Growth
The 20 - 60 - 20 rule of thumb is a great framing to keep in mind as you think about where to invest in your company, and where you need to dig deeper to avoid throwing good money after bad. Here's how it works. 20% of the
Growth
HuffPost has published a piece about the rise and fall of Mic.com. It's worth a read to get some perspective on what it's like to build a startup in a frantic search for a sustainable business model. There are a few good takeaways here that
Growth
Go big or go home! This is the advice the board gave to the CEO of a company in the middle of a critical pivot. Take the biggest swing they can. Lean in as hard as they can to the big idea. Singles and doubles won't grow valuation
Growth
One of the hardest parts of leadership is getting comfortable with making difficult decisions with imperfect data. But it's a critical skill to be able to move your company forward, particularly in an early-stage company. Let's think about the possible sources of data that could help
News and Analysis
I have a few headshots that I use as profile photos on my many email, Slack, and social media accounts. While most of the photos are your standard, professional-looking headshot, there is one that I sometimes use that is the perfect example of perspective and storytelling through effective editing. Whenever
Growth
Wired Magazine published a story yesterday entitled Blitzscaling Is Choking Innovation - And Wasting Money that speaks to significant shifts in fundraising over the last decade. The article's main focus is on the massive amount of money that is being thrown at companies in later rounds to try
Growth
Even in the earliest stages of your business, it's important to build a proper revenue and customer acquisition model. It doesn't have to be an overly complicated exercise, but it should force you to think through a few very important parts of your business. If done
Growth
Whether your company needs to build a new sales plan or develop next year's budget, the question of top-down planning versus bottom-up is an important one. Spoiler alert. The answer is that you need to do both. Whenever I have led a process to develop a plan that
Leadership
“If we have data, let’s look at the data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.” This is a famous quote by Jim Barksdale, the former CEO of Netscape. But it begs an important question. Why don’t you have data? Why are you and
Growth
When nothing seems to be going right within your company. When your cash runway is getting shorter, and your cash burn is getting higher. When your team is searching for answers, and looking to you as the cliff is approaching. One of the worst things you can do during this
Leadership
I was reminded today of one of the great powers in the world of entrepreneurship. The founder superpower that can be used for good or evil. Well, to be clear, not really evil. Unless you consider the wasting of time and money to be evil. Which I suppose I do.
Leadership
Last week I wrote a post about creating an environment to support happy and motivated employees. I used a framework I heard about from Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist and Wharton professor who writes quite a bit on this topic. Adam broke this topic down to three questions we need