Piper Van Wagenen

a few weeks ago i wrote a post about how my life motto is "start with yes" but starting with yes and saying yes to everything are two very different things, at least when it comes to work if i have the bandwidth to say yes to everything the second it comes up, i probably haven’t thought carefully enough about where my time is best spent i still want to do everything. meet with every person, context switch quickly. get through individual things fast. that instinct hasn't gone away but by saying yes to everything, no one thing can ever get your full attention there aren't enough hours in the day to say yes to everything. but when you actually break the day down, there are enough hours to say yes to a few specific things and do them really well that's what actually allows you to do more

"gtm" is everywhere right now, but most people don't actually know what it means i got coffee last week with a student who asked me to explain it she's still in school, with more than a year left before graduation, and reached out over her spring break specifically to have this conversation she wanted to understand the difference between gtm, growth, gtme, and other roles for non cs majors at early-stage companies two things stood out to me first — these roles exist. there are a lot of them. but there's a real gap in awareness around them second — she reached out to a mutual contact, got my number, and set up a coffee chat just to learn she understood that startup recruiting doesn't work like traditional recruiting. she knew she wasn't going to walk away with a job from our conversation, and showed up anyway because she wanted to be better informed you can guess what it's like to work somewhere, or you can go find out the best way to learn is to get as close to it as possible if you don't know where to start, come find us at talentpluto.com we are actively matching gtm talent with the best startups hiring today

i got this message from my mentor last week after telling him what i’ve been up to i’ve been thinking about it ever since i recently turned down more “stable” jobs to join an early-stage startup on paper, maybe that looks reckless but there are a few people in your life who know you well enough to tell the difference between reckless and right and he's right about the one life thing we can't waste it, especially not on work we aren't excited about

i am convinced that the best thing you can do for yourself is force yourself to reflect to really be introspective this used to be something i avoided entirely. i thought it was a waste of time if i had goals, knew what i wanted, and had a plan to get there why spend a single minute thinking about anything that didn't have a checkbox next to it? when everything feels urgent, it’s easy to say there's no time to think about anything else i used to think that introspection would slow me down that allocating brainpower to anything other than executing would cost me something now i am confident this is not the case taking time to consistently evaluate what i'm doing and, more importantly, why i am doing it, makes me more productive, not less. more motivated, not distracted running full speed at something without pausing to think about it isn't the fastest path, even if it feels like it you can still move fast. but the work is so much better, and so are the decisions, when you've actually been paying attention the whole way through

i am very vocal about the things that i am excited about here are a few things that i have not been able to stop talking about recently standing desks - i can sit still for hours and lock in. my posture, apparently, cannot. getting on my feet = key claude code - i have taken two cs classes in my entire life. two. and yet i am building things that are actually functional? i find that crazy smiskis - these are hilarious little green figures. they come in tiny boxes & you never know which one you're going to get. they are completely unnecessary but entirely addictive. and they glow in the dark wispr flow - best voice to text i've used so far. had a conversation with my friend caroline, referenced two other carolines, and it was able to differentiate between the three and link their contacts within the texts. thought that was cool gt's guava goddess kombucha - favorite flavor. favorite color (pink). tastes good and makes me feel like i'm doing something right for my gut health washington square park - i walk through it every morning, and it makes my day better before it's even really starts. it was raining today, but people were still skateboarding, singing, dancing, etc. surprise letters - especially from people i haven't heard from in a while. there is something about someone taking the time to write that says more than the letter itself @talentpluto - don't know if i'm more excited about the product or the team. can't beat building something incredible with incredible people

the most valuable thing you can give is your time because you can never get it back i used to think ai would make me dumber that it would make me lazy that it would stop me from thinking for myself and stop me from solving my own problems i was wrong ai makes me faster not because it replaces the way that i think, the connections that i make, or my gut instincts but because it takes over the repetitive parts of my work, and does them faster than i ever could which means that i get to spend more time on the things that actually matter the people who use ai best are not the ones replacing their thinking they’re the ones refusing to waste their time on work that doesn’t require it not because ai is smarter than they are but because their time is worth more than that if you’re in a gtm role and looking for your next startup job don’t spend hours applying, reformatting your resume, or sending emails spend 10 minutes building a profile at talentpluto.com and start matching with the best companies

i wish i could wear our giant CALL ME button on my walk to work so that anyone who isn't happy walking to their job can do a quick switch-up and join the startup scene picture it me walking down the street in the morning sun past someone clearly miserable on their commute they see the button they call pluto by lunch they're interviewing ridiculous? maybe but i pass so many people every day all doing their own thing going to jobs i know nothing about and i can't help but think some of them aren't happy some of them want something different some of them would thrive at the companies we partner with i want to help them find that and we can help them at talentpluto.com

when i was younger, i thought role models had to be people you wanted to emulate exactly - the same career - the same life - a mirror of what you hoped to look like in 20 years i don’t see it that way anymore i think role models are people who teach you something people who make you better sometimes without meaning to sometimes without you even noticing until years later @rocbvw taught me what it means to go all in because when you truly care about what you’re doing giving 100% doesn’t feel like a sacrifice it feels like the point i’ve never seen him do something halfway not because he’s obsessed with perfection but because he’s obsessed with the work itself happy birthday dad thanks for showing me that working hard on something you enjoy isn't always a compromise it's one of the most rewarding things you can possibly do

i was an english major never thought i'd work at an ai startup i thought you had to be some insane engineer that technical skills were the only way in turns out that's not even remotely true we're helping our partners hire for over 100 gtm roles right now - growth, sales, marketing - people who can sell a product before it even exists most engineers don't think about doing that they're too busy coding but someone has to create the narrative someone has to tell the story that goes out into the world and that story matters just as much as how the thing actually works you don't need to be an engineer you need to be curious and confident you need to want to come in every day if you want to see your value add if you want to work with teams doing insane things if you want to help build something from scratch this is your shot: talentpluto.com

for the longest time, i tried to spend as little time on social media as possible my days felt better spent having real conversations, reading the news, and writing > scrolling i still value all of those things but its become almost impossible to stay truly up to date without being at least somewhat active on X or LinkedIn i don’t think scrolling there is automatically a waste of time anymore there’s a real difference between losing hours to random reels on Instagram or TikTok and deliberately consuming content that’s directly relevant to what you care about while i was never much of a scroller i was also not much of a poster i believed that anyone who wanted to get to know me could do so in person that no single post, or even a feed of posts, could possibly capture who i am i still think there’s truth to that you can’t 100% understand or know someone just from their online presence but i’m starting to realize that it’s different for a product for a product, a single post can be enough to signal what it is, who it’s for, and why it matters and that makes showing up online feel a lot less optional

everything is a paradox if you really think about it most things contain their opposite belief requires doubt trust requires risk speed often comes from slowing down and clarity often comes from constraint building a company is the same it’s easy to optimize for what’s visible but the real leverage often lives in what you can’t see the doubts you acknowledge the risks you choose to take the tradeoffs and constraints you’re willing to embrace

~50% of people think of their jobs as - a means to an end - something to think about from 9 to 5 and then mentally check out if that’s NOT you if you’re actually excited about the work you do or the work you want to do but haven’t found yet (especially in a GTM role) join talentpluto.com we intro you to companies that will only hire you - if you care - if you’re curious - if you genuinely want to build something that matters to you

i constantly ask myself this question am i happy with the direction i’m going in? it’s an easy question to think about in the abstract but when you join a team, especially at an early-stage startup, it carries a whole new weight it’s no longer just my direction that matters it’s our direction are we happy with the direction we’re going in? because value alignment is sometimes even more important than mission we can all share the same vision, the same long-term goals but if we’re not happy with how we get there, we won’t get there at all

start with yes this has been my life motto for as long as i can remember and it continues to motivate me every day you don’t always need a perfect plan sometimes you just need to say yes and figure it out as you go this mindset matters most in startups there is never a shortage of things to get done or goals to chase long-term vision is important but sometimes, even when you have clear long-term goals they can seem intangible because the path to get from point a to point b isn’t always linear there can be infinite points in between you have to run with something and see if it works you try, you learn, you pivot, you keep going but the only way to succeed is to start with yes

one of the best lessons i’ve learned by giving problems a name, you can’t ignore them thats why i name anything that slows me down what feels small this month becomes momentum lost next month @talentpluto we call out issues immediately naming problems asap makes them impossible to ignore then we fix them together fast

one of my main priorities is finding time to write, even if it is just for a couple of minutes per day as an english major at @Stanford, most of my classwork revolved around writing research papers and creative non-fiction pieces in my free time, I am writing a memoir now, I’ve started a bi-weekly series of blog posts for @talentpluto it’s an entirely different type of writing from what I’m used to, but I am just as excited by it instead of focusing on characters and plot, I’m focusing on early-stage startups, and the real decisions people are making about their careers my first piece just went live: “how top gtm talent lands the best startup roles” @ talentpluto.com leave a comment if you have ideas for what I should cover next!

10/10 would recommend making the trek to the office thru the nyc blizzard

there are moments when you stop mid convo and realize this changes things this screenshot can say it better than i can big things are coming for talentpluto stay tuned

who is representing you? athletes have agents actors have agents founders have investors most top performers don’t go it alone so why are you running your career solo? let @talentpluto be the agent your career deserves

at stanford i was constantly surrounded by people who were building things. friends started companies, joined tiny teams, and talked about ideas that didn’t fit into the constraints of a classroom. these opportunities didn’t show up as job posts. they showed up as late-night dorm discussions, side projects, or “hey, you should meet this person” texts. i still have these conversations every day. you can too. @talentpluto is that friend who says, “hey, you should meet this person,” and actually makes it happen.