tech-startups
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The PR Firm That Put Public Relations on Trial
Karla Jo Helms surveyed thousands of growth-company CEOs, borrowed the urgency of crisis management, and built an agency around a blunt proposition: publicity should have to show its work.
Before the pitch, find the holes
Orlando’s StarterStudio teaches tech founders to test demand, win customers and face the awkward questions investors ask. Its most useful lesson may be knowing which idea to stop building.
ROTSA wants Romania’s startups to think beyond the border
A prototype can be built in Cluj. A market has to be won. Romania’s tech startup association is putting foreign customers, practical mentoring and shared introductions on the same itinerary.
Opportunity Machine wants you to test the idea before you build the business
Inside a former Lafayette nightclub, Opportunity Machine helps founders find customers, question assumptions, and get to work. Its $100-a-month starting membership is only part of the story.
The Backflip Group
The Backflip Group is a boutique strategy consulting firm in New York that helps lean technology teams turn great products into scalable businesses. Founded by Ceylan Conger and Madeleine Ormond, both former in-house operators and consultants at companies including Meta, Etsy and Spotify, the firm specializes in bridging the gap between strategy and execution across SaaS, eCommerce, AI, digital media and D2C. Services span go-to-market strategy, pricing and packaging, upmarket expansion, new product incubation, financial modeling and fundraising materials, delivered by a small core team backed by a network of specialist experts.
Maria Palma
Maria Palma is a General Partner at Freestyle Capital, a San Francisco-based seed-stage venture capital firm. With over a decade of venture experience and investments in 35+ companies, she focuses on early-stage AI investments across application and infrastructure layers. Before Freestyle, she was a General Partner at Kindred Capital in London and a Principal at RRE Ventures in New York. She co-founded NYC Blend, a nonprofit connecting underrepresented founders to venture capital, and was named to Business Insider's 'The Seed 40: Best Women Early-Stage Investors of 2025.'