MGMT Boston - W5, Q1 24 - Tomorrow.io // Micah Lanier, Jump // Moonlighting in Revenue
Tomorrow.io // Micah Lanier, Jump // Moonlighting in Revenue
Welcome to MGMT Boston where we try to help 755+ of you manage your awareness of top Boston startups and local up & coming operators putting in the work. Glad to have you here!
TLDR:
Tomorrow.io - a weather intelligence and climate adaptation software platform for enterprises and governments, on a mission to build the world’s first commercial weather radar satellite constellation
Thanks to Chris M. for the intro to Tomorrow
Micah Lanier, Principal Product Manager @ Jump - the childhood Founder of “Micahsoft”, an analytical Product leader who serves as a Principal Product Manager at Jump, a fan experience platform for live sporting events
Thanks to Michele C. for the intro to Micahd
(Operators Club Corner) Sean Smith, VP Product Denim - how a self-described “product guy” spent roughly six months quasi-leading a revenue function (moonlighting in revenue), having never done it before, and the lessons learned along the way
🔥 Upcoming Q1 Event: MGMT Boston B2B SaaS Breakfast - 2/27 @ 9am, co-hosted by Fidelity for Startups 🔥
Inviting Boston-area venture backed B2B SaaS operating leaders, founders & investors to join for a B2B SaaS breakfast on Tues, 2/27 to engage with the MGMT Boston Operators Club, co-hosted by Kristen Craft @ Fidelity for Startups
Other Resources:
MGMT Boston Operators Club - helping up & coming operators grow beyond their day to day
Dillon McDermott, Head of Sales @ Zowie - this one’s for the job hunters out there. A report from the front
186 Ventures 2024 Kickoff - assembled 60+ operators for some great discussion on 2024 trends
2024 Boston Tech Big Board - updated snapshot of 2024 companies to watch. The comprehensive funding list needs work. If anyone knows an easy way to capture this holistic view (ex-biotech), reach out!
The Endeca Effect: Overview / Markets / People / Products / Conclusion / Bonus - Steve Papa Alumni Learnings
Q1 Operators Highlighted: Parker Lawrence / Herald, Aaron Whittemore / Humatics, Lauren Viscariello / Candex, Joe Kiernan / Perch
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Tech Superpowers. They have operated in Boston as an IT provider on behalf of startups for the past 30 years for rapidly growing companies & premier clients like the Celtics, Accel, Matrix Partners, etc.
Tomorrow.io
Founders: Shimon Elkabetz, Rei Goffer & Itai Zlotnik
Founding: 2016
Mission: Help countries, businesses, and individuals better manage their weather related challenges with the world’s leading weather intelligence and climate adaptation platform.
Employees: 240 & 20% Local
Workplace: Hybrid
Stage & Capital Raised: Series E & $250M+ raised
Investors: Activate Capital, Squarepeg Capital, Canaan, ClearVision, JetBlue Ventures and Pitango
Key Customers: AWS, Delta, Ford, JetBlue, Patriots, Porsche, Uber, United
Glassdoor Rating: 4.2
Valuation (estimated): $500M+ (assuming they sold ~10-15% of the company in the Q2 ‘23 $87M Series E fundraise)
^ this is a useless number. There is no tangible valuation until the business is sold or goes public. Don’t forget it!
Tomorrow.io is a “weather intelligence and climate adaptation” software platform for enterprises and governments. This team is on a mission to build the world’s first commercial weather radar satellite constellation to bring real time weather forecasting to the entire globe. A weather service, in a box.
Israeli business school students Shimon Elkabetz, Rei Goffer & Itai Zlotnik traveled to Boston with entrepreneurial aspirations. Shimon was a former Israeli Air Force fighter pilot who was attending HBS. Rei & Itai were just down the river at Sloan. Rei had served in the Israeli Air Force and Itai had been a Special Tactics Officer in an elite special forces unit before working for Apple in Tel Aviv.
The friends met at Grendel’s Den in Harvard Square to exchange startup ideas before collectively realizing the impact of weather on each of their careers and the broader business problems weather can cause. As they researched the problem, they came to understand that weather forecasting comes from three sources. Sensors, like from an observation tower, capture data. Next, models are built to analyze the data and predict what’s going to happen. Third, a forecast gets extrapolated. All of these inputs are predominantly and historically government funded.
Just a few short years after Peter Thiel lamented on the current state of technology that “they promised us flying cars, and all we got was 140 characters” this trio founded Tomorrow (fka ClimaCell) and embarked upon an ambitious mission that, if fulfilled, would have broad ramifications to provide more accurate & reliable forecasting for businesses and governments.
In the U.S. we often take forecasting for granted because, due to government infrastructure, radar coverage, and satellite coverage we have a pretty good handle on our weather patterns. But 5B people across the world live outside of consistent radar coverage and much of the oceans are uncovered too. Most satellites look at Earth, on average, once every three days. The weather industry relies on data from government weather stations, radar data, and satellites which are largely focused away from weather related tracking.
In terms of tailwinds, both literally and figuratively, the planet is warming up. By the end of the century average temperatures will be at least 5 degrees warmer and could be up to 10 degrees warmer than the 1901-1960 average (src). Hurricanes are becoming more intense and other weather related disruptions are likely to continue.
From 2016 to 2020 the Tomorrow team built an integrated Weather Intelligence software platform & API to help individuals, businesses, governments, and countries with hyper local weather intelligence. For example, they helped Indigrid in India prepare for the path of a cyclone so they could better position their teams and keep electricity on for 100M citizens during the storm. They helped Delta save $3.5M when they identified a short window during a winter storm where they could de-ice and get delayed flights off the ground to their destinations. By integrating with the workflows of enterprise customers across aviation, logistics, and sports they can help these businesses do better strategic planning.
In 2020, the founders brought their board an even more ambitious vision to build the largest vertically integrated weather and climate technology company in the world. All they had to do was launch satellites into space to build out a full fledged worldwide weather monitoring platform.
Tomorrow launched their first satellite, Tomorrow R-1, into space onboard a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket on April 15, 2023. With a team of dozens of engineers and PhD’s doing weather modeling, along with actual rocket science, they’re on a path to build monitoring capabilities across the entire earth within an hour. Their constellation will leverage 28 satellites (across two sensor types) to change the way weather forecasting is done. To become a weather service...in a box. SaaS itself can only do so much, so space and sensors will have to do the rest. It’s worth watching the fulfillment of that first launch in Tomorrow’s 6 Years to Launch video here.
On June 14, 2023 they launched Tomorrow R-2, their second satellite, followed a couple weeks later by the announcement of their $87M Series E capital fundraise. The Tomorrow team continues to build out their client base in the enterprise across aviation, logistics (trucking, shipping & rail), and sports customers. They’re establishing public/private partnerships to help governments across the world get up to speed and license their technology domestically.
Operators to Know (Locally):
Bill Claflin, Director of Enterprise Sales & Business Development - Safety Operations
Monica Leal Crombe, Director of Sales - Latin America, Global Mining & Construction
Michael Huguet, Senior Expert Meteorologist
Alexander Kenny, SDR Team Lead
John L’Heureux, Lead Manager
Natasha McGrady, Director, Solutions Engineering
Lisa Miller, Senior Manager of Manufacturing & Quality
Marie Rose Muir, Director of Operations
Kelly Peters, Director of Marketing
Ken Richard, Director of FP&A
Neil Sullivan, Global Controller
Reece Todd, Senior Meteorology Expert
Natalie Turini, Director of Account Management
My investigative powers continue to need work so apologies to the Tomorrow.io team I know I missed many up & coming operators internally
Key Roles To Be Hired (Locally):
If I were interviewing here are some questions I’d ask:
What are the next key product & company milestones that will help unlock the next stage of growth?
What are the biggest challenges as you scale the team past 250 employees?
Who are the key competitors and how does Tomorrow differentiate itself?
What are the most important roles you’ll be looking to add in the coming quarters // teams that need the most help?
We’re optimizing for readability here so to learn more about Tomorrow.io you’ll have to D.Y.O.R. I’m excited to watch this team bring near instantaneous weather forecasting to the 5B+ people and vast oceans currently without coverage. All weather affected enterprises and governments applaud your efforts. See you around town!
Micah Lanier, Principal Product Manager @ Jump
Micah Lanier, the childhood Founder of “Micahsoft”, is an analytical Product leader who took the long way around to build his career in Product. Today he serves as a Principal Product Manager at Jump, a fan experience platform for live sporting events, where he works to unlock the value of the startup’s data for colleagues and customers alike.
Growing up in Madison, Wisconsin Micah never imagined he would be living on the East Coast working in startups. His Mom grew up in Madison as well, while his Dad was born in Japan and came to the US as a teenager. His mom was the family communicator, working as a union organizer and authoring the organization’s monthly newspaper—a content marketer before that type of thing existed. His Dad was an engineer, a city planning (GIS) professional. Today, he would probably be called a data scientist.
Neither had college degrees but both taught Micah a lot about hard work and the intangibles needed to find success. Technology was an early influence in his life, from science fiction to even growing up with a computer in the house. Yes, Micah began life with a 1987 vintage Mac Plus and used later models in the 90’s to experiment with web design and software applications following the advent of the internet. He even published a few applications under his trade name, Micahsoft, where users as far away as Japan emailed him with support questions.
Micah met his wife Colleen in high school. She hails from a family of 6 that has a grand total of 18 or 19 degrees (he isn’t sure of the precise count) among them. Her family was an early driving influence in demonstrating the power of education and the doors it opens. Colleen recently submitted her doctoral dissertation for her PhD at Harvard on the topic of international chemical regulations. Her approach to education and success has shown him that there are all sorts of pathways for people to pursue interesting work.
Studying mathematical Economics with an emphasis on data analysis at the University of Wisconsin, Micah graduated in 2009. The bottom, as we now like to call it. He worked at a boutique consulting firm called OpenBI and fell into the world of “Big Data” just as that buzzword hit the scene. Micah focused on business intelligence implementations; working with databases and specialized enterprise software tools, he compiled reports and built analysis tools to derive insights for clients.
Micah immersed himself in the world of data. When staffed on a longer term consulting engagement with the New York Times, he knew the space was right for him. His wife was accepted into a graduate program at Columbia University, so the two moved to New York and he joined the media giant full time as they fully transitioned their business to digital first.
Landing in their data engineering group, Micah helped build out digital advertising databases and analytical tools, and then large-scale tracking and analytics solutions. Through a discussion with a manager and mentor, he transitioned to a newly formed data science team, getting exposure to the intersection of the digital world and the newsroom. He helped the NYT better understand what content was most engaging for their audience to drive subscriber retention.
When his wife started applying for PhD programs, he took stock of his career and considered ways to shift into a more business-focused trajectory. He was accepted to Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences to pursue a Masters in Computational Science and Engineering. Through a less common pathway, he completed this one year Masters in the machine learning world before continuing on to get his MBA at Harvard Business School.
While in graduate school, Micah completed internships at Legendary Entertainment, a film studio with bleeding-edge analytical acumen, and then Wayfair here in Boston. At Wayfair he worked with large amounts of data in their Data Science group, using it to build the company’s first machine learning-driven direct mail targeting strategy.
Upon graduation, Micah joined Wayfair’s email marketing group to help drive better content recommendations and targeting using machine learning. Next, he moved to Wayfair Professional, the company’s B2B arm selling to offices, hotels, etc. There, he built customer lifecycle management and sales enablement tools for their sales force, helping account managers leverage data to reach customers most receptive to sales outreach.
Micah loved his co-workers and valued the opportunity—afforded by the somewhat smaller world of Wayfair Professional—to work cross functionally with a high level strategic view of the whole business. But, in early 2020, he wanted to dive further into Product and left Wayfair.
Micah wished he had pursued Product directly out of business school and soon joined the product team at Alignable, a Series A social network helping small business owners, as their Director of Insights & Analytics. Micah scaled Alignable’s data function and built data oriented product features like content recommendations, sporadically dusting off his technical skills and working directly in the product organization for the first time.
Covid’s impact on SMBs made this experience a rewarding one that veered in unexpected directions as Alignable built thought leadership around small business-owner sentiment. Micah even worked with Alignable’s Head of PR to gather and surface insights to journalists at Axios and the NYT; one US Senator even cited their data in public policy pronouncements.
Micah joined Connie Health in 2021 after hearing from one of their co-founders. Connie was building a Medicare brokerage startup to better match seniors with health insurance. He joined as their Head of Data, building out the team before their VP of Product departed the company, affording Micah the opportunity to serve in a dual Data and Product role—his first product leadership opportunity. Eventually he became Connie’s VP of Data, supporting their generative AI and machine learning investments. It was a fast moving, big thinking role that allowed him to build a product solving a problem that was important to him: supporting our aging population.
After 2+ years at Connie Health, Micah wanted to migrate fully to a Product role. He connected with Jump’s Chief People Officer—another HBS alum—when he saw that Jump was searching for an experienced product leader to focus on data.
Jump, founded in 2021 by Jordy Leiser, Alex Rodriguez, and Marc Lore, is building ticketing and fan engagement tools for live events. As Alex and Marc—now co-owners of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx—explored buying the New York Mets, they recognized an opportunity to help fans better engage with their favorite sports teams in a compelling way. Having built a sizable team of product delivery specialists, GTM experts, and experienced leaders in other functions, Jump is busy building its business and consumer offerings—an “operating system for live events” analogous to Toast or Shopify for a new vertical.
In Micah’s role as the Principal Product Manager for Data, he’s responsible for productizing Jump’s data—finding ways to make it valuable to internal and external customers with actionable analytics tools, sophisticated marketing and pricing algorithms, and close integrations with other products. Over the long run, he looks forward to ensuring that Jump effectively leverages cutting-edge AI and machine learning tools to make their customers more successful and delight fans around the world.
Embrace “MECE” problem-solving
“MECE” refers to breaking down problems into “mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive” components. That is, when you frame a problem, break it down into pieces both distinct from one another (mutually exclusive) and that collectively represent the entire problem space (collectively exhaustive). It’s a common framework taught to management consultants that I picked up at Wayfair. I didn’t love the fact that so many people at Wayfair had similar management consulting and/or MBA backgrounds, but this lesson stuck with me.
This framework can be useful for many complex problems, but I have found it most valuable when applied to business problems that feature interactions among several teams, functions, or processes. I found this particularly useful as part of Wayfair Professional, where problems often arose among teams that did not share reporting relationships and we were often a minor “customer” of technology teams focused on serving Wayfair’s much larger consumer business. Every so often something would just…break, and tracing those problems though a complex chain of custody and isolating their causes helped us get back up and running quickly.
Granted, it isn’t a panacea. Some problems have complex components like interrelationships or feedback loops that cannot be easily separated. And many problems have more than one cause or solution, so it is still important to apply judgment when deciding how best to solve a problem. But it’s a great way to start the problem-solving process, and a tool that I frequently revisit.
3 Career Insights / Learnings
Create and Embrace Serendipity - “Some of my most significant career decisions started with seemingly minor decisions or leaps of faith. Saying yes to conversations and engaging sincerely can pay off in unexpected ways and frequently only costs a bit of your time. At the very least, you’ll learn something new, figure out new ways to tell stories, or help someone else in need.”
Most Decisions are Two-Way Doors - “I think of this Jeff Bezos lesson frequently because of how well we use it at Jump and how poorly I’ve seen others make decisions elsewhere. Basically: most decisions are reversible and people often eschew the opportunity to make and learn from quick decisions in order to invest precious time in making the “right” one at the outset. We apply this lesson constantly at Jump—my manager and another product leader came from Amazon and have very much made it the norm. If you don’t frequently undo your decisions you aren’t making enough of them.”
Do Something You Care About - “Earlier in my career I joined a company thinking that the company’s sophisticated data skill set would be a great fit for me, only to find that I didn’t really care about the problem of getting people to click on more emails and buy more of their product. Ever since, I’ve looked only at roles where I’m solving a customer problem I care about; now at Jump I get to improve live sports and event experiences that I find delightful as a fan.”
Micah aspires to continue to grow in product leadership at growth stage companies. While his journey to the product world has been a bit more meandering, the zig zagging has given him clarity that he’s ready to double down and grow as a product leader. One day he aspires to become a General Manager, applying his growing product skills in that type of role.
If you’d like to learn more about Micah, you can find him deep in Jump’s data, spending time with his family around Boston, or on LinkedIn. Thanks for sharing. We’re excited to see the waves you make in sporting and live events across the U.S. (and beyond) in the years to come!
Operators Club Corner
In 2024 you’ll be hearing more from members of the MGMT Boston Operators Club. These are startup leaders building & launching products, serving customers, leading teams, and making a dent in the Boston startup ecosystem
Moonlighting in Revenue
Sean Smith has worked in the Boston startup community for the last six years in product. For the prior seven years Sean worked in consulting at PwC and Oliver Wyman in their tech and strategy groups. He grew up in Southeastern Mass, went to Wentworth in Boston for his undergrad and has been around the city since. Sean lives in Canton with his wife, two boys and two greyhound retired racers.
This article is about how a self-described “product guy” spent roughly six months quasi-leading a revenue function, having never done it before, and the lessons learned along the way.
Top Learnings:
Just Say Yes!
Get Started - Build Trust & Lead with Transparency
Harness New Energy To Create Quick Wins
Dig into the Numbers and Make Your Bets
Resetting Strategy and Confronting Challenges Head On
One of my favorite parts of MGMT Boston is how Matt refers to folks working in the startup ecosystem as Operators. It’s not employees, it’s not the product leaders, it’s not founders, it is for operators, and at our core, we join startups to build and operate (and scale them, of course).
Well, through the course of operating, we’re all given opportunities to grow and do something different than our current role, and what the business needs of us. As some may attest, your role in a startup changes around every six months, so don’t get too comfortable.
Just Say Yes!
A new opportunity came to me this past summer, six months after getting promoted from Director of Product to VP and joining the management team at Denim. I was on a call with our CEO about coverage and how to help after parting ways with our revenue leader. I can’t remember the exact phrasing, but the request ended up being something along the lines of, “So if you could take over marketing and partnerships, and also keep an eye on the sales folks so that I can focus on the debt-facility work that would be huge.” At that moment, my answer was “totally let’s do it” and I thought to myself... How hard could it be?
Get Started - Build Trust & Lead with Transparency
My first priority was building trust with the team. To me, that was about being vulnerable, transparent and doing what I say I am going to do. I openly discussed my capabilities and intentions, understanding that my role as a leader was not just about directing but also about listening and supporting. Establishing regular one-on-one meetings was critical, providing a platform for open communication and understanding each team member's career aspirations. I ensured that the spotlight shone on the team's achievements, not mine, and focused on identifying the most pressing areas where I could make an immediate impact.
Managing and nurturing the team's energy emerged as the next priority for the remainder of the first month. I took time to observe and understand what motivated them - be it small wins, collaborative efforts, or even just venting sessions. On the flip side, I also identified what drained their energy, including certain tasks and, at times, the influence of specific individuals. I tried to inject my own brand of energy into the team using humor (this might not work for everyone; your mileage may vary) and enthusiasm to keep spirits high. I also made sure to be responsive and engaging in our communications, especially on Slack, understanding the importance of these 'small things' in team dynamics.
Harness New Energy To Create Quick Wins
Having turned the energy in the right direction, I shifted my focus towards empowering the team. It was time to turn our good energy into tangible outcomes. I strived to be an enabler, making quick decisions and valuing the judgment of our star players. I worked on reinforcing a strong team dynamic, emphasizing the 'win as a team, lose as a team' ethos. This was most visible on pricing decisions for new deals, and on spending decisions for new initiatives. I was able to quickly absorb the key points and make a decision to keep the team moving fast and build comradery being in the trenches with the team everyday.
Dig into the Numbers and Make Your Bets
As the weeks turned into months, I started playing to my strengths. My experience in product management came in handy. I ran my own analysis to understand what was working and what wasn’t. I assessed our market focus, ensuring our activities aligned with our target customer segments. I made ROI decisions on new initiatives and contributed to team communication strategies (the big realization for me was in positioning and how we were really not pointing the direction where our target market was looking, instead attracting far larger prospects). This period was also about developing insights from my new perspective, carving out time for deep work, although not as much as I would have liked.
Especially as we were finding our new normal, I made a habit of over-communicating our learnings. I shared our progress and lessons with my team and peers, stressing that learning is a form of progress. This approach helped foster a culture of transparency and continuous improvement. In leading by example in my communication, I encouraged the team to share their insights and strategies, which contributed to a strong team dynamic.
Resetting Strategy and Confronting Challenges Head On
We took the reset opportunity to align on the strategic bets we wanted to make in our go-to-market motion. I was clear about the changes I wanted to make and involved the team in these decisions. By setting specific, measurable objectives and using structured templates to track these initiatives, we were able to keep a clear focus on our goals.
Looking back, I realize that not all my actions were part of a neat, pre-planned strategy. They were more responses to the challenges and opportunities that presented themselves. However, there were areas I wish I had approached differently. By resetting targets earlier we could have avoided a drag on morale by missing numbers with a smaller team size. Moving faster to put the right teammates in the right seats could have given us another boost.
Lastly, I realized the necessity of confronting challenging areas head-on, rather than avoiding them, as understanding them would have benefited both me and the business. There are still some parts of the GTM machine that I don’t feel very well versed in, and on my to-do list those areas kept getting pushed back and pushed back, and I know in my head I was avoiding it. I should just have bit the bullet.
At the end...
Overall, I had a ton of fun. I am glad I said yes and would absolutely do it again. Compared to Product, this was a new set of levers and tools to use, and the feedback loop was much faster (weeks and months in GTM instead of months and quarters in Product). It certainly helped that I have some incredibly talented, patient, and resilient colleagues for whom I will always appreciate and be forever grateful.
January numbers aren’t final yet but it is looking like our best month for pipeline ever (this is currently disputed in a Slack but I am optimistic my definition will win out 😀).
We have two co-founders at Denim; one is Shawn as well, so I have been happily known as pSean for Product Sean since I joined, well for a short while, the p was an r.
pSean
Any feedback for me? One thing you liked? One thing you didn’t? Local startups or operators to highlight? Just reply to this e-mail!
See you next week!
-Matt