Three Unicorns Walk Into a Business Update 🦄

Once a quarter, I send an email update to clients, partners and industry friends.

This time, I decided to share it on LinkedIn, too.

Maybe it's because I had a lot of fun with the unicorn theme. Maybe it's because I'm so fired up about all the cool things happening in my business lately.

So here's a glimpse at what's been happening the past few months:

It’s been a startup-y fall in the Greenfield household:

• My husband, Alex Greenfield , started a new role as Data Scientist In-Residence at Digitalis Ventures! In his words on LinkedIn: “I'm working on identifying the key problems that biotech leaders face (starting with early drug discovery) and rapidly building best-in-class technology to solve them”. 
• In the next room over, I’m spending my days digging into storytelling, thought leadership and personal branding with my founder and VC clients. 
• And our daughter, Ayla, decided all three of us should dress up as unicorns for Halloween. Could she be foreshadowing our future successes in the startup world? Does she want to start her own company when she grows up? Time will tell. 

Speaking of future unicorns… 

In March, I joined She's Independent Investments , a “hands-on, experiential-learning approach to angel investing”. Admittedly, I knew very little about angel investing at the time. And then… well.. I made my first-ever investment alongside other She’s Independent members not long after joining. 

The whole experience felt SO GOOD. I remember sitting at a bank in downtown Princeton wearing exercise clothes and sneakers and my hair in a messy ponytail, figuring out how to wire a check before heading to daycare pickup. 

“That’s right. This is what an angel investor looks like,” I thought as I sat across from a banker in business clothes. The company I invested in, Kidcaboo , couldn’t have been a better fit for this toddler mom. 

But this spring got weird and work slowed down for a couple months and I stopped thinking about angel investing. Well, until October when I got to attend the Table Stakes Angel Summit in New York City, an event designed to bring women angel investors together to learn, discuss and change the way capital is allocated today.

As I write this weeks after the event, business has picked up in a major way and  I’m still feeling the energy of that day. Want a glimpse at the magic happening in that room? Here are some of my favorite quotable moments from Table Stakes.

Want to show the world that you’ve got unicorn potential? LinkedIn is an amazing place to start

I just launched a new program called “Learn to Love LinkedIn”. I also fully acknowledge that you might not WANT to love LinkedIn and will settle for simply liking it. Don’t worry. You can play, too.

What is it? A condensed strategy sprint that shows you what to write about, how to write it, and how to tap into the magic of showing up authentically on LinkedIn. 

 With me as your thought partner, strategist, coach and editor, we’ll:

• Get into the right headspace for thinking like a thought leader
• Dig into your founder story where we’ll unlock the keys to your most effective messaging 
• Come up with a month’s worth of curated LinkedIn post recommendations (four total) designed to support your unique business growth goals. (Plus I’ll share a couple other goodies that will help you make the most of LinkedIn)
• … and you’ll get a replay of our conversation, where you’re bound to find even more post ideas just waiting to be written

Just reply and send me a note and I’ll share more details. Or, schedule an intro call here. 

But… but… what’s the ROI of LinkedIn thought leadership?

I did a happy dance when I saw this post from Dave Gerhardt recently that sums it up so well. Bottom line: if it’s working, you will know. 

I know his words are true because I’ve heard these things from my clients over and over again. I’ve only worked on three LinkedIn posts with a new client so far and got the following message: 

“Some excellent conversations. This stuff is really powerful when it works.”

How I support founders and VCs (in three sentences): 

My clients and I partner on storytelling projects and to launch and grow their thought leadership presence on LinkedIn (and beyond). Basically, I’m a thought partner, strategist, ghostwriter and interviewer all rolled into one. I’ve worked with clients on LinkedIn content, blogs, bylined articles, emails, website copy and a couple of books. 

That’s all for now! Until next time, I’m just a message calendly link away and love making new friends in the startup space. 

Best,

Alyssa

PS: I might’ve Googled “what sounds do unicorns make?” in hopes of signing off with something cooler than “best” (please ignore the grammatical issues in this search result)

Neigh,

Alyssa