🎧 🧱 Jared Fliesler | Finding Magic in the Mundane
Jared helped build Slide, Square, and Scribd. Learn about how he made the move into startups, how to hire and fire, the importance of founders always sharing the "Why?" and more!
Today’s Brick by Brick guest is my friend Jared Fliesler. Jared has had a pretty incredible career. He started out doing business development for a pretty traditional investment company focused on tax-advantaged real estate investments. Frustrated with the bureaucracy, he took his first start-up role at Slide - the photo-sharing company Max Levchin started in the early days of social media. Over his time at Slide, Jared went from junior BD person to executive team member and ran their core product. When Slide sold to Google in 2010, Jared became a director there while starting to advise the then-nascent Square. After a year at Google, he joined Square full-time as General Manager and eventually led Growth and Business Operations - 5x'ing the payment volume during his tenure.
I first met Jared post his time at Square when he joined me and the rest of the team at Matrix Partners in 2013. Jared joined us as one of the youngest GPs in the industry at 29 years old. Jared couldn't kick the start-up bug, though, so he went back into operating and joined Scribd as the COO. Over four years at Scribd, he supported the company through fundraising, scaling down and then up headcount, more than doubling revenue, and weathering the COVID storms - eventually leaving a few years ago and taking an unexpected turn to launch a new type of coaching firm for founders.
We have a wide-ranging conversation covering topics including:
How Jared transitioned from finance into startups
The importance of storytelling and narrative development for founders and leaders
“Making magic of the mundane" - Jared's approach to tackling necessary but boring tasks that are core to growing any company
Early "hacks" Jared and the Square team experimented with as they began to scale
The importance of communicating the "why" as a founder, not just giving directives
Jared's new coaching venture, First Call, and his unique approach to founder support
I hope you enjoy the conversation! Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube!
If you have any comments on this episode, ideas for future episodes, or any feedback on the podcast, hit reply or email brickbybrick@garuda.vc!
Brick by Brick is presented by Garuda Ventures. Garuda Ventures is a B2B-focused pre-seed and seed venture fund. Garuda is a first-check firm and aims to earn the right to be a founder's first call as they go about building their companies. To learn more, visit https://www.garuda.vc