About me
I'm the Founder and CEO of Hello Generalist, a marketplace for ambitious startups to hire wildly accomplished, US based fractional operators from our pre-vetted community. I also lead Manual Override, a new accelerator for tech leaders who want to grow their independent businesses.
More broadly, I consider myself as Portfolio Careerist, building a portfolio of work that also includes my own fractional contracts, coaching for startup operations leaders, and work as an angel investor. I'm also the Host and Writer behind On Work, a podcast, YouTube, and Substack that explores all of these ideas.
I've spent most of my career building B2B marketplaces and working in the food and restaurant space. Prior to this chapter, I was Chief of Staff at Yelp Restaurants, and an exec at Chewse from Seed through our Series B acquisition (We raised $45M, and I built and lead Marketplace Supply, Delivery Operations, and US Market Expansion).
After 10 years in San Francisco, Sanket, my husband, and I moved to London in early 2024. Sanket's the Co-founder of Fleek, which was the reason for the move. Together, we spend time investing, both in startups and in our small real estate portfolio.
I'm a proud member of the Generalist Windy Path club: Along the way, I lead the partnerships team for Outstanding in the Field (ask me about driving their vintage tour bus), opened and closed a beloved local food truck, managed a coworking and community space (pre-WeWork!), and brought silly, fun, thought-provoking events to the Orlando community. As a college drop-out, I think anything is possible if you learn by doing, reading, and talking to smart people.
Outside of work, I spend time cooking and baking (it's become an obsession), dancing (I love the Rhythm and Motion classes at ODC), and sailing on the SF Bay (or really, on any boat, on any body of water).
I've found few things to be truer than this wonderful graph.
Helping people work for themselves: go deep, get weird, and live a big creative life
Companies find mission statements useful, so why not me? I think of my mission statement as a higher calling — the big goal I want to work toward for 10 - 15 years. Forever a work in progress, but here it is for now.
I'm on a mission to help others build meaningful independent careers by going deep, getting weird, and living a big, creative life for it.
- Go deep: The amount you fuck around is directly related to how much you find out. The extra good stuff is available to anyone, but it's buried deep. Growth is an inside job, one that we're never quite done with.
- Get weird: Life's too short to take it all too seriously, or approach problems with pessimism. Light and laughter are usually part of the solution.
- Live a big, creative life: It's all more fun with fewer permissions. I want to live in a world where we're free to explore interests, and contribute to whatever higher calling we see fit. I'm inspired by wonderful books like The Pathless Path and The Third Door.
You can get in touch at shaina@hellogeneralist.com.