Strategies for Startups Navigating a Tougher Funding Landscape

Ongoing economic and political uncertainty has been causing the VC landscape to run at an exhausting pace. That means general partners (GPs) and managing directors are applying a laser focus on those startups in their portfolio that are poised for rapid growth.

Connecting Purpose with Profitability

The idea of sustainability is a two-fold goal for climate-conscious businesses that have made addressing our climate crisis their mission. Because no matter how noble it is to develop an environmentally sustainable product or solution, if a company cannot find its footing and sustain operations, it will never achieve the impact it is striving for.

Insight with Foresight: Navigating growth-stage pains

In this webinar, Sightglass Partner, Matthew Tobiasz chats with Christopher Naismith, CEO and founder of Audette.io. about the ways late-stage startups can navigate growth-stage pains.

How startups can accelerate growth in a new funding landscape

Innovation doesn’t have to come with a hefty headcount. By partnering with an innovation consultancy, startups can access the specialized expertise they need to navigate critical growth phases without the long-term commitment of additional full-time staff. 

Spotlight on: Brandt Roberts, Head of Growth

Brandt Roberts’ career has spanned operations, venture and private equity. Joining Sightglass enables Brandt to apply that experience to help early-stage start-ups scale impactfully and efficiently.

Whitepaper: Growth Mapping for Gen AI product

In this whitepaper, Marc De Pape sought an interesting company to demonstrate the Growth Mapping process.

Growth Mapping: A look behind the curtain

Trying to determine where to invest? Looking to drive top-line revenue? Can’t focus on what opportunities to pursue? Growth Mapping is an approach that clarifies unidentified or unrealized opportunities.

Insight with Foresight

In this webinar, Sightglass Partner, John Jarosz chats with Christopher Naismith, CEO and founder of Audette.io. John and Christopher chat about the challenges and opportunities facing climate tech founders.

Energy Is Having Its ‘Aha’ Moment—What It Means For Climate Tech

Once synonymous with climate skepticism, major oil, gas and natural gas players seem to be orchestrating a paradigm shift. They are not merely paying lip service to climate tech; they are actively seeking partnerships with venture funds and climate startups to redefine how and what kind of energy they deliver.

Putting windows on the AI Black Box

Artificial intelligence can do amazing things, but in many cases, we have no idea how those systems make their decisions. The lack of visibility, transparency and usability inherent to foundational AI technologies is often attributed to the nature of the AI “black box” — or how models can only be evaluated by their outputs.

Case Study: Clearing a path to revenue in clean-tech

Achieving net-zero emissions is a complicated problem to solve in itself, but building a venture to contribute to that reduction increases the pressure on the founders to establish a sustainable business for themselves, their people, their investors, their customers, and the planet.

Insight with Foresight: How can DEI support innovation?

Sightglass Partner, John Jarosz chats with Lindsey TH Jackson, CEO of LTHJ Global and founder of SourjournDEI. Lindsey shares her experiences working with investors and consultants as a BIPOC tech founder.

AI Feedback Loops

If we want AI systems that get better over time and truly fulfill their potential, they will have to be implemented in a way that allows for new divergent paths and course correction. Otherwise, we’ll find ourselves running in loops.

AI’s Promise For More Humane Technology

There’s plenty of cynicism around the opportunities of generative AI—much of it warranted. (No, I don’t want a “poison bread sandwich,” thank you very much, Savey Meal bot.) However, I see two key events as creating the ideal conditions for AI to prompt a fundamental shift in how we can make technology more humane.

Sightglass earns LGBT Business Enterprise certification

Sightglass Partners is excited to announce the firm’s certification as an LGBT Business Enterprise® by the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce, the national business voice of the LGBT community.

Ensure Your Best Ideas Don’t Get Trapped In A ‘Black Box’

In every organization, some roles have what I like to describe as a “black box” problem: Other team members know these roles are valuable, but they aren’t exactly sure what tangible value they provide. No one can accurately describe what these folks do until something tactical is released.

Case study: Discovering the right problem to solve

Like many start-ups, PartnerSlate was built on the experience and expertise of its founders.

Ensuring Your Merger Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Acquired Parts

The goal of a merger or acquisition is to create a new entity that’s greater than the sum of its parts. When that merger involves product suites spanning multiple services on either side, the level of complexity rises exponentially—but so does the growth potential.

Putting humanity into automation

Generative AI products GPT-4 and ChatGPT are clearly groundbreaking innovations. But can they generate transformative new ideas? New products, services, and businesses will certainly be built using AI — potentially with greater speed and efficiency than ever before. But don’t confuse the novelty of seemingly cogent outputs from language models with meaningful results — or valuable outcomes. 

Spotlight on: Marc De Pape, Principal Product Consultant

Marc first met future Sightglass founders John Jarosz, Matthew Tobiasz, and Patti Purcell at Thoughtworks, where he was a designer with a compulsion to understand why a particular strategic path was being taken. Now as part of the Sightglass Team, Marc is helping companies ensure that what they’re building will actually deliver a better customer experience and overall ROI.

How To Rally An Innovative Business Culture

When most of us think of an innovation culture, we think of a workplace where teams can “move fast and break things.”

Five Tips For Prepping Your Innovation Roadmap In A Recession

As we look ahead to 2023, talks of global recessions are dominating boardroom discussions. Of course, managing a business during a recession is not easy. But not knowing when the recession will end is especially challenging.

Seeing ahead by looking back

Just over a year ago, three friends—a product designer, a technologist, and a business strategist—joined forces to launch a different innovation consultancy.

The disruption is the experience

Technology doesn’t drive disruption. Experience does.

Outside-In perspective gives incoming CPO much-needed foresight

The role of Chief Product Officer can cover many core functions. It can include go-to-market strategy, but it can also include project and operational management and even feature decisions, design and analysis. Finding one person who is an expert within all of these areas is like finding the unicorn every start-up is trying to become.

Spotlight on: Jessi O’Neill, Principal Design Consultant

Jessi O’Neill, Principal Design Consultant at Sightglass, has worked with the world’s leading workforce and HR management services companies, where she was accountable for designing, operationalizing, and scaling customer-centric product experiences.

The DE&I value proposition

The (very welcome) uptick in diversity-led private equity firms is prompting many in the space to look at themselves and their portfolio through a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive lens. Not only because it’s the right thing to do – it’s a way to give your firm a distinctly strategic value proposition.

Make DE&I less daunting

Implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) principles into your product and service experience, you bring more relevance to your end-users and create a more impactful and lasting emotional reaction that builds customer loyalty and additional useability. But it can also seem like a daunting exercise.  

Experience exponential growth

If you want to see 2X the growth across your portfolio of companies, hire a management consultancy to enhance operations. Want 3X the growth? Hire a design and delivery firm to make more profitable products. But if you want 50X the growth across your entire portfolio of business, focus on the end-user experience.

Starting up?
Start with DE&I 

Over the last number of years, DE&I has become a mega-trend, not for great headlines but for great business. Your goal as a founder is to zig while others are zagging, and DE&I is an element you don’t want to ignore.