans 📋 Michaela Lehr offered a CFO's perspective on how an op plan comes together, the "Wiggle Room" where the bottoms-up and top-down plans meet 👩🏫 Rebecca Price offered a masterclass on how execs need to better partner with HR to understand leading and lagging indicators, and to treat their talent funnels more like commercial funnels 📈 Kristen Habacht brought the world of PLG to OtB and preached the importance data plays in PLG organizations 💻 Neetu R. talked about the CTO's perspective and offered guidance on how to educate technical leaders on the reality that "it only matters if it can be sold" 🏠 Emmanuelle Skala offered a perspective on how CS leaders can emerge as "GMs on the Customer Base," including the importance of "cleaning YOUR (functional) house" before you try to influence other functions 💫 Lisa Lewin facilitated a great panel on when/how senior women make the transition from working "in" the business to "on" it Yesterday was truly special for me. In addition to marking OtB's one-year anniversary, it was our tipping point for reaching over 500 women execs in companies that run the gamut from Series A through to public entities. Fostering this community has been a career highlight, and I know only more great things await us. Expect to hear more lots more about 2025 plans soon, including bringing on Lindsay Bleier and Carly Crittenden as formal program ambassadors and our inaugural SF event in Q1! 💪 I couldn't imagine a better place to be before Election Day, and I'll leave you with this: there's only ONE Presidential candidate who would be fired up about supporting this amazing group...💪

It's been too long since I've taken the time to invest in myself and my own learning. Coming off of my recent mat leave, I knew self-development would need to be a priority for ramping back in and becoming the most effective leader to my team and the business. Yesterday I had the privilege of attending Primary Venture Partners “On the Business” Day with over 100 highly impressive female leaders. The theme for the day was “thinking like a GM”, namely developing P&L Fluency and First Team Mentality. A few of the takeaways that I bolded and underlined in my❗10+ pages❗(no kidding) of notes: 💰 Michaela Lehr's session was a game changer for me. Understanding the balance between top-down and bottom-up planning, and being intimately familiar with how your team impacts the specific financial metrics your board is most focused on. When it comes to talking to your CFO about CS? Focus on 2 things: improving retention, and margins, margins, margins 🤝 Rebecca Price brought it back to people and how leaders should invest just as much into building their Ideal Candidate Persona as they do in developing their Ideal Customer Profile 🎯 I loved hearing Kristen Habacht speak to how all companies can learn from the PLG customer journey - namely when investing in Target Customers, ICP, and Non-target customers. 🏁 Neetu R. outlined the differences of perspective in functional ownership vs First Team mindset and how c-suite thinking can be applied to all levels of leadership, and also how to bridge the gap in aligning your priorities with Eng and Product leaders 💡 Emmanuelle Skala (fortunately my second time seeing Emmanuelle speak in the last few weeks!) really drove home the GM mindset from her own GM experiences, especially pivoting the post-sales leadership mindset to thinking more like the “GM of the Customer Base” ⚡ Cassie Young, our gracious host, wrapped up the sessions by quoting something any team who has completed command of the message training knows: “you get delegated to who you sound like”. This not only applies in a sales cycle, but also with internal networking I have to say, this day was one of the more insightful and impactful of my recent career. A big thanks to Cassie Young & her team for pulling such an extraordinary group together, the “bat phone” is being sufficiently cultivated! (Stole this photo from Cassie's post as my photos were not doing this event justice)

We are back! Thank you Primary Venture Partners for inviting FIF Collective to another sold-out Mastery in Business Event 🔥 You know the content is top notch when every seat is full at 1:30 in the afternoon. Cassie Young, Rebecca Price, Katheryn Thayer, and Nour Obeidallah you have done it again… but not surprised 💡Neetu R. Emmanuelle Skala Liliya Panusheva Michaela Lehr Brittany White Vera Hart Rebecca Schwartz Melissa Herman Cristina Cianciabella, CPA and other FIFers in the 🏡

Fresh off a 29-9 victory over the Bears, I wouldn't be surprised to hear if Kelvin Beachum Jr. is taking some pitch calls while on the training table. With so many funds popping up left and right, it was fun to talk to Kelvin about his edge in the investing world and lessons learned on and off the field.

🚀 At Money20/20 last week, I had the honor of joining Andrew Brown (Check), Emily Man (Primary Venture Partners), and Felix Rodriguez (finally) on a panel discussing how the AI wave is reshaping financial services access for SMBs. AI is poised to tackle major pain points like access to capital and time constraints – a game-changer for small businesses. Key takeaways for me: 👉🏼 Tech Adoption = Growth: SMBs embracing new tech stacks are seeing faster growth and lower risk profiles. More software means better business outcomes. 👉🏼 Unified Platforms Matter: Disconnected tools slow down SMBs and drive up costs. "Business-in-a-box" solutions powered by AI are making a real impact. 👉🏼 Instant Decisions Are a Must: SMBs expect quick, hassle-free decisions for financial products. They can’t afford lengthy processes – their time is too valuable. 👉🏼 Automated Insights: AI can now gather unstructured data about SMBs seamlessly. For example, at Coris, our MerchantVision feature provides automated location intelligence, replacing time-consuming manual inspections of businesses. 👉🏼 Fighting Fraud on Both Fronts: AI is both a tool and a target in the battle against fraud. Business impersonation losses exceeded $1B last year, but AI is helping us respond faster and more accurately. Exciting times for AI in SMB financial services – we’re just getting started! #Money2020 #AI #SMBTech #FinancialServices #Fraud

Tomorrow at Primary Venture Partners, Primary Partner Emily Man, Pathlight Ventures cofounder Charley Ma, and Marble (Acquired by The Zebra) founder Stuart Winchester will be talking about trends in Fintech, top emerging players, and what's in store for 2025. Sign up here: https://lu.ma/ukxw6jxi

🚨🚨CS network, activate!!! It's time for the Primary Venture Partners' GTM role of the week and CS friends, today I'm looking at YOU! 👀👀 On the heels of the Series B they announced earlier this year, our portfolio company Spark is hiring a VP Customer Success. Spark is a mission-driven company helping independent Medicare brokers build the insurance business of their dreams. As you may know, the vast majority of Medicare beneficiaries select benefits with the help of an independent broker. What you might NOT know is that the technology and support for brokers is woefully antiquated. Spark provides workflows and services to help brokers achieve transformative growth. In just four years, Spark has become the fastest-growing Medicare brokerage in the country, having partnered with over 5,000 brokers and enrolled over 100,000 beneficiaries, Brokers LOVE them: during this period of intense growth, they've maintained an NPS of 91, a client retention rate of 93%, and have helped their brokers to grow 100%+ on average along the way. This is a fantastic opportunity for a CS leader with a proven track record leading remote-first CS teams and who ideally has experience working in regulated environments. Your resume should speak for itself in terms of the contributions you've made to building high-performance teams that drive not just high NPS/CSAT, but also outstanding commercial success. https://lnkd.in/ennU9b7a This particular role aside, I'll remind you all that Primary has over 340 other open positions spanning all industries, functions and seniority levels across our broader portfolio. Check out the latest opportunities here, and be sure to fill out our confidential talent tracker so that we can also keep you in mind for confidential searches! https://lnkd.in/dVbBpb5c

Tomorrow at Primary Venture Partners, Primary Partner Emily Man, Pathlight Ventures cofounder Charley Ma, and Marble (Acquired by The Zebra) founder Stuart Winchester will be talking about trends in Fintech, top emerging players, and what's in store for 2025. Sign up here: https://lu.ma/ukxw6jxi

Ilir Sela grew up with pizza in his DNA—his family ran pizzerias in NYC, so he knew the grind inside out. Watching mom-and-pop pizza shops get left behind, he bootstrapped MyPizza in 2009. What started with Ilir entering orders in a Starbucks has grown into Slice, which now drives $1B+ in GMV for 20,000+ independent pizzerias, saving them $265M. Primary is proud to have backed Slice from the seed stage. In this conversation, Jason Shuman and Ilir get into: • how Slice evolved from mypizza.com • the power of bootstrapping early • how North Macedonia became a talent hub for Slice • why even 1% M-O-M churn can cripple your startup Watch the full chat with the link in the first comment below.