The OnBoard Effect
Articles by Marc
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I got my MBA on Delancy Street, and found my Business Partner For Life
I got my MBA on Delancy Street, and found my Business Partner For Life
Every venture, successful or not, has a story of adversity and unintended outcomes. For me, that story is Cloud Water…
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Marc Siden shared thisIf you are in NYC this Thursday, please join me for a great event supporting an amazing cause and to win a seat at the WSOP! http://onecau.se/_k8htw1
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Marc Siden shared thisIncredible organization and an even better opportunity!Marc Siden shared thisWe're hiring a Head of Mentorship at Oneday 🎉 We've built something wonderfully special: a faculty of 150 mentors helping founders move from idea to revenue. What we've learned is that the best mentors don't just advise; they push founders toward the kind of decisive, commercial action that actually builds a business. We're now looking for someone to lead that faculty with one shared obsession: getting founders from "stuck" to "earning." The right person could come from two places: A senior mentor who has personally guided founders to revenue and now wants to multiply that impact through others. Or a venture builder who has built and sold things themselves and is ready to help a faculty do the same. You'll own the impact of the mentor programme. That means codifying what our best mentors do differently, designing the systems that hold founders to a high bar, and moving the metric that matters most: median founder revenue. We're building on what works and doubling down on accountability and commercial outcomes as the levers that get founders there. Remote. Reports to me. If this sounds like you, or if you know someone who'd be a great fit, full JD here: https://lnkd.in/e8nhSYGM
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Marc Siden shared thisMentoring an aspiring Hip-Hop artist is a challenge because I don’t necessarily have the chops. But music today is all about building a brand and this guy is so much fun to work with. Have a listen
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Marc Siden shared thisSharing for an old friend who works harder than anyone I know! 🙏
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Marc Siden shared thisThis one especially hits home- The lessons learned at any stage of being a founder.Marc Siden shared thisScaling too early kills more companies than scaling too late. I know the playbook says move fast. Blitz. Grab the market. I've watched that playbook torch more companies than I can count, including my own. Here's what actually happens when you scale before you're ready: → You hire a sales team before the founder can reliably close. Now you have 6 reps missing quota, and no one knows if it's the reps, the product, the pitch, or the ICP. → You spend on paid acquisition before organic pull exists. Now you have a CAC number that only works while the ad budget flows. → You build a process for a company you're not yet. Now you have Slack channels, OKRs, and weekly business reviews for a 15-person team that should be moving like a 5-person team. The signal you're ready to scale isn't "we closed a big round." It's much boringer: 1. The founder has closed 20+ deals personally and can describe the buyer's journey in their sleep. 2. At least one acquisition channel is repeatable without founder involvement. 3. Cohort retention is flat or improving — not declining with each new cohort. 4. You can articulate, in one sentence, why a customer picks you over the three closest alternatives. If you don't have all four, you're not scaling. You're gambling with other people's money. Move deliberately. Then move fast. The order matters. Which of the four signals are you missing right now? I scaled a beverage company to the national stage before I understood the actual marketing support needed to sustain it. The additional capital that was needed. I missed on the assumed velocity that would have taken us to the next level. Instead, we started to roll down the hill. Share your lessons learned...
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Marc Siden shared thisThe tough questions we must face as founders on the move.Marc Siden shared thisWhy the $8M seed round killed the company Here's the anatomy of how "too much money, too early" becomes an extinction event: THE SETUP Strong team, interesting wedge, hot market. VCs competed. $8M at $32M post — 4x what they needed, at a valuation that required a specific next act to make sense. THE TRAP With $8M in the bank, they did what founders with $8M in the bank do: they hired ahead of learning. 22 people in 9 months. A VP of Sales before they had a repeatable sales motion. A head of marketing, before they knew which channel worked. THE MATH PROBLEM At a $32M post, the Series A required a valuation of $100M+ to be a "win" for seed investors. That meant showing $3-5M in ARR with strong growth in 18 months. THE DEATH SPIRAL They couldn't get there organically, so they discounted to hit revenue. Discounts killed NRR. Killed NRR killed the A narrative. Burn ran faster than learning. By the time they tried to cut and refocus, the team was too senior, the board was too anxious, and the runway was too short. THE LESSON Raise the minimum amount that gets you to the next believable milestone, at a valuation you can grow into — not one you have to sprint to justify. The "biggest round you can get" is almost never the best round you can get. A smaller round with room to breathe beats a bigger round with a countdown timer—every time. Founders currently raising: Are you solving for round size or for the shape of the next 18 months?
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Marc Siden reposted thisMarc Siden reposted thisBehind-the-Curtain / Data-Driven Execution The one metric that predicts Series A It's not ARR. It's not the growth rate. It's not burn multiple. It's net revenue retention at month 12. Here's why it's the tell: ARR can be bought with paid acquisition. Growth rate can be juiced with discounts. Burn multiple can be engineered by delaying hires. NRR at 12 months can't be faked. It's the honest answer to one question: "Do customers get more value from you over time, or less?" What I'm seeing in 2026: → Seed companies hitting 110%+ NRR at month 12 are raising A rounds in weeks, often at premium valuations. → Companies at 90-100% are raising, but slowly and with concessions. → Companies below 90% are getting told to "come back in 6 months" — which usually means never. The uncomfortable implication: if your NRR is weak, no amount of new logo growth will save the round. Investors have learned to look through the vanity. The action: stop optimizing for new logos this quarter. Spend 60 days on expansion, activation depth, and churn root cause. Your next raise depends on it more than your pipeline does. Founders — what's your NRR at month 12, and are you measuring it honestly?
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Marc Siden shared thisCrutial!Marc Siden shared thisThe 3-question foundation audit Here's a 3-question audit we run with every founder before we talk tactics: 1. THE WHO Who is the single person whose problem you solve so well that they'd be angry if you disappeared tomorrow? Not a segment. Not a persona. A person. If you can't name them, you don't have an ICP — you have a hypothesis. 2. THE WHY-NOW Why does this need to exist in 2026 and not 2016 or 2036? Every durable business rides a shift — regulatory, technological, behavioral, economic. If you can't name the shift you're riding, you're building on sand. 3. THE UNFAIR EDGE If a well-funded competitor copied your product tomorrow, what would still be true about you that they couldn't replicate in 12 months? Distribution. Data. Relationships. Domain expertise. Something has to be uncopyable, or you're in a race to the bottom. Three questions. Fifteen minutes. If you can't answer all three cleanly, stop building features and go do the work on the foundation first. Every month you delay this audit compounds into a year of wasted runway. Which of the three is hardest for you to answer right now?
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Marc Siden reposted thisMarc Siden reposted thisThe most expensive lie in startups It's the one thing founders tell themselves at 11 pm on a Sunday: "We just need more top-of-funnel." No, you don't. I've sat across from hundreds of founders over 30 years, and I can tell you what "more top-of-funnel" almost always means: → Your activation is broken, and you're papering over it with volume. → Your ICP is fuzzy, and you're hoping the market will tell you who it is. → Your retention is leaking, and a bigger bucket won't fix a hole in the bottom. Pouring more leads into a broken funnel doesn't scale a business. It scales the waste. Before you spend another dollar on acquisition, answer three questions: 1. Of the users who activated last month, what percentage came back in week 2? 2. Can you describe your best customer in one sentence without using the word "and"? 3. If you 10x'd traffic tomorrow, would your unit economics get better or worse? If any of those make you squirm — that's where the work is. Not the top of the funnel. What's the lie you've caught yourself telling lately?
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Marc Siden liked thisMarc Siden liked thisMultifamily is about to make a very expensive mistake: treating AI as a technology decision instead of an operating-model decision. The contracts leaders sign today won’t just determine which tools their teams use. They’ll determine who controls their workflows, data, SOPs, and the renter experience for years. Before approving another AI investment, I’d ask three questions: — Does it connect to other tools you use? — Can it take action across your systems—or only inside its own? — Can your teams shape how it works—or does the vendor dictate the model? — If every competitor buys the same platform, what remains uniquely yours? I shared my perspective in the latest edition of Multifamily Unpacked newsletter. Read it below.How will you win over renters when every community starts operating the same way?How will you win over renters when every community starts operating the same way?
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Marc Siden liked thisWe are Beyond thankful for this partnership. Thank you so much to everybody who has supported us this year.Marc Siden liked thisThis September, during Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Month, the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation is proud to partner with Huey Magoo’s Restaurants LLC to support Today’s Care. Tomorrow’s Cure. At participating locations, guests can simply round up their purchase to the next dollar, with every cent donated to the Reeve Foundation to support life-changing care, groundbreaking research, and hope for people and families living with paralysis. Stop by your participating Huey Magoo’s this month and round up for Reeve! Pictured: Reeve Foundation's Director of New Partner Engagement, Alan T. Brown and Huey Magoo's President and CEO Andy Howard. #SCIAwarenessMonth #RoundUpForReeve #ReeveFoundation #HueyMagoos #ParalysisAwareness
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Marc Siden liked thisMarc Siden liked thisHow can a small VC firm produce Founderland? Easy answer. We don't. My wife Shannon Kelly does. Without her and her team working year-round to build this invite-only, 1,000+ person B2B festival... The Family Fund wouldn't be able to produce anything remotely close to this. We need to spend the far majority of our time investing and helping our PortCo founders win. So when I had the idea for Founderland a few years ago, there was only one reason I wasn't looked at as if I was insane... It's because Shannon is our secret weapon. And prior to running events and experiences at our fund, spent years building Coachella, the Long Beach Grand Prix, Outside Lands and other scintillating shows. Sure, Josh Wand and I need to get the right people to the event...and that matters immensely... But the majority of the credit for what Founderland has become belongs to Shannon and her team. You're incredible Shannon. I'm honored to be your partner in more ways than one. Thank you from all of us at The Family Fund. Let's roll!
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Marc Siden liked thisMarc Siden liked thisPage 2 of the @nypost! 🗞️ Honored to be featured for my work as the Broker Specialist for 240 Centre Street and 1 Lexington Ave. Representing these iconic properties, and helping my clients build and preserve generational wealth through rentals and sales, is a true privilege. Thank you, @douglaselliman!
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Marc Siden liked thisMarc Siden liked thisGarrett Hrncir of Continental Properties & Kim Garfield, PMP of UDR were absolute stars with their AI experience & vision. Which is why they too are my favorite clients 😉! And Aaron Ru should start a podcast, that guy made it so fun and easy to dive deep into the nuances of AI deployment today. If you believe the future of AI is more about human optimization than “autonomous leasing” we’d love to help you get results like UDR and Continental.
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Marc Siden liked thisMarc Siden liked thisToday marks a pretty exciting new era for Funnel. I am excited to finally share the exciting news. We’re officially becoming multifamily’s first front-office-only AI platform, bringing AI, people, and workflows together across the entire renter lifecycle. And honestly, what I love most about this direction is that it’s not about AI replacing people. It’s about AI taking care of the work that needs to get done, so our teams can spend more time on the moments where human connection actually matters. After millions of interactions, we’ve seen firsthand that the best renter experiences happen when AI and people work together. AI can handle business-critical workflows, connect the dots in the data, and help teams move faster, while people focus on creating a human experience. A few big pieces of where we’re headed: ��� Fenix brings one connected AI across Funnel, helping renters, residents, and teams communicate, take action, and make smarter decisions. • Funnel Fabric connects and orchestrates teams, AI, and external tools throughout the renter journey. • Workflow Studio gives operators the ability to build workflows around what actually works for their portfolio instead of trying to fit into someone else’s rigid playbook. At the end of the day, the goal is pretty simple: use AI to make our teams better, not less human. We’ve been working toward this vision for years, and I’m really proud to be part of where Funnel is going next. A lot is happening, and this is just the beginning. Link in the comments go check out what’s new.
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Marc Siden reacted on thisMarc Siden reacted on thisI am excited to share that I've joined Velocity Clearing as a Senior Executive Assistant. Starting a new position is always a exciting opportunity to learn, grow and take on new challenges. I am looking forward to bringing my experience, energy and passion for supporting leaders and building strong relationships into this new chapter.
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Marc Siden liked thisMarc Siden liked thisWhen I joined Funnel Leasing this year, I thought I knew what was coming up next. I was coming in hot after several years as a client, and thought I knew how the company would evolve. An enhancement here, AI there, improvements to the way things have always worked in multifamily. As a client, I had waited for some new features and updates – things that were on my “hopes and dreams” list. Had I only known. Turns out, Funnel had other plans. This mighty little team isn’t interested in incremental change that revamps the way "it’s always been done," or replacing people with AI. Funnel understands that multifamily is a people business, and has made that a central driver in how we approach this new era. This week’s announcement isn’t just about our products (even if they are mind-blowingly impressive), it’s about our commitment to making the renting experience better for everyone. It’s about thinking differently about the experience, and understanding the unique needs of renters, on-site teams, and centralized teams. It’s about enhancing – not replacing – the small, but mighty teams that make this industry special. If you missed it, here's the big news >> https://lnkd.in/gw9y3DFzFunnel enters a new era as multifamily’s first front-office-only AI platformFunnel enters a new era as multifamily’s first front-office-only AI platform
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Marc Siden reacted on thisFour states. Two weeks. Today marks the end of our roadshow kicking off Greystar’s pilot of Funnel Leasing Voice AI and Resident AI. Kevin King and I spent time with leasing teams across Colorado, Arizona, Georgia, and Illinois, and one theme came through loud and clear: they want more time back. Teams are juggling follow-ups, calls and administrative tasks while still trying to deliver an exceptional experience to the residents and prospects right in front of them. That’s where AI can make a real difference—taking repetitive work off their plates and giving them more time to focus on what humans do best: building relationships and creating great experiences. Thanks to the R&D team for joining us in person for this initiative: Sarah Fitzgerald, Brad Hudson, MBA, Holly Vaccaro, April Degner plus our virtual cheerleaders Sarah McArthur and Ashleigh Connell
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Founding Board Member
The Torch Program
- 11 years 1 month
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Working with underserved NYC high school students offering career path opportunities while promoting diversity in the Workplace
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Poker4life
- Present 9 years 5 months
Health
Using the love of Poker to raise funds and awareness for various causes and organizations including Paralysis, children’s tumor fund animal welfare, etc.
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