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Best Practices

2024

The Class Missing from Business School

January 18

2020

Why Fast Learning Curves are So Important to Startups

December 21

What is the Structure of the Typical SaaS Company as it Scales?

June 21

How to Transform Your Board Meeting with Written Narratives

June 15

2019

Product Launches Become the Operating Cadence of a Startup

December 2

On Humility and Making Better Decisions

October 17

The Early Discipline of Remote Startups

October 4

If You Have Great NDR Retention, Should You Increase Your Marketing Spend?

September 2

The 37% Rule: How to Decide When to Stop Wondering and Start Deciding

August 5

One Call to Make Before Picking Your Startup's Headquarters

August 2

Notes from Office Hours with Guillaume Cabane

July 22

Theory SaaS Startup Key Metrics Template

June 18

Define the What But Delegate the How

May 20

Hustle As Strategy

April 8

Should Your Startup Differentiate On Pricing?

February 19

A Common Mistake in Hiring Plans

February 8

How Many Managers Will You Need This Year?

January 28

2018

Creative Selection - An Inside Look at Some Key Moments at Apple

December 4

Why Your Startup Doesn't Invest Sufficiently in its Differentiators

July 20

Timing Cashflows of Your Sales Commissions and Your Customers

July 15

When You Hire an Executive, You're Hiring a Network

June 7

An Ode to the OKR - How to Motivate Greater Ambition in Teams

May 9

The Challenge of Uncertainty

May 4

Why I Overestimate My Contribution to My Team

April 22

An Often Forgotten Characteristic About Your Startup's Ideal Customer Profile

March 25

Why Does Your Sales Team Lose Deals?

March 4

Startup Best Practices 27 - How to Use Options to Retain Key Employees in Your Startup

February 16

Clarity of Purpose - The Competitive Advantage of Focus

February 11

The Best Bit of Advice on Writing I've Received

February 2

2017

Managers Must be Insane to Brainstorm in Groups

November 30

Disagree and Commit - A Management Principle for Highly Functioning Teams

November 11

How to Decide With Speed and Conviction

October 15

Hiring for a Discipline You Know Little About

August 31

Maximizing Productivity on My Commute

August 27

How to Tell If You're a Great Manager

June 16

Startup Best Practices 26 - Choosing Your Startup's Competitive Strategy

May 26

Startup Best Practices 25 - Bounding the Unknown Unknowns

April 7

Startup Best Practices 24 - Marketing Your Product with Novel Framing to Maximize Sales Success

March 6

Startup Best Practices 23 - Leveraging The Illusion of Explanatory Depth in Interviews

February 26

2016

How to Create Competitive Advantage for Your Startup with Proxy Metrics

November 16

Startup Best Practices 22 - Explicit Risk Bundles and Mitigations

September 7

Hacking Your To Do List with Your Calendar

February 23

2015

Startup Best Practices 21 - Your Startup's Recruiting Scorecard

December 3

Startup Best Practices 20 - Managing Oneself

November 24

Startup Best Practices 19 - Recognizing the Breaking Points of Your Startup's Management Structure

October 25

Startup Best Practices 18 - Collaborating with Your Customer During Your Sales Process

October 11

Startup Best Practices 17 - Strategic Planning Using Your Startup's Fundamental Equation

October 1

Startup Best Practices 16 - Option Pool Planning

August 13

Startup Best Practices 15 - Start With the Why

July 12

Startup Best Practices 14 - Slash and Burn Your Calendar

June 24

Startup Best Practices 13 - Patience with Unit Economics

June 14

Startup Best Practices 12 - Customer Success Compensation

June 11

Startup Best Practices 11 - The 9 Box Matrix Talent Model

June 2

Startup Best Practices 10 - Building Your Startup's Institutional Memory

April 2

A Simple Tool to Organize, Remember and Deliver Your Important Presentations

February 3

The Characteristics of the Most Successful Teams

January 20

2014

The Importance of Segmentation for Your SaaS Startup

December 15

The Importance of Mindfulness When Managing a Startup

December 12

Brutal Intellectual Honesty

December 2

Why Your SaaS Startup Needs a VP of Customer Success Sooner Than You Might Think

November 12

Using Statements of Work to Accelerate Sales Cycle and Align Sales, Customer Success and Marketing

October 24

Startup Best Practices 9 - Structuring One on Ones to Maximize Your Team's Success

September 26

Startup Best Practices 8 -Getting the Most from Your Team By Preventing Burnout

September 17

Not A Conventional Company

August 21

The Four Kinds of Social Capital that Matter When Building Products

August 20

The Most Important Investment a Startup Can Make

August 14

The Secret Ingredient to the Best Startup Fundraising Pitches

August 1

How to Retain Your Startup's Best Employees

July 29

The Best Advice I've Ever Received

July 25

One of the Greatest Opportunities to Learn

July 11

An Exceptional Story with Exceptional Data

July 2

The Marketing Math Behind Scaling a SaaS Salesforce

June 30

The 3 Minute Technique for Brainstorming Your Startup's Product Roadmap

June 17

Startup Best Practices 7 - How to Use Andy Grove's Stagger Chart to Build Predictability into a Startup

May 12

9 Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read

May 8

A Framework for Maximizing Startup Marketing Effectiveness

May 5

Quantifying the Cost of a Bad Hire

April 28

Quantifying a SaaS Startup's Revenue at Risk

April 23

The Power of a Coach

April 16

Startup Best Practices 6 - Avoiding the Bike Rack Effect

March 24

The Things You Do Often Create the Things You Believe

February 27

Military Strategy Applied to Startups

January 31

How One Startup's Engineering Team Cut their Engineering Release Times in Half

January 22

The Two Key Skill Sets Startups Must Develop To Grow

January 14

Startup Best Practices 5 - Effectiveness, not Productivity

January 2

2013

Startup Best Practices 4 - Managing Monkeys

December 20

The 10 Most Important Metrics in a Startup's Financial Statements

December 16

Using Price & Demand Curves to Inform Startup Product Roadmaps

December 11

Startup Best Practices 3 - How to Structure a Sales and Marketing Team

December 3

The Most Effective Way of Visualizing Funnels

November 22

Startup Best Practices 2 - Startup Team Sizes

November 20

Startup Best Practices 1 - Situational Management

November 15

The Missing Startup Design Pattern

November 14

What a Dog and a Monkey Taught Me About Management at Google

October 21

Using Gaming Product Hacks to Maximize Freemium SaaS Growth

October 17

The 3 Competitive Defenses of Enduring SaaS Companies

October 1

Using The Friend Paradox to Maximize Your Effectiveness at Startup Networking Events

September 24

How To Take Exceptional Notes and Be Productive with Paper

September 18

Interpreting Cohort Data - The 3 Key Analyses for Measuring Your Startup’s Product Performance

September 17

How Wordpress Used VideoConferencing and IRC to Change the World

September 16

The One Best Metric for Your Startup to Maximize

September 9

Not Sharing the Opportunity to Learn is a Cardinal Sin

September 5

Cohort Analysis for Startups - Six Summary Reports to Understand Your Customer Base (With Code)

August 12

Maximizing the Value of Investor Referrals

July 29

Your Startup’s Office Is Missing a Room

July 18

The Most Under-Appreciated Startup Team Member

June 6

Hiring Your Startup’s First Salesperson

May 3

Mastering Feedback Loops in Startups

April 18

Your Startup’s Top 3 Priorities

April 1

How to Align Founder and VC Incentives - Why Fund Size Matters

March 27

Which Data Biases Challenge Your Startup?

March 19

2012

End of the year startup checklist

December 14

The software customers don’t see

December 12

A Startup’s Two Financial Plans - the Board Plan and the Stretch Plan

November 26

Financial planning for startups

November 21

Partnerships for startups - Key deal terms

November 14

Distribution partnerships for startups

November 13

No startup is an island - The three ecosystems startups should develop

October 22

The value of a patent to a startup

October 11

Founders, teach your employees statistics

October 4

A six-step framework to make strategic decisions

September 30

Segmenting the SaaS Market for Sales

August 20

All Great Managers are Alike

August 19

Are We Investing Enough in Our Managers?

May 30