Best Practices

2024

• The Class Missing from Business School Jan 18

2020

• Why Fast Learning Curves are So Important to Startups Dec 21
• What is the Structure of the Typical SaaS Company as it Scales? Jun 21
• How to Transform Your Board Meeting with Written Narratives Jun 15

2019

• Product Launches Become the Operating Cadence of a Startup Dec 02
• On Humility and Making Better Decisions Oct 17
• The Early Discipline of Remote Startups Oct 04
• If You Have Great NDR Retention, Should You Increase Your Marketing Spend? Sep 02
• The 37% Rule: How to Decide When to Stop Wondering and Start Deciding Aug 05
• One Call to Make Before Picking Your Startup's Headquarters Aug 02
• Notes from Office Hours with Guillaume Cabane Jul 22
• Theory SaaS Startup Key Metrics Template Jun 18
• Define the What But Delegate the How May 20
• Hustle As Strategy Apr 08
• Should Your Startup Differentiate On Pricing? Feb 19
• A Common Mistake in Hiring Plans Feb 08
• How Many Managers Will You Need This Year? Jan 28

2018

• Creative Selection - An Inside Look at Some Key Moments at Apple Dec 04
• Why Your Startup Doesn't Invest Sufficiently in its Differentiators Jul 20
• Timing Cashflows of Your Sales Commissions and Your Customers Jul 15
• When You Hire an Executive, You're Hiring a Network Jun 07
• An Ode to the OKR - How to Motivate Greater Ambition in Teams May 09
• The Challenge of Uncertainty May 04
• Why I Overestimate My Contribution to My Team Apr 22
• An Often Forgotten Characteristic About Your Startup's Ideal Customer Profile The Ideal Customer Profile. The perfect customer. Can you describe it for your startup? The more precisely you can describe it, the better. That will simplify disqualification. But articulating the ICP well isn't enough. Mar 25
• Why Does Your Sales Team Lose Deals? Mar 04
• Startup Best Practices 27 - How to Use Options to Retain Key Employees in Your Startup Feb 16
• Clarity of Purpose - The Competitive Advantage of Focus Feb 11
• The Best Bit of Advice on Writing I've Received Feb 02

2017

• Managers Must be Insane to Brainstorm in Groups Nov 30
• Disagree and Commit - A Management Principle for Highly Functioning Teams Nov 11
• How to Decide With Speed and Conviction Oct 15
• Hiring for a Discipline You Know Little About Aug 31
• Maximizing Productivity on My Commute Aug 27
• How to Tell If You're a Great Manager Jun 16
• Startup Best Practices 26 - Choosing Your Startup's Competitive Strategy May 26
• Startup Best Practices 25 - Bounding the Unknown Unknowns Apr 07
• Startup Best Practices 24 - Marketing Your Product with Novel Framing to Maximize Sales Success Mar 06
• Startup Best Practices 23 - Leveraging The Illusion of Explanatory Depth in Interviews Feb 26

2016

• How to Create Competitive Advantage for Your Startup with Proxy Metrics Nov 16
• Startup Best Practices 22 - Explicit Risk Bundles and Mitigations Sep 07
• Hacking Your To Do List with Your Calendar Feb 23

2015

• Startup Best Practices 21 - Your Startup's Recruiting Scorecard Dec 03
• Startup Best Practices 20 - Managing Oneself Nov 24
• Startup Best Practices 19 - Recognizing the Breaking Points of Your Startup's Management Structure Oct 25
• Startup Best Practices 18 - Collaborating with Your Customer During Your Sales Process Oct 11
• Startup Best Practices 17 - Strategic Planning Using Your Startup's Fundamental Equation Oct 01
• Startup Best Practices 16 - Option Pool Planning Aug 13
• Startup Best Practices 15 - Start With the Why Jul 12
• Startup Best Practices 14 - Slash and Burn Your Calendar Jun 24
• Startup Best Practices 13 - Patience with Unit Economics Jun 14
• Startup Best Practices 12 - Customer Success Compensation Jun 11
• Startup Best Practices 11 - The 9 Box Matrix Talent Model Jun 02
• Startup Best Practices 10 - Building Your Startup's Institutional Memory Apr 02
• A Simple Tool to Organize, Remember and Deliver Your Important Presentations Feb 03
• Five Bits of Management Wisdom from Pixar Jan 29
• The Characteristics of the Most Successful Teams Jan 20

2014

• The Importance of Segmentation for Your SaaS Startup Dec 15
• The Importance of Mindfulness When Managing a Startup Dec 12
• Brutal Intellectual Honesty Dec 02
• Why Your SaaS Startup Needs a VP of Customer Success Sooner Than You Might Think Nov 12
• Using Statements of Work to Accelerate Sales Cycle and Align Sales, Customer Success and Marketing Oct 24
• Startup Best Practices 9 - Structuring One on Ones to Maximize Your Team's Success Sep 26
• Startup Best Practices 8 -Getting the Most from Your Team By Preventing Burnout Sep 17
• Not A Conventional Company Aug 21
• The Four Kinds of Social Capital that Matter When Building Products Aug 20
• The Most Important Investment a Startup Can Make Aug 14
• The Secret Ingredient to the Best Startup Fundraising Pitches Aug 01
• How to Retain Your Startup's Best Employees Jul 29
• The Best Advice I've Ever Received Jul 25
• One of the Greatest Opportunities to Learn Jul 11
• An Exceptional Story with Exceptional Data Jul 02
• The Marketing Math Behind Scaling a SaaS Salesforce Jun 30
• The 3 Minute Technique for Brainstorming Your Startup's Product Roadmap Jun 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 08
• A Framework for Maximizing Startup Marketing Effectiveness May 05
• Quantifying the Cost of a Bad Hire Apr 28
• Quantifying a SaaS Startup's Revenue at Risk Apr 23
• The Power of a Coach Apr 16
• Startup Best Practices 6 - Avoiding the Bike Rack Effect Mar 24
• The Things You Do Often Create the Things You Believe Feb 27
• Military Strategy Applied to Startups Jan 31
• How One Startup's Engineering Team Cut their Engineering Release Times in Half Jan 22
• The Two Key Skill Sets Startups Must Develop To Grow Jan 14
• Startup Best Practices 5 - Effectiveness, not Productivity Jan 02

2013

• Startup Best Practices 4 - Managing Monkeys Dec 20
• The 10 Most Important Metrics in a Startup's Financial Statements Dec 16
• Using Price & Demand Curves to Inform Startup Product Roadmaps Dec 11
• Startup Best Practices 3 - How to Structure a Sales and Marketing Team Dec 03
• The Most Effective Way of Visualizing Funnels Nov 22
• Startup Best Practices 2 - Startup Team Sizes Nov 20
• Startup Best Practices 1 - Situational Management Nov 15
• The Missing Startup Design Pattern Nov 14
• What a Dog and a Monkey Taught Me About Management at Google Oct 21
• Using Gaming Product Hacks to Maximize Freemium SaaS Growth Oct 17
• The 3 Competitive Defenses of Enduring SaaS Companies Oct 01
• Using The Friend Paradox to Maximize Your Effectiveness at Startup Networking Events Sep 24
• How To Take Exceptional Notes and Be Productive with Paper Sep 18
• Interpreting Cohort Data - The 3 Key Analyses for Measuring Your Startup’s Product Performance Sep 17
• How Wordpress Used VideoConferencing and IRC to Change the World Sep 16
• The One Best Metric for Your Startup to Maximize Sep 09
• Not Sharing the Opportunity to Learn is a Cardinal Sin Sep 05
• Cohort Analysis for Startups - Six Summary Reports to Understand Your Customer Base (With Code) Aug 12
• Maximizing the Value of Investor Referrals Jul 29
• Your Startup’s Office Is Missing a Room Jul 18
• The Most Under-Appreciated Startup Team Member Jun 06
• Hiring Your Startup’s First Salesperson May 03
• Mastering Feedback Loops in Startups Apr 18
• Your Startup’s Top 3 Priorities Apr 01
• How to Align Founder and VC Incentives - Why Fund Size Matters Mar 27
• Which Data Biases Challenge Your Startup? Mar 19

2012

• End of the year startup checklist Dec 14
• The software customers don’t see Dec 12
• A Startup’s Two Financial Plans - the Board Plan and the Stretch Plan Nov 26
• Financial planning for startups Nov 21
• Partnerships for startups - Key deal terms Nov 14
• Distribution partnerships for startups Nov 13
• No startup is an island - The three ecosystems startups should develop Oct 22
• The value of a patent to a startup Oct 11
• Founders, teach your employees statistics Oct 04
• A six-step framework to make strategic decisions Sep 30
• Segmenting the SaaS Market for Sales Aug 20
• All Great Managers are Alike Aug 19
• Are We Investing Enough in Our Managers? May 30