Twin Ventures is an AI-focused Angel Fund that backs entrepreneurs who are building disruptive ventures, solving real-world problems. We invest in companies that define new markets that can turn into category leaders through Applied AI

Twin Ventures

Do you work in #Sales? If yes, you know that this market isn’t easy to survive in. 

Despite that, if you are an AE who is closing deals successfully again and again, you must understand a few things:

1. You are selling a #product, that has a pull even in this market. This is great news for you because it makes your job easy. 

2. When the product is easy to sell in this market, you can focus your skills on helping #customers buy vs doing a hard sell. This is a more graceful way to close deals. 

3. When you can sell and close deals in this market, it almost always means that you are at a special company. A company that has a strong footing and a great product. Imagine where your company will be later in 2024 when the markets recover and how big you can explode in 2025? 

4. If you are thinking of changing your job given all the above, then please DON’T! You will shoot yourself in the foot. When you can successfully sell in tricky markets you can be mind blowing in normal markets. 

5. So focus on your vertical growth and be a star 🌟 at your current company. This is the best time to establish your footing and build a great career path where you are. 

#Careers are built growing vertically by making a deeper impact internally and not by jumping horizontally for a few more dollars.

Clarity is a superpower. 

It’s your magical compass for life and work. 

It can tell you where to go and why. 

But it’s a tough thing to achieve. 

For some, it’s a god’s gift and for others, they can build it over time. 

Clarity comes from…

Being calm and composed in your mind

Being consciously aware of where you stand and why

Being courageous and graceful in your execution

Leading with love

Meditating daily and looking inward

Investing in self-growth and making it a priority

Clarity is the most powerful gift you can receive. 

I hope 2024 gives all of us more clarity than ever before.

Earlier this week we were curious about your 2024 goals 🌟🗓️ Now, here come our awesome Founders, Swapnil & Snehal. Happy first week of 2024, everyone! Let's crush it together! 💪🏼

In 2023, I learned one of the most essential #life lessons.

I learned that practicing any form of art can be life-changing. 

One of the most precious gifts mom gave me was teaching me how to paint. 

#Painting has helped impact my life in more ways than one. 

I am sharing a painting I completed on the day of Thanksgiving. I started painting around 5 pm and finished it around 1:30 am. It’s a camping landscape under the stars, in the woods, by a cozy fireplace. 

Painting has taught me to be patient. As you build layers in your painting, just as you do in your life, you must work on one layer before working on the next. And as you finish each layer, you will see your painting come to life. 

It teaches you to be courageous. When you work on a difficult painting, you know that one wrong brush stroke can mess things up. But you learn to trust yourself and push through. Painting the fire 🔥 in this painting was daunting because I did it for the first time. 

It teaches you balance. Keeping your hand steady while working on the intricacies of your painting teaches you how vital balance is in art and life. 

It teaches you to dream with only positive thoughts in your mind. When you let your thoughts inspire your painting, you can create a world that doesn’t exist. It’s a magical experience, and the world stays with you forever. Looking at this couple enjoying the fireplace under the stars feels super meditative.  

It teaches you to be colorful. Life isn’t black or white. The more colors you add to your life, the more joyful it becomes. A colorful painting emits so much positivity and joy. 

Thank you, Mom. Your efforts in teaching art to me and Snehal Shinde have finally paid off. 

Today, I realized how impactful this gift is. 

I hope this post inspires you to practice the art you are good at. 

Cheers 🥂 to an artistic life in 2024 and beyond. 

🥳 Happy New Year, everyone! 

PS: In the comments below, I have added more pictures of how the painting evolved into its final version. I hope you enjoy it. 👇

Authentic leaders have a love following. 

Being authentic and truthful comes at a cost.

Sometimes, you will lose people, but most of the time, you will win them over. 

Most bonds will become stronger, and some will fade away. 

Where you win is how you feel. You will feel... 

More at peace 
More joyful
Happier that you have done the right thing 
More respectful towards yourself and others
More self-love and love for those you care for

Ultimately, what is good for you is good for everyone around you. 

A better you is, almost always, better for the world around you.

Know enough to be dangerous.

You don’t need to know everything.

When Snehal Shinde and I started Zeni, we were not accountants. 

But we knew enough to be dangerous.

When we started Mezi (acquired by American Express), we were not travel experts.

But we knew enough to be dangerous. 

Your ability to be dangerous increases with your ability to understand the depth of the problem you are solving.

You must have a deep relationship with the problem, and you must look at it in a way that others don’t. 

That will empower you to build a product in a way others can’t.

Being differentiated in the way you understand your problem and build a solution is the winning mantra. 

And once you have that, and know that, you will care less about your #competition and more about their customers. 

And that’s when they become your #customers.

Once, a VC asked me if we had defined the #culture for our #startup. 

Culture and values aren’t something that needs to be read or documented early on. 

Culture and values need to be lived. They need to be experienced. 

Ash Lilani is one of those unique investors who has lived and experienced the Zeni culture firsthand. He parties with the team, dances with them, has strategic talks, and pumps everyone up. The team loves him. 

More VCs should invest in experiencing the culture of their portfolio companies and, importantly, be a part of it.

At an early stage, the culture and values are simply defined by the personalities, mindset, execution approach, and discipline of the founders. 

They are further enhanced and sharpened by the personalities and execution approach of the key executives and leaders. 

You must hire leaders that “fit” into your culture but also hire leaders that “add” to your culture.

As your team grows, it becomes essential to evangelize your key cultural values and use them to run your startup daily. 

Thanks to Arman Zand, Zeni revamped our cultural values recently, and we now display them in our offices. 

We also assigned a dedicated Slack hashtag to each cultural value so everyone can use these tags on Slack. 

#onezeni We are one team, one mission, one heart. 

#zenilove We care deeply about our clients and each other.  

#zenisuccess We help our clients succeed, with passion and empathy.

#trustzeni We build trust with our clients and with each other.

#zenivision We innovate on intelligence, both artificial and human.

Courage is key to life itself.

This is a true Zeni story of how McKenna Cichocki changed her life.

It was April 2022.

Due to our growth, we identified that new #Customer Onboarding quickly became a bottleneck.

We assigned a VP to own all customer onboarding and decided to build two organizations to handle onboarding aggressively.

One org handles all onboarding accounting.

Another org handles all customer-facing activities - the traditional customer onboarding specialist role.

The team reviewed and interviewed several customer onboarding candidates, and a few reached the last round of interviews with me.

While reviewing their profiles, I saw none had past #SAAS experience.

I was disappointed and told my #leadership team that they were looking at the wrong candidates, and none of these was a good fit.

HR told all candidates they were rejected in the last round because the CEO wanted SAAS experience.

Bummer! But McKenna Cichocki thought that was a mistake. So she researched and found my email.

She sent me the email you see in the screenshot below. 

She believed in herself, her skills, and her past background and explained why it made sense for Zeni.

I emailed her ASAP to speak the next day.

When I got on a call with her, my first statement to her was, “McKenna, thanks for emailing me. That email might change your life.”

We sent an offer the same night. McKenna was not only instrumental in helping us build a great customer onboarding experience but nine months ago, she was promoted to a Customer Success Manager role.

Thanks for emailing me, McKenna, and keep rocking it at Zeni.

I hope this experience acts as an inspiration to everyone looking for their next dream job.

Destiny is all!

The #impact we create is not in the numbers.

$1M, $3M, $10M, and $20M are all just numbers at the end. 

The impact we create is in the story that people tell about us. 

The impact is the progress we make relative to where we started. Did you grow revenues 5x vs 2x? That is what matters more than the number itself. 

The impact is how we make people feel on our journey. Do they look up to you for your decisions along the way?

The impact is how we inspire others to do better.

The impact is how we encourage #teamwork and bonding.

The impact is how we motivate and build #teams. Are people joining you because they want to work with you? 

It’s never the numbers because all numbers fade away in the end.

It’s the story that people remember. That’s the most significant impact we can create.

Most importantly, stay humble and let your magic speak for itself. 

And when it does, thank your parents because they raised you so well.

“The finance industry needs to change. It needs to be disrupted.” Our CEO & Co-Founder, Swapnil S., shares his thoughts on The Thinking Project Podcast about the transformative power of both an innovative product AND a team of forward-thinking finance professionals who believe in it. 🤝 

Without both there will be no catalyst for a FinOps revolution. How have you seen the power of experts supporting change reshape industries in your experience? Let us know in the comments 👇 

#finops #innovation #financeforward #startup

Twin Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage investments in technology startups. They provide funding, mentorship, and strategic support to entrepreneurs with innovative ideas.

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