Everything42

Life, the Universe, and Fusion42 #007

Hello Hello,
I hope you all had a fantastic week and are making great moves. It was an up and down week here at Fusion-42. Here’s the 😇 Good, 😈 Bad and the 🤢 Ugly so we can all learn together.

😇 The Good

🛠 Hiring & Human Capital: A Critical Piece of the Startup Journey
Talent makes or breaks a startup. We’ve seen this firsthand—the right hires at the right time can mean the difference between scaling successfully or stalling out.

That’s why we’re making big changes to how hiring happens in the Fusion42 community. Channel 19 is no longer just a Jobs Board—it’s now an active space for hiring discussions, startup talent strategy, and making the right connections.

19 💼 Hiring and Human Capital

🎉 Enter Our New Channel Champ: A Hiring Powerhouse
To lead the way, we’re bringing in someone with deep expertise in startup hiring.

With 25+ years in business—including 10 in startups—our new Channel Champ has been on both sides of the table:
✅ Sales rep, recruiter, Head of HR, and founder
✅ Advised thousands of startups on hiring & growth
✅ 100% success rate across 421 projects

🙌 Meet Ray Gibson!
We’re thrilled to welcome Ray Gibson to Fusion42. With his experience in hiring, human capital, and startup growth, we’re elevating the way founders find, attract, and retain top talent.

Stay tuned—exciting things ahead! 🚀

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🏆 Progress, Growth & Impact

We’re doubling down on real startup impact. The free tier gives you access to community and weekly sessions, but if you’re ready to go deeper, Fusion42+ delivers:

🚀 Fusion42+ Membership – $42/month

✅ Community Access – Connect with top founders & funders
✅ Live & Recorded MasterClasses – Learn from experts
✅ Workshops & Playbooks – Deep-dive, tactical content
✅ Exclusive Market Insights – Fundraising trends & data
✅ Office Hours & Mentorship – Direct expert support
✅ Fundraising – Access Pitch Kung Fu & FUSED

📅 Upcoming Learning & Masterclasses

We’ve lined up high-impact learning sessions for the next month:

🏗 A full hiring blueprint & playbook to build the right team
🎨 Deep dive into product design – the full dos & don’ts

More expert-led sessions to keep you ahead of the curve

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📊 Session Show-Up Rate: 58.9%

We’re happy with this strong turnout—but there’s always room to grow. As we say:
👉 "You gotta show up to get **it done” 😀

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📢 More Learning, More Access

We’re making high-value content more accessible for founders, framers and funders, You can now dive into exclusive insights, masterclasses, and deep-dive podcasts—all in one place.

🔗 Explore it all at insights.fusion-42.com

🚀 Raise summit Interviews
Gain real-world investor wisdom from our Raise Summit interviews, with 50 hours of exclusive content.

🎥 Masterclass Insights
Now access our expert-led masterclasses. Whether it’s resilience, Gtm, fundraising, or everything that you need to know to follow AI, you’ll find actionable insights to level up your game.

🎙️ Deep-Dive Reviews
We cut through the noise to bring practical, no-BS critical knowledge through our Deepdive reviews. Get direct, unfiltered insights to help you the grind.

📅 More exclusive content to help you stay ahead being released every week.

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😈 The Bad

➡️ Community growth has been pretty good so far this year, but has flatlined over the last few weeks 🤔.

📊 Our recent survey highlighted a few key issues which we are truly grateful for and aware of the challenges.

We are certainly addressing these on a daily basis and for the ❤️ of Startups, fully focused and obsessed on making this the most valuable Global Super Accelerator.
Remember these words “Global Super Accelerator” 🚀

But but 👇

Reply with your votes or thoughts! (in the comments below or directly in Telegram) Your feedback helps shape what’s next.

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🤢 The Ugly

The build is too slow, and releases aren’t happening as per your own advice—this needs fixing.

Fusion42 may be a startup, but it’s backed by deep experience. The founding team has more data points than most startups ever acquire, carefully selected to avoid common pitfalls. Between the three of us, we’ve invested in hundreds of startups, giving us a front-row seat from both sides of the table of what works—and what doesn’t.

We’ve already run the key experiments:

✅ Problem fit – Engaged thousands of startups, investors, corporates, and governments.
✅ MVE – Built platforms, communities, and programmes.
✅ MVP –
⭐️ Launched & scaled a matching platform (4,000 startups, 1,000 investors).
⭐️ Built ecosystem-defining communities across 20+ cities.
⭐️ Designed & led game-changing programmes that produced multiple unicorns.

No Distance Left to Run, Closing N2.

🚀 Execution with velocity matters more than just the 0-1 speed merchants. We recognize the need for momentum and are sharpening our focus on:

✅ Clearer priorities – Ensuring we deliver is what matters to you most
✅ Strategic iteration – Refining execution without wasted cycles
✅ Stronger operational cadence – Balancing speed with sustainable growth

We’re not about rushed releases—we’re about the right moves, at the right time, with the right impact.

You can read more about this in tomorrow’s article “Working IN vs ON the Business”—an ever-so-gentle thought bomb that turned into a scene from fight club:

💡 Big ideas don’t build businesses—execution does.

Too many founders get lost in planning the dream instead of doing the work. The real strategy emerges from action, not endless discussions. If you’re still in the vision stage, ask yourself:

🚀 Have I actually earned the right to work ON the business yet?

If the answer isn’t a resounding yes, you already know what needs to happen next. Get to work.

GET IT HERE

Cheers,

Enjoy and hope to see you soon.

Derek, Henrik and Kurt

If you have not joined the Fusion42 Community on Telegram —
it is probably time to do so.

For the ❤️ of Startups

📅 Online Webinars. Get the calendar here.

FUSION42 Startup Resilience

Tuesday 25 Feb 20:00 - 21:00 GMT+4 0800 PST | 17:00 CET | 20:00 GST

Captable 101 with Antoine Burna

What’s on the Agenda?
➡️ The basics of its composition: the share classes, the columns (issued, diluted, converted)
➡️ The use in financial projections for future rounds scenarios
➡️ The use in Fundraising and Exits
➡️ Q&A

GTM for Startups

Wednesday 26 February 0800 PST | 17:00 CET | 20:00 GST

Marketer builds several million dollar companies.

Come hear veteran marketer Kris Mullens sound off on building several 7m+ figure ventures, and how you should be thinking about GTM

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Thursday 20 February 0800 PST | 17:00 CET | 20:00 GST

For the ❤️ of startups

✌🏼 & 💙
Derek

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