Brick by Brick: Finding Magic in the Mundane - Jared Fliesler, fmr Slide, Square, Scribd

In this episode of Brick by Brick, Rishi Taparia sits down with Jared Fliesler, a seasoned operator who has held key roles at companies like Slide, Square, and Scribd.

Jared shares his untraditional path into the startup world, the importance of storytelling as a leader, his philosophy on making the most of "mundane" tasks, and how to hire and fire well. He also discusses his own venture, First Call, his own coaching practice built to help founders navigate the challenges of scaling.

In this episode, we dig into:

- 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 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 coaching

Where to Find Jared:

Linkedin: ⁠linkedin.com/in/jaredsf/⁠

Twitter: ⁠x.com/JaredSF⁠

Website: ⁠firstcall.co⁠

Brick by Brick is presented by Garuda Ventures (⁠https://garuda.vc⁠).

About 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

Today's episode was hosted by Rishi Taparia. Find Rishi on LinkedIn (⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/rktaparia/⁠), Substack (⁠taps.substack.com⁠) or X/Twitter (⁠x.com/taps⁠)

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