\u201cWe do partner and accompany incubators, but F50 focuses on the needs of founders related to capital,\u201d explains\u00a0Sydney Lai.<\/a>\u00a0She\u00a0equates it to an ongoing alumni network of peers and resources to help you continue to build your business.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re a startup, the ideal time to work with F50 is when you are looking to raise pre-series A, from $500,000 to $5,000,000, maybe you\u2019ve even graduated from an accelerator. If you\u2019re accepted into the program they\u2019ll guide you in the right direction and make connections with the kind of investors<\/a> you\u2019re looking for within their network. F50 is venture-funded, so Lai said\u00a0neither startups nor investors pay anything when entering the program.<\/p>\n Lai\u2019s path to becoming the Community and Growth Manager at F50 may not seem super obvious at first. She got a a degree in Sociology from UC\u00a0Berkeley, then worked as a banker. But, when she explains her career path, it\u2019s obvious that it\u2019s not only planned and intentional, but kind of brilliant.<\/p>\n Lai talked to us about her double-duty role at F50, her new position\u00a0as a\u00a0curator for\u00a0Startup Digest<\/a>, and the ever-evolving startup climate.<\/strong><\/p>\n While the path from sociology, to finance, to F50 may seem nonsensical, it was actually very deliberate.<\/p>\n My earliest passion began in high school. I came from a family of entrepreneurs. At University of California, Berkeley, I studied sociology because consumer buyer behavior is crucial to sales and growth in any business. UC Berkeley also has an impressive sociology department that focuses specifically on the sociology of entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n After jumping on consulting projects and business plan competitions, my post-college career propelled me to heavily participate in hackathons. While in the banking world, my role was to support local startups and venture capital firms with an array of capital products.<\/p>\n F50 was a marriage of everything I have passionately worked toward. So for me, supporting and rallying a community of founders and investors became a natural step.<\/p>\n I help founders discover F50. Specifically, I currently lead Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs<\/a>, a grassroots community division of roughly 35,000 members within F50.<\/p>\n My role as a Community Manager is to provide educational and demo opportunities for our community of founders to grow their startup in front of an audience. Picture an array of pitch and demo events, workshops, partnerships, etc.<\/p>\n Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs partners with F50 by nominating outstanding startups from the community into F50\u2019s seasonal cohorts for funding opportunities. At that point, I become an application reviewer. My \u00a0colleagues and I pour over hundreds of applications to identify the scale and funding potential of the startups.<\/p>\n The growth portion of my role is to initiate and leverage partnerships with influencers in Silicon Valley, encouraging them to rally behind F50. A concrete example is using social media to network and engage with these Silicon Valley thought leaders, to provide their communities with resources to grow.<\/p>\n As the startup ecosystem rapidly evolves, so do the hats we have to wear.<\/p>\n A Community Manager has evolved from curating a website\u2019s forums, to a leader that listens and engages a fanbase in various means. Growth Manager, Growth Hacker, whichever term fits your startup\u2019s needs, is sometimes explained as the \u201cnew marketing manager.\u201d<\/p>\n However, I\u2019d say the growth manager is an ally of the Marketing Department, as this role is specifically designed to get a product or service into the hands of an audience efficiently and exponentially.<\/p>\n Titles change as they adapt to an evolving startup ecosystem. I could soon become a Unicorn Cheerleader.<\/strong><\/p>\n The Community and Growth Manager role is part of the bread and butter of F50\u2019s operations, as it is valuable for both F50 and founders to discover each other.<\/p>\n While I work with a community of founders and various institutions that support them, I currently work most closely with David Cao<\/a>, who is the founder of F50 and the original brainchild of Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n The growth initiatives I\u2019ve had to tackle involve continual engagement of a preexisting community and a continual growth beyond a large community we already have.<\/p>\n When I came into F50, the network from Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs alone was 35,000 members. Therefore, my initial growth efforts focused on continual engagement with the preexisting community through events and online interaction and buzz.<\/p>\n Often times the growth community focuses on gathering more or new users. However, by nurturing an existing membership, their word of mouth is ideally more important for growth than any A\/B testing strategy growth hackers can muster up.<\/p>\n The F50 community is changing so rapidly it\u2019s hard to pinpoint just one major change. But I have noticed how more key players in the startup ecosystem are actively engaging with us in partnerships to nurture the greater startup community.<\/p>\n Key players in our communities are founders and investors. Our more notable additions are strategic partnerships with institutions such as Google, Up Global<\/a> and influencers from Andreessen Horowitz and a co-founder of LinkedIn.<\/p>\n Partnerships were acquired by pre-existing relationships that we have continued to nurture, personal connections, and just by simply asking. Typically these were warm leads that led into a partnership.<\/p>\n Beyond the typical online strategies of engaging in conversations and feedback, F50\u2019s Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs network is a strategic, \u201cboots-on-the-grounds\u201d type of operation.<\/p>\n We ask, \u201cWhy do touring entrepreneurs travel to Silicon Valley to experience the culture, when they could read about it online?\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s important to us not only to learn about our community, but to truly interact and engage with them on a personal level. By actively engaging with the community through weekly events, we are more than just an anonymous institution; we’re a tangible and rich community. Weekly events entail pitch and demo nights for the community, mixers, speaker panels and so forth.<\/p>\n One atypical growth strategy that I\u2019ve been testing is creating strategic partnerships to exponentially grow a community.<\/p>\n Our goal has not been to acquire others\u2019 communities, but to share audiences and for us to provide value to them. We also provide benefits for our partners by freeing up their bandwidth as we educate their communities with content.<\/p>\n One example is by partnering with the Google Developers Group<\/a> to create events, conferences and marketing, which has allowed us to\u00a0exponentially grow our audience.<\/p>\n \u201cGrowth Hacker\u201d grew from a novel title to a vital role that accompanies any startup\u2019s marketing strategies.<\/p>\n Growth hacking<\/a> has become the new inbound marketing. Yet, I see that growth has become more than just content marketing and social media marketing. Now I even see strategies where companies like Creative Market<\/a> or MailLift<\/a> will use physical and tangible growth tactics like handwritten letters, which then go to an engaged audience that Tweets about them.<\/p>\n Startups can test and adapt quickly with minimal approval. Most larger companies have a very formalized process that limits the speed and creativity of growth executions due to a hierarchy of management.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easier for a Fiat to make a U-turn in a bustling intersection than for a semi-trailer truck<\/a>\u00a0to do so.<\/p>\n I have been a long time reader of Startup Digest<\/a> because I recognize the value of having curated suggestions of quality events, especially through all of the noise that floods Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n The platform itself is the community, because we as curators interact and learn from what our readers are interested in and find the most value from. My adoration for the platform and the reason why I am excited to be a Startup Digest curator is to continue my passion in educating aspiring entrepreneurs and developers in the startup ecosystem.<\/p>\n The experience that led me to Startup Digest was my continual organizer role in Startup Weekend. Being an active member in Up Global (an entrepreneurial non-profit) has led me to lead their communities such as Startup Weekend, Startup Next Pre-Accelerator, and now Startup Digest.<\/p>\n Overall, Startup Digest curates opportunities and events that are educational and are great assets to our community. The content that we share ranges from events to notable articles. While we, as curators, don\u2019t focus in on a particular sector, IoT (Internet of Things)<\/a> has been a popular sector that our readers frequently engage with.<\/p>\n With my past background in finance, I will continue to bring fintech content to interested readers. I also want to draw attention to the startup ecosystem in the East Bay, as Berkeley and now Oakland become integral parts of the tech community.<\/p>\n Some of the best advice I have learned earlier on is to share. Share your story, your passion, your vision with anyone who wants to listen.<\/p>\n Parents teach you to share when you are growing up. When wary entrepreneurs first arrive to Silicon Valley, we tell them to share their idea because this is how you will get introduced to the people who will help you.<\/p>\n To grow a community organically is through word of mouth and through partnerships. This is not the only solution. However, this is one solution that I have used to not only grow, but the grow exponentially quicker.<\/p>\n![\"sydney-lai\"](\"http:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/09160818\/sydney-lai.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhen did you first become passionate about startups?<\/h2>\n
Can\u00a0you\u00a0describe your role as Community and Growth Manager at F50?<\/h2>\n
![\"F506\"](\"http:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/09160826\/F506.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\u201cCommunity and Growth Managers\u201d didn\u2019t really exist 10\u00a0years ago. How do you fit in with F50’s operations and how has your role evolved?<\/h2>\n
What were some of your first growth initiatives at F50?<\/h2>\n
![\"F501\"](\"http:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/09160821\/F501.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWhat major changes have you seen in the F50 community thus far?<\/h2>\n
How do you learn about your community\u2019s needs?<\/h2>\n
![\"F502\"](\"http:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/09160822\/F502.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWhat is one of your finest growth achievements so far?<\/h2>\n
What changes have you seen in the world of Growth Hacking and Growth Management?<\/h2>\n
What\u2019s different about managing growth at a startup vs.\u00a0a larger company?<\/h2>\n
![\"F505\"](\"http:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/09160825\/F505.jpg\")
<\/p>\nYou recently became a curator at Startup Digest.\u00a0How did that come about?<\/h2>\n
What topics do you plan to focus on as a curator?<\/h2>\n
What advice can you give to people looking to grow their community organically?<\/h2>\n