Hi everyone, I’m Jared.
This is a summary of my application for the Head Chef position. I’m compiling some of my previous responses and adding some new content too.
What does Sushi need in a Head Chef?
The most important quality in the new Head Chef isn’t that they have all the answers now or even that those answers come from them. The most important quality is that the new HC can lead Sushi towards answering those questions. A bad CEO thinks they have all the answers. A good CEO has some of the answers, but more often and more importantly builds organizations and processes that find answers. Sushi needs a great leader, a great manager, a systems builder, with low ego, high emotional intelligence, and a wide range of skills in operations, product, engineering, finance, legal, and more. As I hope you can see below, my experience proves I have all of those qualities.
How do you know I can do the job?
I’ve done it before, repeatedly.
Since I left my corporate law job 13 years ago, took an 89% pay cut, and started my career over with an entry level data entry job 3,000 miles away, I’ve been proving I can do this job.
I’m an operational leader focused on the people, culture, systems, and data that make organizations great. I partner with and empower the best talent, build the culture and systems they need to succeed, and turn individuals and teams into organizations that get results.
I’ve probably managed almost 100 people in my career, and been part of hiring twice that. I’ve been on the executive team at 5 startups, and I’ve designed and run part or all of their operating systems.
At Kickstarter, I was hired as Director of Operations initially to solve two problems: payments and real estate. I was promoted to being responsible for building and scaling all business operations, including human resources, recruiting, business intelligence, finance, payments, international, legal, and marketplace integrity. I kept the company organized and efficient and preserved the culture, while scaling from a startup with $28M in annual pledges and 20 people to $480M in annual pledges and over 75 people. I hired and developed a 10-person operations team. I ran the all hands, exec team, and board meetings.
At TeachersPayTeachers, I transformed a bootstrapped product into a high-functioning results-oriented organization. I oversaw the annual planning process drafting the vision, values, objectives, and metrics. I managed teams of up to 20 people, including rebuilding the product, community, customer support, marketplace integrity, editorial, and events teams and leading new initiatives and features, including a mobile app, A/B testing tool, search algorithm, seller dashboard, and customer support tools.
At OpenFin, I built the systems across all business operations areas: human resources, recruiting, planning, communication, data, sales operations, finance, accounting, and legal, including launching annual planning, budgeting, and reporting processes to improve transparency for the board, management, and team.
At Quid, I was hired into an entry level data entry role. I was promoted to found, build, and manage the 20-person analyst team.
At LexDAO, I redesigned the Operating System and served as the first Operator, building systems to let the DAO run itself with the guidance from centralized leadership.
I also co-founded NYCOO, a community of NYC startup executives and a content platform. I co-founded Tempo, a white-label mobile app platform for fitness influencers and brands. I co-founded InCred, a web3 platform for transforming professional achievements into verified credentials on the blockchain. I was even a corporate lawyer at a large, New York City-based multinational law firm working mostly on securities, media, and employment investigations and litigation. I’m currently CEO at a craft beer brewery in Brooklyn.
Here are some links to learn more about me:
My website with blog: https://nycoo.org/
Some of the potentially more relevant blog posts:
Some of the courses I work on: Courses – NYCOO
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredcohe/
Github: jaredcohe (Jared) · GitHub
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jaredcohe
LexDAO Operating System that I designed and ran as the first Operator: LexDAO DAOops Ops Operating System - Google Docs
Web3 credentials side project that I’m working on and wrote the smart contract and some of the web2 code for: https://goincred.com/
My first set of responses to questions from the Sushi community, with a wide range of responses and some new material: jaredc#9700 Candidate Document with Sushi Interview Questions #1 - Google Docs
My second set of responses to questions from the Sushi community, mostly talking about my plans for Sushi: