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This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here. Perplexity has become my primary tool for search. I rely on it for concise summaries of complex topics. I like the way it synthesizes information and provides reliable citations for me to explore further. I prefer Perplexitys well-organized responses to Googles laundry list of links, though I still use Google to find specific sites & addresses and for other micro-searches. Perplexitys not perfect. Ive rarely seen it hallucinate, but it can pick dubious sources or misinterpret your question. As with any tool that uses AI, the wording of your query impacts your result. Write detailed queries and specify preferred sources when you can. Double-check critical data or facts. Googles new AI Mode is a strong new competitor, and ChatGPT, Claude and others now offer AI-powered search, but I still rely on Perplexity for reasons detailed below. This post updates my previous post with new features, examples, and tips. My favorite new features Labs. Create slides, reports, dashboards, and Web apps by writing a detailed query and specifying the format of the results you want. Check out the Project Gallery for 20 examples. Voice Mode. I ask historical questions about books, curiosities about nature and science, and things I should already know about movies & music. The transcript shows up afterwards. Templates for Spaces. A large new collection of templates makes it easier to get started with custom instructions for various kinds of research, for sales/marketing, education, finance, or other subjects. Transcription. Upload & transcribe files up to 25mb. Ask for insights & ideas. Topical landing pages for finance, travel, shopping, and academics provide useful examples and new practical ways to use Perplexity. When to use Perplexity Get up to speed on a topic: Need to research North Korea-China relations? Ask Perplexity for a summary and sources. See the result. Research hyper-specific information: Ask for a list of organizations that crowdsource info about natural disasters. See the result. Explore personal curiosities: I was curious about Mozarts development as a violinist, so I asked for key dates and details. See the result. The best things about Perplexity Sources. Perplexity provides links to its sources, so you can follow-up on anything you want to learn more about. Tip: specify sources to prioritize. Summaries. Instead of long articles or lists of links, get straight-to-the-point answers that save time. Tip: specify when you want a summary table. Follow-ups. Ask follow-up questions to dive deeper into a topic, just like a conversation. For visual topics, Perplexity can surface relevant images and videos. Tip: customize your own follow-up query if defaults arent relevant. Deep Research. Get fuller results for queries where you need more info. Tip: Use Claude or ChatGPT to help you draft clearer, more thorough search prompts. Spaces. Group related searches into collections so theyre easy to return to later. I created one for Atlanta before a trip. You can keep a collection private, invite others to edit it, or share a public link. Tip: create a team space. Pages. Share search results by creating public pages you can customize. Watch a 1-minute video demo. Examples: Beginners Guide to Drumming, a Barcelona itinerary, and forest hotels in Sweden. Labs. This brand new feature is meant for generating interactives, data tables, and visuals. Results vary widely in my testing. Use Perplexity More Effectively You can use Perplexity on the Web, Mac, Windows, iOS and Android. Start with Perplexitys own introductory guide, check the how it works FAQ, then use the Get Started template to use Perplexity itself to learn more. Write detailed queries Include two or more sentences specifying what youre looking for and why. Your result will be better than if you just use keywords. Refine your settings Specify one or more preferred source types: Web, academic sources, social (i.e. Reddit), or financial (SEC filings). Pick your model. Advanced users can specify the AI flavor Perplexity uses. Id recommend maintaining Perplexitys default or the o3 option for research that requires complex reasoning. You can also use Grok, Gemini or Claude. Specify domains to search. Mention specific domains or kinds of sites youre nterested in for more targeted results. Use a domain limiter to narrow your search to a particular site or domain type, e.g. domain:.gov to focus only on government sites. Or just use natural language to limit Perplexity to certain kinds of sites, as in this example scouring CUNY sites for AI policies. Personalize your account. Add a brief summary of your interests, focus areas, and information preferences in your profile to customize the way Perplexity provides you with answers. Quick searches are fine when youre just looking for a simple fact, like when was CUNY founded. Pro searches are best for more intricate, multi-part queries. On the free plan you get 3 pro searches a day. Examples: Perplexity in action Check public opinion: Is there a Pew survey about discovering news through social media platforms? See the result. Explore historical archives: List literacy and education programs in high-growth African countries in the last decade. See the result. Discover patterns: Compare residential rent to residential real estate trends in California. See the results. Pricing Free for unlimited quick searches, 3 pro searches and 3 file uploads per day. $20/month for unlimited file and image uploads for analysis; access to Labs; and 10x as many citations. See the 2025 feature comparison. Privacy To protect your privacy when using Perplexity, capitalize on the following: Turn data retention off in your settings. (Screenshot). Turn on the Incognito setting if youre signed in to anonymize a search. Search in an incognito browser tab without logging into Perplexity. Bonus features The free Chrome Extension lets you summon a Perplexity search from any page. The summarize button hasnt always worked for me. The Perplexity Encyclopedia has a collection of tool comparisons An experimental beta Tasks feature lets you schedule customized searches Listen to an AI audio chat about Perplexity I generated w/ NotebookLM. Caveats Accuracy and confabulation: While Perplexity uses retrieval augmented generation to reduce errors, it’s not flawless. Check the sources it references. Document analysis limitations: The file size limit for uploads is 25MB. Covert larger files to text or use Adobes free compressor or SmallPDF. Deep Research, though fast, is not nearly as thorough as what is provided by ChatGPTs Deep Research or Geminis. Alternatives to Perplexity Google AI Mode: Google’s much-improved new AI search option provides summary responses like Perplexity. Heres an example of a comparison table it created for me and its take on 10 Perplexity features. Try it in labs. Free. Consensus: Superb for academic queries. Search 200 million peer-reviewed research papers and get a summary and links to publications. Useful for scientific or other research questions, e.g. active vs. passive learning or how cash transfers impact poverty. Pricing: Free for unlimited searches and limited premium use; $9/month billed annually for full AI capabilities. ChatGPT Web Search. Turn on the Search the Web option under the tools menu when using ChatGPT to enable Web searching. Search chats include inline links with sources. For example, heres a ChatGPT Web search query about Perplexity vs. other AI search tools. It includes a helpful ChatGPT-generated chart. As differentiators I like Perplexitys summaries, suggested follow-up queries, Labs, and the handy Voice Mode for quick questions. This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.
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Getting the hiring process right is one of the most critical and challenging aspects of building a startup. Early hires shape your companys culture, operational efficiency, and future growth, yet many founders face this task without prior hiring experience or a clear sense of what their evolving business truly needs. Without being thoughtful about hiringfrom crafting compelling job descriptions to setting consistent compensation and onboarding practicesstartups risk bringing in team members who are misaligned with the companys needs or culture, creating friction and slowing momentum. Over the course of my three decades as a startup operator, executive coach and educator of entrepreneurs, Ive observed that investing the time upfront to build strong hiring practices not only helps attract the right talent but also lays a foundation for a healthy, scalable organization. While you cant prevent occasional mis-hires, you can try to minimize the possibility by including a project phase in your hiring process or even considering a project as a paid consulting engagement (try before you buy) for both you and the candidate. This allows the candidate to demonstrate what they are capable of and what it might be like to work with themand them with youonce they are on board full time. Projects can give you a higher degree of confidence that this is the one, which can be super hard in the early stages of your startup when you are not sure what the one even is. If this is not a try-before-you-buy situation, I recommend that projects are performed just before you are ready to do reference checks and make an offer. This can be an especially helpful step if you are down to two finalists you really like so you can compare how each one approaches a project. Unless you plan to do a trial engagement with them, try not to choose a project that takes more than one to two hours to do unless you pay them for the work. A startup Ive worked with offers to pay for the time taken to do a project, and if the candidate declines payment, the startup makes a donation to a charity of the candidates choice as compensation for their time. Below are some projects that can be effective at startups. Keep in mind that these projects test the candidates approach more than whether they do the work perfectly. Build alignment with your team on what good looks like for each project and plan to debrief once the assignment is complete and/or presented. Here are a few examples of what good might look like. The First 90 Days This is a good general test for any new hire, especially an executive, but also for a people manager or technical leader. Have the candidate explain what their first ninety days on the job will look like. Either leave it wide open or offer a few prompts like, Who will you spend time with? or How will you get to know the business? or What accomplishments do you hope to make by the end of the first ninety days? Engineering and Design Projects While there are some nifty tools out there that can test coding skills for engineers, I am a strong advocate for testing the softer skills. Those who design and/or build your product should be able to demonstrate their work beyond coding or portfolio samples. The best type of project here is a brief scenario about building a new feature or capability for your product that will allow the candidate to demonstrate not just depth of syntax knowledge or design best practices, but also how they will work on a problem with your team. These projects can be done as homework, although its nice if it can be done in person or as part of a video interview. Present a scenario and ask the candidate how they will approach it. You could give them some alone time to think about it and then ask them to talk through it. Ask them to cite how they thought about it and to explain the direction they took and why. Prepare to have another approach or idea for the scenario when they walk through their work. This can help gauge how the candidate handles feedback and if they are willing to collaborate on ideas. Scenarios for Non-Engineering Teams (Marketing, Sales, Product) I prefer scenario tests over presentations of a non-engineering candidates past work because such tests will show you how they use their experience to approach something new. Scenarios you may ask them to work through can be actual challenges you are facing, or they can be hypothetical. Here are some quick examples of scenario tests for a few functional areas: Product: Our CTO just came back from a listening tour with some of our customers and wants to explore a new set of features to expand our product offerings. These offerings are not on the product roadmap. What steps would you take to understand these new features and how would you approach the prioritization process? Marketing: Were about to launch a new product for our customers. What steps would you take to plan for this product launch and how will you measure its success? Sales: We are building a product to attract new customers in a new segment. What information do you need to prepare your team to sell this new product and how will you set sales goals for the team? You could imagine similar scenarios for finance, customer sup- port, or other functional roles. Remember, these candidates dont know how your business functions day-to-day, so this isnt about whether they have a perfect plan but more about how they approach the problem. With all the interviews and projects, you still may not get it right every time. Again, hiring is hard. Thats why the try-before-you-buy approach is often the best way to go for both the candidate and your startup. One way to ease that process, if a trial candidate can work full time before converting to a permanent employee, is to offer them equity in your startup that will be granted when they convert, but with a backdated vesting schedule to when they started their trial. If youre hiring for a role for the first time and no one on your team has experience with that roleso no one knows what good looks likeask an experienced advisor, investor, or friend with experience to be part of the interview process. They should be able to interview the candidate and help you formulate the projects you may assign. Excerpted with permission from After the Idea: What It Really Takes to Create and Scale a Startup. Copyright 2025 by Julia Austin. Available from Basic Venture, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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Whats the quickest way to get attention on LinkedIn? Some users think theyve cracked the code by flaunting elite schools and prestigious firms at the very top of their profile where job titles typically go. Alums from the likes of consulting giant McKinsey, Harvard Business School, and investment bank Goldman Sachs are now shouting about their networks from the digital rooftops. But does name-dropping on your LinkedIn profile work? What about if you did a short stint at a company? Some people, like my husband, swear by this strategy, others think its pretentious. Ultimately, it depends on who is looking. The benefits Leslie Danford, founder of Vitaminis, a vitamin juice shot brand sold nationally, says adding Bain, the consulting firm, and HBS to her LinkedIn headline has opened doors, especially since she had to fundraise for her company. Bain and HBS are standardized experiencesits almost shorthand, says Danford. Danford says that cluttering the top of her LinkedIn with something more detailed risks people skipping over her profile, whereas elite brand names can make a profile stand out. (LinkedIn caps headlines at 220 characters.) Its almost like a marketing headline, she says. Its quick and delivers a message. Unsurprisingly, the people who could benefit the most from this strategy are the ones who are not part of these elite networks to begin with, says Eric Lin, an associate professor at Oberlin College and Conservatory and chair of the business program. Lin has studied whether more detailed LinkedIn profiles boost pay. He found that people with more detailed LinkedIn profiles had higher pay and access to better opportunities, but this did not hold true for individuals with elite educational or work backgrounds. They have less to gain because they already have these networks, he says. For those outside these circles, showcasing prestigious brands on a public platform like LinkedIn could help them reach people and opportunities they otherwise wouldnt. The Drawbacks However, there can be downsides to name-dropping. For one, insiders may notice when someone is inflating their résumé such as listing a short course at HBS instead of a full MBA or an administrative role rather than client-facing work. If some people dont understand the differences, then the signal kind of works, for others it doesnt hold as much weight and maybe it backfires, says Lin. In addition, Lin, who has researched scandal firms and halo firms, says perceptions can change at any moment. At one point, working for Enron, the energy giant, or Arthur Anderson, a top-tier accounting firm, was considered prestigious. In his research, Lin found that even when former employees mentioned those firms but had nothing to do with the period or position that caused the reputational fallout, they were more likely to take a hit on future pay just by association. Yet, its not always clear how someone will feel about a company. Despite McKinseys enormous brand value, some feel less warmly about the consulting firm due to its role in the opioid crisis. As things do or dont fall into favor, theres a loose association of stigma, Lin says. (Lin has experience with both McKinsey and Harvard Business School, but does not name-drop them on this LinkedIn headline.) Many of those firms signal access to top-flight networks, not present-day experience, adds Megan Van Buiten, cofounder of People Conduit, a coaching firm. While its likely the candidate had to endure a rigorous selection process to get into these elite companies, these brands dont tell recruiters much about an individuals skill set. Its kind of a networking magnet, but it can definitely raise red flags, she adds. Some hiring managers may be suspicious about workers relying too heavily on gaining credibility from the elite institution versus showcasing skills like leadership or adaptability. Van Buiten recommends creating a LinkedIn headline that speaks to your current role and what impact youve had at your prior companies rather than tossing out names. Those interested in learning more about your experience can scroll your profile to find additional detail, she adds. It should not be used as a crutch, she says. You want to convey more how you are as a person rather than a brand. For instance, instead of saying ex-McKinsey, you might mention that youre a global strategy and transformation leader or have built high performing teams, she explains. John Peters, founder of shoe company Amberjack, recalls changing his LinkedIn headline roughly six years ago from listing his job as a management consultant to listing his elite affiliations. He needed to do cold reach outs on LinkedIn for his new company, which did not yet have a name, and he wanted to increase his chances of a reply. His LinkedIn now says: Founder | Ex-McKinsey | Cornell, which he feels is a testament to his credibility as an entrepreneur. Still, he admits to being on the fence about adding an Ivy League school and a top consulting firm to the headline. I really dont like that it feels braggadocio, but I felt inclined to do it, says Peters. Im trying to increase any chance of a reply. Peters says he will never have empirical evidence of whether this is working, but since his current company does not have the name recognition, hes willing to risk it. Even when someone looks up his name outside of LinkedIn, they can see the elite education and work background without clicking on his profile. Every inch counts, he says.
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