How Stella Garber Raised $5M To Build An AI Task Manager

Stella has worked in startups her entire career. She started previous companies and even got the opportunity to join Trello as an early employee. She scaled with the company all the way through it’s acquisition by Atlassian. She then founded Hoop and raised $5M to solve productivity.

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Follow Stella’s journey:

🐦 X → x.com/startupstella💼 LinkedIn → linkedin.com/in/stellagarber🚀 Startup → hoop.app

Follow us:🔔 Subscribe → youtube.com/@foundingjourney?sub_confirmation=1📝 Newsletter → join.foundingjourney.com📈 Founder Membership → upgrade.foundingjourney.com💼 LinkedIn → linkedin.com/in/michael-houck

In this conversation we discuss:

Trello Journey & Early Growth

• (00:00) — Intro
• (01:48) — How Stella became an early Trello team member
• (03:27) — Marketing changes during Trello’s growth
• (07:28) — Trello’s marketing success & applications to Hoop

Marketing & Product Growth

• (11:07) — Marketing from a user-centric lens
• (12:45) — Unique approach to organic growth
• (14:06) — AI’s impact on product growth
• (15:55) — Product taste

Pivoting

• (17:27) — The future of productivity & Hoop
• (21:32) — Pivoting after ChatGPT’s launch
• (24:51) — The conflicting pivot advice
• (26:15) — When to know you need to pivot

Startups & Launch Tips

• (29:14) — Transitioning from founder to an early team member
• (32:38) — Successful Product Hunt launch tips

Remote Work & Team Dynamics

• (37:11) — Remote work & 4-day work week
• (42:08) — Asynchronous remote work
• (44:41) — “Burstiness”
• (47:41) — How to create a successful remote team

Rapid Fire

• (52:51) — Who is one investor you’d recommend?
• (53:28) — One thing you’d change about startups?
• (55:55) — Advice for first-time founders?
• (56:34) — Something you believe that most disagree with?