Matthew Sarre’s Post

Last week, Overlap had its big debut, and wow, what a ride! We launched on Product Hunt, went viral on Hacker News, and even got a shoutout from The Hustle. Here’s the wild story of how it all went down. At 12:01 am, Overlap went live on Product Hunt. I stayed up all night, glued to my screen, watching our rank hover around 15th place (of ~40). Not amazing, but not terrible. Determined, I worked through my launch checklist: posting on Reddit, emailing the press, sharing on social media, etc. Feeling a bit deflated, I decided to post on Hacker News with the headline: 𝐼 𝑏𝑢𝑖𝑙𝑡 𝑎 𝑡𝑜𝑜𝑙 𝑡𝑜 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑛𝑒𝑡𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘 (𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒) I thought this headline was clever because HN prime audience are folks in computer science and entrepreneurship. And then, it happened. An hour later, sign-ups surged. Overlap was taking off! 🎉 As I watched the numbers climb, I got emotional. For the past three months, I’ve been waking up at 5 am to build, test, and refine Overlap. Driving to my full-time job, I’d sit in silence, thinking about this project. Then I'd race home to work on it again. Seeing Overlap succeed was the validation I needed. It wasn’t just about the sign-ups; it was about proving that all those hours of work were worth it. Then, disaster struck. The flood of sign-ups caused a system crash. Profiles got jumbled, and panic set in. It was 3:30 am, and I had 30 minutes before Overlap was featured in The Hustle’s newsletter. I rolled up my sleeves and dove into crisis mode. By 4:05 am, just in time for The Hustle’s 2.5 million subscribers, the bug was fixed. Phew! Sign-ups kept pouring in, and Overlap’s system became stronger and more secure. Two major tech influencers joined. A potential paid partner reached out. Most importantly, there’s a real appetite for warm intros at scale. I accomplished all of my goals: • Complete this product iteration • Validate interest in Overlap • Collect feedback to refine the product and positioning • Boost user numbers for better connections • Attract prospective partners I widened the user base: 28% Tech Professionals 20% Startup Founders 15% Corporate Employees 14% Mentors/Advisors 12% Creative Professionals 6% Investors 5% Researchers Product Hunt might not have been our biggest win, but it set the stage. It forced me to refine our messaging, create compelling assets, and stick to a launch date. Hacker News brought thoughtful feedback and tons of sign-ups. Last week was a whirlwind of highs and lows, but I learned so much. Huge thanks to Juliet Bennett Rylah for The Hustle mention and Sarah Wright for the Product Hunt newsletter inclusion. -- ✦ 𝗦𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝘂𝗽 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗮𝗽: 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗺 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 ➔ www.moreoverlap.com Grow your network the smart way with Overlap: warm intros at scale. We make trusted, opt-in-only email introductions that connect you with the right people effortlessly. 100% free forever.

We took on a new role about a month ago and for whatever reason, our outreach got no traction. It’s one of the coolest roles we’ve worked in some time so clearly something wasn’t right, and the message wasn’t coming across. After jumping into the copy of the outreach, we reordered and rewrote some stuff - maybe 25 words in total. We then retargeted the same people. Reply rate went from 24% to over 70%. Interest from 11% to almost 50%. And we’re reaching to ELITE people here, not everyone. Firstly - why did our first wave of outreach suck? We knew the role was super cool, but took it a bit for granted, and forgot for a second that the market doesn’t (yet) know that. In my experience, most startups also forget this. Secondly - yes, such small changes make that kind of a difference. The person who got the job responded within 4 hours of making the changes. Thirdly - if you’d like to see what kind of an impact a specialist can have for your outreach, so would I! Reach out and let’s talk.

The metrics for product market fit sound something like ‘when the phone doesn’t stop ringing’ At the moment trying to manage about 10 new LinkedIn DM’s per day - half contributors, half founders… We’re setting up our systems to manage the volume as we speak and we’re very close to being able to build incredible raise teams for post-accelerator, pre priced round companies at further scale. If your a founder or contributor keen to take part in our community DD follow the links below and we’ll start the process 🙏

Many people get the idea of community wrong in product companies. Here are four big mistakes startups make when trying to build their community: 1. Thinking of community as a marketing channel. 2. Believing that growing the community fast is most important. 3. Thinking one person can be hired to build it for you. 4. Mixing up the "audience" with the "community". What a real community looks like: - It's usually started by the company's founder. They take the first step. - The platform you use for your community isn't that important. Slack or not-Slack = not that important for success. - Building a community is a long-term effort. You shouldn't expect quick benefits. It's all about giving, not getting. - Start building your community early on, right from your first product version, and keep it going. - Community managers are "givers". They're good at making strong, friendly relationships without expecting anything in return. They know the key members by name. - The community should be part of the Growth or Customer Success team, not Marketing. Yes, community-led growth exists - BUT it is an intense act of giving and being customer centric, delivering value with no expectations on return and fostering meaningful connections. #community #plg #communityledgrowth

Great to see our NYC members gathering over hot coffee and breakfast. They talked about what they're working on right now, specifically putting a call out for support on things like - understanding foreign HR policies, job hunting, leadership and manager training, and more! Also, we heard about everyone's least and most favorite SWAG items! Pro tip - most people still love a good water bottle! 🚰 #NetworkingEvent #NYCEvent #NYCStartups #HRLeaders #PeopleLeaders #FinanceLeaders #Business #Startups #StartupExperts

If you're interested in working in VC Platform, subscribing to Allie Mullen's SoYouWantToWorkinPlatform newsletter is a must. Each week, she shares open positions in Platform as well as cool adjacent opportunities. She also features insight from someone currently in a Platform role and this week I got to be the lucky one to share a bit more about Bread and Butter Ventures approach as well as my fave piece of advice for those looking into Platform roles. Your relationship and alignment with your GPs can make a huge difference in what you're working on, your relationship with your founders and your overall experience in your position. I got super lucky with mine (Brett Brohl and Mary Grove), and in all honesty, it makes my life so much better (and easier) to be so in sync with the two of them when it comes to values, vision, approach to founders and more. We may all be different (and Brett and Mary are definitely different from each other!) but we, and the awesome Emily Dinu, all share overlap in these key areas. So this is your reminder if you're exploring a Platform position, do your due diligence on the GPs and the firm you're talking with - you'll be much happier in the long run! Link to #soyouwantoworkinplatform in the comments.

If you're a founder at a fast-growing startup, maybe you relate to this. You *know* Linkedin content is important. You might have been posting yourself at some point. But then, more urgent tasks pile up. You start raising. You make a hiring push. You end up in more and more customer meetings. Never ends. Then, the content fades into the background. "I'll get to it after this hiring push" "I'll get to it after we close this round" If we're being honest, no you're not. A lot of times, it makes sense to bring in an internal hire OR an external agency (😉) to support content output during these sprints, so you don't lose the momentum you created when you had time to post. More in today's video from Tommy Clark 👇

Thrilled to reflect on an incredible first 30 days at PolicyMe! 🚀 Leaving my last gig was a tough call, but the three P's—People, Product, and Plan—ultimately steered me here. 👥 People: The culture of care and understanding at PolicyMe is truly special. From founders to individual contributors, the focus on doing right by clients and each other is inspiring. Shoutout to my awesome boss, Miguel Gentile, a master of all trades and a great laugh buddy! Working for someone with high EQ and IQ is a career privilege. 🛠️ Product: PolicyMe's product strikes the perfect balance—simple yet complex in all the right ways. The user journey is top-notch, constantly refined through data and A/B testing. The integration with industry leaders is spot-on, avoiding unnecessary reinventions. Excited to lead the product to success with a well-thought-out and adaptable design. 📈 Plan: PolicyMe nails the startup sweet spot—clear plans with adaptability. A defined goal, expansion on multiple fronts (some big things in the works!), and focused priorities. The founders truly know the industry and I'm extremely optimistic about the future. I know that interviewing and joining a new company is often like dating; both sides are putting their best foot forward to impress and keep the other interested while hiding the red flags. Well, after 30 days, I can confidently say that the dating phase has been successful, with no red flags, and I'm thrilled about our future together. Here's to many more milestones and successes ahead! 🎉 #NewBeginnings #PolicyMeJourney #First30Days #

I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah, I said it, I don't. And you know what? That's my favorite place to be. Last week I was virtually slapped upside the head and told to STOP. WRITING. CODE. I took the hint. I'd thought that was my superpower, but now I realize that while my head was down, hands laying down some wicked lines of code, I was completely ignorant of the world of problems surrounding me that people might pay to solve. 💵 💶 💴 "Market research" is the week's theme, and possibly the month's. Doing market research doesn't feel productive, in the same way job hunting doesn't feel productive. Scanning google searches, scouring reddit, joining slack communities for target markets. But now that I'm sitting down and really DOING it. Wow. I'm seeing what the actually successful entrepreneurs are chasing day after day - opportunities. I know what they mean now when they say "opportunities are everywhere, you just have to know where to look". When you don't know what you're doing, that means you're in the stretch and grow zone. And this week I'm feelin' the burn. 🔥 #startup #startuplife #personalgrowth #marketresearch

🚀 Discover how Jovy grew GitRoll to a 40K community within 6 months 🚀 In today’s edition of Maven Club Interview Series🌟, we had the privilege of sitting down with Jovy Yu, the Co-founder and COO of GitRoll, a groundbreaking global talent platform for software engineers. Jovy shared her journey, strategies, and secrets to success in building and scaling a startup in the tech industry. 🚀 🔍 Highlights Include: - How GitRoll bridges the gap between skilled developers and hiring companies. - Differentiating factors that set GitRoll apart from other platforms. - Strategies that grew their developer community to 40,000 in just six months. - Key takeaways from Jovy's entrepreneurial journey. - Books and inspirations that have profoundly impacted her. Whether you're an entrepreneur, a tech enthusiast, or someone looking to understand the dynamics of successful startups, this interview is packed with actionable insights and inspiration. 📚💡 Don't miss out on this valuable content! 👉 Read the full interview here - https://lnkd.in/gX9G-EMb