Automate Compliance (and get $1,000 off!!) - https://vanta.com/luba
Today I walk with Michelle Lim, CEO of Flint, an autonomous web and ads building platform. Michelle interned at Meta, Slack, and Robinhood, grew Warp from employee number two to 500,000 developers over four years across engineering, marketing, and sales, and now she's building Flint to charge by outcome instead of software. She gets into her origin story that pushed her to fix marketing after four years at Warp, and why she thinks the market VCs have valued at $10 billion is actually worth $100 billion.
We get into:
-Why turning down medical school made her "a family disappointment," and the villain origin story that pushed her to build Flint after four years fixing marketing at Warp
-Her "five Infinity Stones" framework: engineering, product, marketing, customer success, and sales, for knowing exactly when she was ready to leave Warp and start her own company
-Why VCs have historically stayed away from funding marketing startups, and her bet that AI turns a market capped at HubSpot's $10 billion into a $100 billion opportunity
-Her framework for writing LinkedIn hooks that lead with credibility and actually convert strangers into customers and hires
So much more!
Timestamps
(00:00) Trailer
(00:32) Intro
(01:21) Singapore's definition of success: doctor, lawyer, or government scholar
(02:31) Applying to Yale on a whim, thanks to a one-school early action rule
(06:16) Why a startup was "one of the lowest prestige things" she could do at Yale
(10:48) Discovering computer science through a Yale entrepreneurship club
(16:21) What she took, and left behind, from Meta, Slack, Robinhood, and Warp
(19:48) Winning an hour alone with Mark Zuckerberg on her best internship project
(22:12) Sheryl Sandberg's leadership lesson: repeat the same story until it lands
(27:59) Her framework for writing LinkedIn hooks that actually convert
(35:53) Bodies "piling up" in Covid-era New York, and the push to join Warp
(40:53) Telling Warp's CEO upfront that she wanted to be a founder
(47:47) The "five Infinity Stones" framework for knowing when to start Flint
(54:47) Why VCs avoid funding marketing startups, and her bet on a $100 billion market
(1:00:23) Meeting her co-founder through a 200-question questionnaire, and his parents' interview
(1:09:14) Never try to save money on a lawyer
Follow Michelle
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michlimlim/
X: https://x.com/michlimlim
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