Nisha Victor

Leaders from the Massachusetts AI Coalition are working with their teams to drive impact across the Commonwealth. Here's a quick update for those interested in following along. - Beacon Taskforce: A Founder Starter Pack is being assembled from the feedback of 30+ founders. Consistent themes are present (fast/flexible capital, free work space, GPU credits, connections to founders/operators), making consistent solutions testable. Excited for the first Founder Starter Pack to go live in early H1. - Tavern Taskforce: Tomorrow's event is ON. Excited for Luke Winston-Almanzar, Co-Founder & CEO of Reservoir, Ryan Jacobs, Co-Founder & CEO of Agency Robotics, and Shilpi Gupta, Founder & CEO of her company will be speaking on the "Industrial AI Builders Panel." - Banners Taskforce: Heads down. Cranking away. Working on a launch of our first big initiative on April 1st. Remember folks: The weather in New England is a feature, not a bug. 😉

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📣 Female Tech Founders in NYC — New Accelerator Alert! Scale Ready Studio is a new 12-week, revenue-focused growth program for women building tech startups in NYC, created by Women.NYC in partnership with Get Sh!t Done. This program is designed to help founders scale sustainably through: - Revenue and profit growth - Strong systems and operations - Weekly strategy labs - Hybrid coaching (1:1 + group) - Technical assistance - In-person Founder Days The program culminates in a Deal Day, where participants pitch to a curated group of investors. 🗓 Applications close January 12

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Leadership in 2025: Designing for Alignment, Not Control Many leaders continue to confuse alignment with control, leading to over-engineered processes and unnecessary layers of oversight that hinder momentum. The most effective leaders, including those at TPG, prioritize alignment around mission and outcomes. When the vision is clear and metrics are established, teams require space rather than micromanagement. This environment fosters creativity and accelerates execution. A recent article in Harvard Business Review emphasizes that the strongest organizations thrive not on tighter control, but on cultivating systems of trust and alignment that promote speed and resilience. Today’s leadership is about removing friction, clarifying communication, and trusting the systems in place. #Leadership #Alignment #StrategicOps #TPG #CapitalEfficiency

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Dayna Grayson is a leading VC who has “sat in every chair” at a young age. She founded Construct Capital with Rachel Holt, an early leader at Uber. Together, they are tackling the digitization of industry. Dayna will discuss macro trends, what it takes to be a founder, and the potential for AI. She is one of the few who have successfully blended a career of operations and investing.  Check out our discussion at: https://lnkd.in/eYBUGjbW #leadershipdevelopment

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"Shoppers are strategically shifting toward more gift card purchases to maintain holiday gifting traditions amid economic pressures, according to new research from Blackhawk Network (BHN), a leading global provider of branded payment solutions. BHN's annual holiday forecast, which surveyed over 2,100 U.S. consumers, reveals that while 13% are purchasing gifts for fewer people due to financial constraints, overall holiday gift spending continues to rise and gift cards will represent 39% of total holiday budgets—a 12% increase over last year." https://lnkd.in/gQxrpy35

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Age diversity makes product teams stronger. ⚡️ 🎧 Chip Conley on Lenny’s Podcast—on being Airbnb’s “modern elder” and why wisdom + curiosity scale teams: https://lnkd.in/dzKmhWWR Two quick takeaways: 🤝 Intergenerational pairing > silos. Younger builders bring deep focus; experienced leaders add systems thinking and emotional intelligence. Aim for a shared “mentor & intern” mindset. 🏛️ Culture is what people do when the boss isn’t there. Protect the energy and passion you want repeated—hire, ship, and celebrate to reinforce it. Culture becomes a real moat. If you lead product, this one’s worth the hour. #ProductManagement #Leadership #CompanyCulture #AgeDiversity #Startups

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I’m thrilled to officially announce our $3M seed investment in Propel People, a company we built inside the 1848 Ventures studio to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing the #construction industry today: the skilled #labor shortage. For small and medium-sized contractors, hiring isn't just a challenge. It's the number one threat to their growth, profitability, and safety. With 94% of contractors struggling to find qualified workers, it’s clear that traditional hiring methods aren't built for the trades. That’s why we built Propel People. It’s a mobile-first, AI-powered hiring platform designed for how construction actually works: in the field. By leveraging smart candidate ranking, instant #SMS-based screening, and a fully #bilingual interface, Propel helps contractors build great crews faster and more efficiently. I’m also thrilled to formally announce that industry veteran Dexter Bachelder is at the helm as CEO. Having worked with Dexter and the team over the last few months, we've already seen the impact of his leadership. His 25 years of experience scaling construction tech companies will be instrumental as Propel People enters this initial stage of growth. This investment reinforces our core thesis at 1848 Ventures: building AI-native companies that solve fundamental pain points for the #SMBs that form the backbone of our economy. A huge congratulations to Dexter and the entire Propel People team on this milestone. We are incredibly proud to partner with you to support the people who build our world. Read the full announcement below. #constructiontech #venturecapital #seedfunding #ai #skilledtrades #smb

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AI isn’t here to replace empathy; it’s here to scale it. Play is not the opposite of work; it’s the shortcut to insight. The quickest path to product-market fit is to role-play your customer. Synthetic users never sleep, yet they never forget how you made them feel. Become your customer for five minutes and you can build for them for five years. We don’t guess intentions anymore; we simulate them. AI mirrors our blind spots so we can finally see the human. When the customer is the hero, your product becomes their super-power #playeconomy

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