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How to Develop Best in Class Sales Efficiency
May 10, 2019
A public market investors asked me if there are any patterns in the list of recent software IPOs with the best sales efficiencies. As I looked through the list, I noticed one.
What Start-Up Founders Should Learn From The World’s Best Poker Player
May 9, 2019
The Las Vegas sun usually glares brightly in July, but the casino playing
room is so dimly lit that only the poker table and the two remaining players are visible.
Master the subtle art of pitching perfect
April 4, 2019
To pitch is to convince, compel, to persuade and sway. It’s a subtle art and one that needs to be mastered if we hope to close an investment round, secure the needed support, or convince whichever audience of whatever worthiness.
The Psychology of Startup Growth
James Currier is one of Silicon Valley’s foremost experts in growth and network effects. A four-time serial entrepreneur, having founded companies like Tickle (150 million users), Wonderhill Gaming (45 million users), he helped more than 10 companies get to more than 10 million users, including Goodreads and Poshmark
Viewing Valuation as a Discount of Future Future Value
Why does growth rate matter so much? Why does growth rate influence valuation so much? I was reading a book recently written by a hedge fund manager who discussed valuation frameworks. His explanation was one of the best I’ve come across.
State of the cloud 2019
A decade ago there weren’t any private cloud companies valued at $1 billion. Today, there are 55 private cloud unicorns. If we include the additional 44 public cloud companies, there are 99 cloud players valued over $1 billion.
How much runway should you target between financing rounds?
Entrepreneurs have limited access to hard data that could help them make sound decisions when trying to build a successful new company. This is generally due to a fundamental lack of information about the materialized events of previously successful companies.
What to Look for When Investing in Startups
If you want a safe bet with little risk, investing your money is easy. Just buy Treasury bonds. They carry practically no risk and are guaranteed by the full faith of the United States Government.
This Type Of Store May Actually Survive The Amazon Era
The experience of children’s boutique stores shows there may still be hope for some mom and pop shops.
The real reasons why a VC passed on your startup
You’re more likely hear about the companies that venture capitalists said “yes” to — the big funding rounds, the success stories, and the unicorns. But the day-to-day reality of being a VC is that we spend ~99% of our time saying “no.” It’s a core competency of any VC. Or at least it should be.
What’s Really Disrupting Business? It’s Not Technology
Technology doesn’t drive disruption—customers do. In a new book, marketing professor Thales Teixeira argues that successful disruptors are faster to spot and serve emerging customer needs than larger competitors.
Can Lambda School Become a $100M Business? A Growth Case Study
When I graduated in 2014 with a 4-year marketing degree, I realized how little I learned that was directly applicable to the needs of employers. It wasn’t until spending an entire summer taking online courses that I landed my first job in the tech industry.
All Things Sales! 16 Mini-Lessons for Startup Founders
As a former CEO and software engineer (Citrix, XenSource, VERITAS, etc.), board member of GitHub (recently acquired by Microsoft), and lecturer in management at the Stanford Graduate School of Busines, a16z general partner Peter Levine is constantly asked “Why sales?” by entrepreneurs and technical founders.
After 25 years studying innovation, here is what I have learned
It’s been more than 25 years since I wrote my first book, The Innovator’s Dilemma. Since that time I’ve learned that the best answers to the enormous problems we are struggling with always starts with asking the right question.
Help! I want to pitch VCs but don’t want anyone stealing my idea
Don’t worry about someone stealing your idea. Everyone thinks what they are doing is so important and big and special. But here’s the surprising part: That doesn’t mean other people will want to go do it.
The most powerful person in Silicon Valley
Billionaire Masayoshi Son–not Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg–has the most audacious vision for an AI-powered utopia where machines control how we live. And he’s spending hundreds of billions of dollars to realize it. Are you ready to live in Masa World?
A Blinding Flash Of The Obvious
Tom Peters reflects on a half-century spent studying management. Tom Peters earned his MBA and PhD at Stanford Graduate School of Business in the 1970s, under the unconventional tutelage of organizational psychologists Eugene Webb and James March.
Blockchain Can Wrest the Internet From Corporations’ Grasp
AS THE INTERNET has evolved over its 35-year lifespan, control over its most important services has gradually shifted from open source protocols maintained by non-profit communities to proprietary services operated by large tech companies.
4 Assumptions That Are Hurting Your Business
Assumptions hurt businesses. Remaining blind to the causes won’t make you immune to the damaging effects.
There Are Only Three Startup Stages
When you meet startups and VCs these days, there’s usually a lot of verbiage spent on defining stage (pre-seed, seed, post-seed, pre-A, Early A, A, Late A, B, C…) As a venture eco-system, we continue to struggle with this.
The Killer Combo: When Stored Value Meets a Network Effect
The belief that products should always be as easy to use as possible is a sacred cow of the tech world.
How Venture Capitalists Really Assess a Pitch
Before Lakshmi Balachandra entered academia, she spent a few years working for two venture capital firms, where she routinely witnessed a phenomenon that mystified her.
What the Best Mentors Do
Mentorship comes in many flavors. It doesn’t always work unless leaders bear in mind a few common principles.
This Is Why Your Startup Will Fail
Stop focusing on gaps in the market—they don’t matter. Look instead at your own strengths.
4 Things You Need To Build An Innovative Culture
Before you embark on your next reorganization designed to “break down silos” you might want to think about how informal relationships develop within your enterprise.
Gina Gotthilf on growing Duolingo to 200 million users
For Duolingo, the world’s most downloaded education app, growth is fundamentally about retention. If users don’t stick around, they won’t learn and inevitably won’t share Duolingo with their friends.
What Do You Need to Start a Buisness
There’s 5 things I believe that you must have before starting any business.
Why product market-fit is so important for Growth Marketing
One year after launching, UBER’s growth was so strong that it got one new rider for every 7 rides – without spending a single dollar on marketing. Instagram had 25,000 signups on its first day.
The Diffusion of Innovation – Strategies for Adoption of Products
The diffusion of innovation is the process by which new products are adopted (or not) by their intended audiences.
Thinking About Thinking: Tiny Changes, Big Results
How is it we become better at thinking? How is is we learn to make better decisions? And if we can’t make better decisions how is it we learn to avoid stupidity.
How to Build a Startup that Gets Acquired
There are many reasons to found a startup. There are many reasons to work at a startup. But there’s only one reason your company got funded — liquidity.
The 3 Data Streams That Every Founder Needs
And why “just asking customers” isn’t enough.
Gathering real-world feedback from customers is a core concept of Customer Development as well as the Lean Startup.
