Maren Kate
Founder & CEO, Avra Talent. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveauthoroperator@marenkate ↗LinkedIn ↗avratalent.com ↗
Maren Kate founded and served as CEO of Zirtual, a virtual assistant platform that grew rapidly before halting operations in 2015 due to high burn rate. She later launched Avra Talent to assist remote companies with hiring frameworks and authored the book Going Remote.
1shows
1appearances
6statements
0resolved
0supported
0contradicted
Everything Maren Kate said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Maren Kate: Zirtual should have retained contractors to preserve 50% margins
“If I had to do it again, I would have changed our business model so we could keep people as contractors. It would have allowed us to actually pay them more as contractors. And it would have made us be able to keep that kind of 50% margin we originally had.”
Maren Kate Regrets Shutting Down Zirtual Instead of Pitching a Down Round
“So you look back and if I had it to do over, I would tell the guy who gave me that suggestion that that was the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I would have spent that week. I probably still would have had to lay most people off, but I would have spent that w…”
Brand-Name Employers Like Apple and Airbnb Do Not Predict Candidate Success
“It doesn't matter if I look at their resume and they used to work for Apple or Postmates or, you know, one of these darlings where I'm like, Ooh, they worked at Airbnb. They must be good. That is not an indicator of success.”
Kate: Zirtual Was a Services Business, Not Venture Backable
“We were not a venture backable business. We got venture backing, which happens often, but we were a services business. We had no technology component, even over the three and a half years after raising money, we built very little technology.”
Zirtual's Investor-Recommended Outsourced CFO Firm Was a Massive Mistake
“We were using an outsource CFO firm. That one of our investors recommended to us, and I think that was one of the biggest mistakes we made at Searchual. They were really, really bad”
Maren Kate: Founders must check references across managers, peers, and direct reports
“The way we do references is we think of people you worked for, people you worked with, and people who worked for you, because you can often somebody, you can trick one of those subsets, like maybe your boss thinks you're great, but the people who work with you…”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Maren's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 STARTUPS FOR THE REST OF USLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Avra Talent | 1 | 6 | — | full record on Startups For the Rest of Us → |