AskPeshev 2.0 - new format, global news, angel rounds - and more!

AskPeshev 2.0 - new format, global news, angel rounds - and more!

May 24, 2023

First off, if you're reading this email: thank you for sticking around!I sent a couple of email blasts over the weekend - including an ask to unsubscribe if you don't find this bulletin helpful. About 15 people followed through, and dozens of you replied back with so many positive comments and thoughts.I also learned that MailChimp doesn't always capture open emails. Some of you download emails to offline readers or pull via RSS and don't always fire open rates.I got a handful of responses to the survey too, outlining tons of startup founders, solopreneurs, managers, full-time workers and side hustlers, and some investors in my network seeking great opportunities.I'll cover the new TEDI focus next week, but in the meantime, I've made some adjustments to the newsletter - separating my content from business stories from global news, and featuring some investment deals and my services at the end.Feedback is welcome - there's more to come as I'm trying to compile more deals, opportunities, even discounts and special offers, along with early investment rounds or jobs available in this tough economy.And P.S. WordPress is turning 20 this Saturday so I'm speaking at two different events + sponsoring a local gathering over the weekend. Enjoy the festive week!Thanks in advance,Mario ✍️ My Take How to Establish and Solidify the Technical Leadership in Your CompanyI receive a good chunk of emails and messages from people in my network asking for general technical advice (infrastructure, architecture, picking the right platform or vendor, etc.) And many of them openly disclose they have spoken with 5–10 people and brainstormed over the different answers they get. Asking for a hundred different opinions may get confusing, though.Read more…

 Business Strategy 

Digital transformation continues to impact all aspects of business, but achieving true transformation is a challenge for many, as it requires more than adopting modern technologies.Read more…

Chief information officers are often experts in technology, but business strategy leadership distinguishes trailblazers from the rest of the pack.

 Recruitment 

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to dominate headlines, business leaders stand at a crossroads: They must recruit and retain the cutting-edge talent required to accelerate the adoption of AI while managing through a perplexing smorgasbord of economic uncertainties that have led to unprecedented workforce reductions in the tech sector.

 Global News 🚨The layoff-verse is adding up - with companies like Twitter leading the chart. 

  • 2023 Companies with layoffs: 683

  • 194,659 Employees were laid off in 2023

  • Q2 2023 Layoffs: 26,075

*  Statistic was taken from layoffs.fyi as of May 17th  *

  • Twitter total Layoffs: 3940

  • Percentage of Employees laid off: 52%

Bankruptcies and international scandals interfering. Several companies went under over the past few weeks.

  • Durham report criticizes FBI for launching 2016 Trump-Russia probe

  • Turkey faces a momentous runoff election after Erdogan fails to win outright

  • Vice Media files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy ahead of planned Sale

The global economy is hovering - Asia included.

  • DOW: 33,148 (-1.01%)

  • NASDAQ: 12,391 (-0.64%)

  • S&P: 4,125 (+0.09%)

*Economy numbers as of May 16th close*

  • CSI 1000: 6,554 (+0.59%)

  • China A60: 13,040 (-0.71%)

  • SSE100: 6,068 (+0.05%)

* China's indices numbers as of May 16th * 

 Marketing 

What does the current social network ecosystem look like?

  • Facebook: 2.9B users

  • YouTube: 2.5B users

  • WhatsApp: 2B users

  • Instagram: 2B users

* Taken from Statista's "Most Popular social networks worldwide" Jan 2023 *

On Tuesday, Microchip Technology (MCHP) stock reached an important technical milestone, seeing its Relative Strength (RS) Rating jump into the 80-plus percentile with an improvement to 81, up from 76 the day before.

 Sales 

Sales organizations that actively position technology as sellers’ “teammate” rather than just another tool will unlock seller productivity and enable high-quality deals, according to Gartner, Inc. 

🧑‍🏫 Featured Story of the Week 

DevriX coined "WordPress Retainers" back in 2015 and generated 8 figures in revenue from retainers alone. 📈 Since then, I've explained how the model works at dozens of conferences, podcasts, and workshops. I've even heard back from Shopify, Webflow, creative teams switching gears and sharing success stories back. 🏅  

📈 Investing Updates

Several angel investing opportunities listed on SeedBlink at the time:

  • Mindset Design: Helping young athletes in individual sports to improve their mental performance with the first-ever app that combines physical with mental training.

  • SoCyber: Kikimora.io leverages AI to show you the needle in the haystack of security vulnerabilities

  • Nuumi: Helping humanity overcome addictions - starting with smoking

Very excited about the secondary market (even though I couldn't purchase additional equity within SeedBlink itself at a lower multiplier).

Note: Got a round going that you want to feature - your own business or a portfolio company? Get in touch.

🦸Need My Help?

I'm involved with a number of initiatives - here's what I can do to help you:

  • Scalable and secure WordPress? DevriX provides WordPress retainers to SMEs, publishers, eCommerce, SaaS, and more. Our plans start from $1,200/mo to $40K/mo for anything from support through engineering, CRO, performance, security, to fractional CXO services and managing the data stacks of large corps.

  • Want to scale and optimize your business? Growth Shuttle offers personalized advisory plans starting at $350/hr. Tap into my personal pool of business know-how and my data warehouse of industry data.

  • Want access to my blueprints/books and a weekly Slack planning session? Join my Community and grab my Entrepreneurship book. 

  • Looking for investment opportunities? Check out SeedBlink.

  • Eager to incorporate my recommended solutions? Track my angel investments. Sharing, applying for open roles, or writing reviews helps a ton.  

And anything else I try to publish on my blog and my courses here!