This pioneer has made a major impact as she’s merged marketing and communications with investor relations, bridging the gap in multiple up-and-coming startups. Now at buzzy FinTech start-up, Pipe, Yasmin Moaven is helping change the way entrepreneurs look at capitalizing their business from product-market fit to growth and beyond. This Vice President of Marketing & Communications is contributing towards unlocking a new asset class recurring revenue, which acts similar to a fixed income-like product. Via Pipe’s platform, companies can now access the annual value of their recurring revenue streams upfront as investors bid on those revenue streams at a slight discount. Yasmin and Pipe are creating a major movement in FinTech today by allowing companies a new way to scale on their terms without debt or dilution.
Full name: Yasmin Moaven
Current job title: Vice President, Marketing & Communications
Current company: Pipe
Current location: New York, Miami, and Denver
“I always tell people that I lived in this trifecta of male dominance: auto, finance, and tech. That’s definitely a real thing. It can be an intimidating place to live, but it also can be an amazing opportunity to establish something that doesn’t exist and make an impact for future women who weren’t told it was possible."
From a career start in the editorial world, Yasmin made the jump as print was quickly losing value, to a role with the City of Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board where she ran Strategic Alliances and Partnerships. “I worked with a lot of traditional and emerging brands, including a little startup at the time called Uber, which is where I was first bitten by the tech bug. Around the same time, one of my friends started working at TrueCar and introduced me to them, and I worked in the marketing department for then-CEO, Scott Painter. After Scott retired from the company, within a year, I left and joined Sotheby's, the auction house, to run marketing and communications for their North and South America divisions.”
With less than six months into the new job, Yasmin had the opportunity to start as the Director of Marketing and then about a year later to head the entire Investor Relations and Communications function for Fair (a company founded by Scott Painter, Yasmin’s former boss). “In less than 18 months, the company became a unicorn and I helped raise over $2 billion dollars of equity and debt financing from some of the most prolific investors and institutions around the world.”
At Fair, Yasmin met her now fearless leaders and Co-founders/Co-CEO’s Harry Hurst and Josh Mangel. “One of the first M&A deals I worked on at Fair was to acquire Harry and Josh’s first company Skurt. They were humble yet so hungry, and all I remember was how much they cared for their team and how the acquisition impacted them, not the founders themselves. After exiting Fair in 2019, and once COVID hit, I really found myself searching for purpose and a way to make a greater impact. I kept in touch with Harry, and every time I spoke to him about what they were building at his new company, Pipe, I couldn’t help but find myself enthralled with the problem they were trying to solve. Because in fact, my entire career has been spent being a force multiplier for some of the most amazing founders in the game, and I watched them get diluted down to single-digit percentage ownership levels in companies they built with their blood, sweat, and tears.”
So, in the midst of the pandemic, Yasmin decided to take the leap to join the early team at Pipe, to help build a platform that now helps thousands of founders and early-stage investors capitalize on the fruits of their labor without forfeiting ownership. “I am lucky to be part of a team that is not only redefining how companies will be financed in the future by unlocking a new asset class - revenue, but also building one of the most collaborative and employee first cultures I’ve ever had the pleasure of being a part of.”
Through Pipe’s trading platform, the company provides direct access to the capital markets for companies of all sizes, ranging from early-stage all the way to publicly listed companies. Pipe works with companies that want to access their recurring revenue streams upfront by turning their quarterly or monthly recurring revenue into annual recurring revenue, without debt or dilution - which has never been done before.
As Pipe is in build mode currently, Yasmin is focused on building a team that can really lay the groundwork to help educate both sides of their trading platform (companies and investors). This includes some big partnerships, content creation as well as funnel optimization as the company grows and expands its offering.
With being a trailblazer comes challenges, and one of the toughest challenges that Yasmin faced was overcoming this idea of not belonging. “I always tell people that I lived in this trifecta of male dominance: auto, finance, and tech. That’s definitely a real thing. It can be an intimidating place to live, but it also can be an amazing opportunity to establish something that doesn’t exist and make an impact for future women who weren’t told it was possible. At Pipe, I find myself super grateful to have the ability to build a culture where we are intentional about “psychological safety” and building an employee-first environment where everyone is allowed a seat at the table.”
Yasmin considers Scott Painter, the founder of TrueCar and Fair, as one of the most impactful mentors in her career. “He saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. He introduced me to a world that is usually meant for men with access and he gave me - a first-generation American, brown, Muslim woman a seat at the table. And not to mention, empowered me to run deals and challenge the status quo, and for that, I am forever grateful for and will always be indebted.” Having been grateful for all the opportunities she’s been afforded, Yasmin is determined to instill the same confidence she gained through her experiences with other women in the industry.
More on Yasmin
Currently Live: New York/Miami/Denver
Living arrangement: Apartment
Family at home: My dog Frankie!
Hometown: Denver, CO
Favorite hobby: Running and eating - in that order ha.
Favorite part of your day: Mornings. Where I get to catch up on my Twitter feed, news, and texts from the day before!
Favorite show to binge: Love Island UK and Succession
Daily Diary
Monday
7:00 am: I wake up and do my typical scroll down Twitter lane to make sure Harry didn’t start a Twitter storm (I kid haha ;) ) and then read the latest press headlines for the day. I don’t take calls before 9:00 am usually so I can walk my Bernedoodle Frankie and get a run in before I’m stuck behind the never-ending Zoom calls for the day.
9:00 am: I come back from my run and shower and put on my latest sweatsuit/WFH look. Updating a work wardrobe hasn’t been a part of my priority when helping to build a company and WFH over the past year, admittedly. And to put a fine point on it, I don’t think I’ve worn mascara or real makeup on a Zoom call since the pandemic started. So a good tinted moisturizer and concealer is my go-to and then I pour myself an iced coffee and review my meetings for the day and answer my 50+ Slack messages that have accumulated over the weekend.
10:00 am: My first one-on-one. I always feel like I’m more pleasant on my first internal call. Bright eyed and starry eyed, but feel myself hoping the coffee kicks in soon.
12:30 pm: This is one of the largest cross functional calls my team leads alongside the Sales and Finance teams. I don’t know what it is but this call always gets me jazzed. It’s about the nitty gritty of the funnel and probably the one meeting that gets the entire org excited and ramped up about the challenges we face for the week. I get a mini-high from this meeting and hope it carries me through the rest of my day.
1:30 pm: I have another 1x1, but this time with one of my finance heads. We strategize on some of the upcoming launches. But more importantly, we talk about how the whole WFH thing makes us feel - it’s oddly cleansing to know I’m not the only one that misses in-person connection but loves the autonomy of remote life. We are then abruptly interrupted by Frankie barking in the background at absolutely nothing and I jump off quickly to quiet him down and hydrate before my marathon of calls continues.
2:00 pm: Answer 10 emails. Gosh, that felt good. I use the Superhuman app so this whole get to inbox zero thing is real!
3:00 pm: Jump on a call with my Director of Growth. We talk about all things funnel but more importantly what’s broken and how to fix it. This is one of my meetings every week where we just dig in and divide and conquer. We’re a marketing team of two today so we’ll take all the time we can get!
4:00 pm: This is my weekly PR call. We spend the majority of the time really thinking through executing on all the strategies we’ve mapped out for the quarter and any new inquiries that have come through. Today our call went longer than normal as we’re thinking through an upcoming launch.
5:00 pm: I have a final call with our creative/brand team on the West Coast. We’re working on our latest marketing campaign and using 3D graphics and animation is no joke! I feel lucky to have such a talented team that normally would not be accessible for a start-up this stage and size.
7:00 pm: I put in my UberEats order because what else does a Manhattanite take more seriously than their takeout order. My go-to orders are Sweetgreen, Shake Shack, and the local Italian spot across the street. And yes, I still order delivery even though I should walk - whoops! I answer more Slacks and emails while I wait for my food.
8:00 pm: Food arrives. I watch one episode of the latest show I’m binging and then head back to my computer to finalize the last two copy briefs for the day.
11:00pm I call my family, founders, or best friend on the West Coast to catch up on the day, shower, and then head to bed. I proceed to end my day the way it started - I answer my texts, scroll Twitter and finally doze off.
Tuesday
7:30 am: My dog Frankie wakes me up with a paw to the face and a ‘Hi mom can you feed me’ look.
9:00 am: Hit my emails. Pushing for that inbox zero.
11:00 am: I have my weekly call with Harry, one of Pipe’s founders. We catch up on life events but then quickly dive deep into a partnership we’re launching. Harry is a super involved founder so I really use our one-on-ones to get inspired, think out of the box and big picture. Once we talk about the grand vision, I pull out a Google Doc (my go-to) and sketch out the outline of the partnership and the teams needed to execute and then draft a briefing doc to add to our project tracker in Notion. I really try to write thorough briefs especially since we’re remote. Context is everything and without it’s hard to prioritize competing priorities. I always find myself feeling super inspired and grateful to be on the journey that is Pipe after our one-on-ones.
1:00 pm: I block an hour just for recruiting. Trying hard to be intentional and thoughtful when thinking through hiring but if I don’t prioritize during the day, the swarm of meetings will get the best of me.
3:00 pm: I have a candidate call. Probably one of my favorite things to do is to talk about Pipe and why it’s an amazing place to work. I might’ve gone overboard but I think it was worth it. I push them to the next phase of interviews and document my feedback in Greenhouse (our recruiting system).
4:30 pm: I hop on a quick call with my Director of Growth to discuss the media plan for the month. Man, is his passion for growth infectious!
5:00 pm: I eat my first meal. Yes, coffee saved me all day.
7:00 pm: I get on a call with our web developer to discuss website updates and copy tweaks.
8:00 pm: I need a break! Officially exhausted. I walk Frankie since it's cooled down by this point and get ready to go to dinner with a potential strategic partner.
9:00pm: I go to dinner with a CMO at another fintech startup. We both look at each other in sheer exhaustion and immediately order a drink. We talk about how real Zoom fatigue is and then proceed to map out how to operationalize our partnership. Excited about this one -more to come!
11:00pm: We close out and I’m finally off to bed.
Friday
9:30 am: I go for a longer run than usual and treat myself to an Ice Matcha from Cha Cha Matcha.
11:00 am: I hop in a planning meeting for product, engineering and marketing to quickly discuss tweaks to the new sign-up flow.
12:00 pm: I jump on an impromptu call with our Chief Business Officer.
2:00 pm: Running through my email like I’m in a marathon. Answering every single email with… Apologies for the delay like it’s my first name. Ugh, I hate that I don’t have time for my inbox the way I’d like to.
3:00 pm: I have my weekly call with Josh, our other co-founder/co-CEO. His energy is so calming and we just jam through product and marketing updates, but then we start to reflect about how far Pipe has come and our prior experiences. Reflecting is so important. We all forget how needed it actually is. I am always so appreciative of our time together it puts so much in perspective.
5pm: Finally done with the back-to-back calls and emails. Headed to get my hair done, with no shame, I have booked two hours on my calendar and will be back online via mobile by 7pm.
8:30 pm: I meet my girlfriends out for a drink in Soho and then we proceed to a friend's house for a birthday dinner in Williamsburg.
12:00 am: Nothing good ever happens past 12:00 am so I’m in bed and passed out - can’t wait to sleep in the next morning!
Reach Out to Yas on LinkedIn.