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The NFX Frameworks Collection for Founders
July 29, 2020
We’ve found time and again that the best Founders seek to understand the frameworks underlying success, much more than the tactics. While tactics vary, frameworks are often maps that lead to foundational truths and North Stars toward building great companies.
How CEOs Think: 5 Mental Models to Shift from Founder to CEO
July 21, 2020
Now that I am an early-stage investor, I am often asked about my journey from Founder to CEO at Trulia. How did I navigate the transition from the early days of building a product, to the later days of managing an organization of 1000+ employees? How does one transform himself or herself from being an individual contributor or product manager, into a successful company leader at scale?
How, When & Why VCs Do “Due Diligence” Pre and Post Term Sheet
June 30, 2020
Every investor is a bit different, but I think it’s important to understand investors do 2 stages of due-diligence: pre-term sheet, and post-term sheet.
In the old days … there was more time. VCs could do a ton of diligence over weeks before getting to a term sheet. Customer diligence, IP diligence, financial diligence, team diligence, etc. But things, in many cases, are just faster now.
The Medium Post is the Message
May 24, 2020
One question I hear a lot is that people still have a hard time wrapping their head around the famous Marshall McLuhan line, The medium is the message. It’s a genuinely hard concept! You can’t explain it in a few easy sound bites.
Gotta Startup Idea? Then Read This.
January 9, 2020
Most of our start-up ideas are stillborn. They rarely make it out of our head. We are caught up in an illusion that everything needs to be perfect — and good enough to disrupt the existing system.
Product Zeitgeist Fit: A Cheat Code for Spotting and Building the Next Big Thing
January 9, 2020
It’s a Silicon Valley truism that product-market fit matters most for a startup. A founder’s ability to achieve that elusive goal is what separates the mega-donkey-deca-unicorn success stories from the vast majority of startups that either die quick and sudden deaths or peter out slowly, unnoticed.
The Top 7 Mistakes I Learned From Hundreds of Entrepreneurs
January 7, 2020
I talk with entrepreneurs all the time — Startup founders and Innovators. We talk about successes and failures. We talk about their journey, their vision, what worked and what didn’t. I talk to both established founders and newbies in equal measure, plus everything in between.
You need one of four things to make your startup a candidate for VC investment
December 17, 2019
I spend most of my consulting days with founders and teams ranging from idea stage to minimum viable product (MVP) to early commercialisation, so I get asked one question a lot, “What will angel or venture capital investors want to see from us before we’re good candidates for investment?”
5 Signs That You’ve Set Yourself Up for Failure
November 19, 2019
How will you grow your business from $100,000 per year to $100,000 per month? How will you scale from 10 employees to 100 employees? How will you propel your business forward?
How Startups Measure Success Before They Generate Revenue
October 25, 2019
Let’s talk about whether or not you can determine a startup will be a success before it actually brings in any money. Because while there’s no good way to do that, there are some cheats.
Are You Ready To Lead Your Startup Through the Growth Stage?
October 22, 2019
Most of us entrepreneurs chase success like a dog chases a car — we don’t know what to do with it when we catch it. That’s because most of us have at least one weakness in our growth game.
Seven Questions with Jack Dorsey
October 10, 2019
Jack Dorsey is co-founder and CEO of Square and Twitter. To both learn and become more self-aware, he actively seeks out new opportunities that make him uncomfortable.
Startup Fundraising 101: The Pros and Cons of Different Sources of Funding
September 23, 2019
So you’re raising money for your startup. You have a product and a little traction, and now you need to grow. Who do you talk to? How do you get the round closed as quickly as possible without screwing your long-term prospects?
5 Signs You’re About to Run Out of Cash
September 16, 2019
Given how important managing cash is to companies, it’s surprisingly hard to get visibility into one’s cash position, and also to know when a cash crunch is looming, a treasury consultant said in a webinar on Tuesday.
What Makes a Strong Startup CEO
August 12, 2019
In all the companies I founded and invested in, one thing was always clear about leading a startup — it’s hard. Really hard. Most Founders won’t come to their startups with years of leadership experience. Yet I’ve seen firsthand that there is a direct link between a Founder’s leadership skills and the outcome of their startup.
How VCs Decide to Take a First Meeting – 12 Reasons
August 16, 2019
As an early stage Founder, you need to get inside the heads of VCs. Like you, VCs have a job to do, and they have a limited number of meetings they can take. So once they get introduced to you, the first thing they need to do is decide whether to have a meeting with you… or not.
From Zero to IPO: How Growth Needs to Evolve at Every Startup Stage
July 31, 2019
Brian Rothenberg’s career has spanned every stage of startup growth, from scrappy zero to triumphant IPO. We’ll start with a snapshot of “zero”: It’s 2009, and Rothenberg and his SkillSlate co-founder Bartek Ringwelski are piled on the seat of a rickety Vespa knockoff, zooming precariously through the streets of Manhattan to their next pitch meeting.
Seven Questions with Amy Sun
July 18, 2019
Amy Sun joined Sequoia as a partner in 2018 after working as a product manager for Facebook and Uber. A lifelong painter, she says her creative process has a lot in common with company-building: she starts with an idea, then explores new directions as she goes, seeing where the process takes her.
The Fundraising Checklist: 13 Proof Points for Series A
July 3, 2019
Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen a transformation of the seed and series A financing environment that has changed the game for Founders – the hurdles are now higher. To give Founders every chance at success, we’re making public our Series A checklist. While it’s focused on raising a top Series A, it’s applicable to all early-stage fundraising.
What Makes A Perfect Startup Pitch
June 19, 2019
No one can ignore the power of a pitch. It’s tremendously valuable for entrepreneurs, as introducing your company to the public attracts investors, clients, partners, and talents for your business. Pitching your company may be one of the most important things you have to do as a founder: it demonstrates your own understanding of your own business.
Redpoint SaaS Startup Key Metrics Template
June 18, 2019
Over the last decade or so, I’ve compiled a metrics sheet to summarise a SaaS business. While no living document like this is ever perfect, this is currently the best board-level summary of the overall health of a business I have found. I’m sharing it so that others may benefit and improve it. If you have suggestions, please email me.
Investor Funnels for Series As
May 29, 2019
Our third batch of the YC Series A Program is wrapping up and the companies are kicking off fundraising. As we gear up for those raises, we wanted to share some things we’ve learned.
Unsafe Notes
May 30, 2019
I was reminded yesterday how much of a shit show raising seed capital via SAFE notes is. I can’t and won’t get into why I was reminded of that, but let’s just say nobody wants to go there.
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
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.
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.
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.
How to go from Seed to Series A
September 16, 2019
At Think+, our primary goal is to help our portfolio companies go from Seed to Series A as smoothly and quickly as possible. Every round comes with its own specific set of challenges, but what makes series A particularly challenging is that traction alone is not enough and you need to show predictability, scalability, and repeatability.
