Labelbox's Path to PMF: Founders Need to be Contrarian and Right — Here's How

‘Give Away Your People’ — How Managers Can (and Should) Prep for High Performers to Leave

Seasoned startup operator Clarissa Shen offers a fresh perspective on Molly Graham’s ‘Give Away Your Legos’ framework by sharing her own tactics on how to proactively manage for high performers to leave.

Alma’s Path to Product-Market Fit — How to Pivot and Succeed as a Solo Non-Technical Founder

Alma founder and CEO Harry Ritter tells the story of how a huge pandemic pivot turned his initial startup idea on its head.

Kubecost’s Path to Product-Market Fit — How the Co-Founders Validated Their Idea with 100 Customer Conversations

Webb Brown sits down with First Round partner Todd Jackson to tell the story of how he and his co-founder validated the idea for Kubecost.

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The Minimum Viable Testing Process for Evaluating Startup Ideas

25 Habits of High-Impact Managers

The Secret to a Great Planning Process — Lessons from Airbnb and Eventbrite

The Power of Performance Reviews: Use This System to Become a Better Manager

‘Give Away Your Legos’ and Other Commandments for Scaling Startups

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40 Favorite Interview Questions from Some of the Sharpest Folks We Know

Given the high-stakes nature of every hire, interviewing chops are always in need of sharpening. We’ve spent the past few months reaching out to some of the most thoughtful company builders in our network to pose a simple question: What’s your favorite interview question to ask and why? Here are their answers.

How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product Market Fit

Superhuman founder and CEO Rahul Vohra walks us through the framework his startup used to make product/market fit more actionable, detailing the survey and four-step process that were key to measuring and optimizing it.

How to Become Insanely Well-Connected

Chris Fralic is a world-class super-connector. Here's how the long-time First Round Partner has methodically built bonds spanning years and careers.

Radical Candor — The Surprising Secret to Being a Good Boss

Kim Scott cut her teeth as a manager at Apple and Google, and now helps create great leaders as an author and coach for companies like Twitter. Here's the secret that's made all the difference for her.

‘Give Away Your Legos’ and Other Commandments for Scaling Startups

Molly Graham helped forge a work culture at Facebook that's withstood huge amounts of growth. Today, she's something of a rapid scaling expert. Here's the key to doing it right, she says.

This 90-Day Plan Turns Engineers into Remarkable Managers

Twitter's former Director of Engineering shares the plan he uses to transform engineers into successful and happy managers.

Speed as a Habit

All things being equal, speed will determine whether your company succeeds or not. Here's how to make it core to your culture.

From 0 to $1B - Slack's Founder Shares Their Epic Launch Strategy

“HELL YEAH WE'RE USING @SlackHQ AT WORK I. LOVE. SLACK.”

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The Silent Killer of Your Operating Practice: Fear

Amanda Schwartz Ramirez, former PayPal strategy leader and now COO advisor for startups, shares the 5 biggest fears that can derail your company's strategic planning sessions (and tactical advice for how to sidestep them).

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How to Sell Your Startup: The Complete Guide to Running an M&A Process as a Founder

Three-time startup founder Daniel Debow reveals his no-nonsense playbook for how to run an M&A process from top to bottom.

Webflow’s Path to Product-Market Fit — Lessons on Creating a Market with Rigorous Customer Empathy

Webflow’s Bryant Chou tells the story of how he and his co-founders leaned into the power of customer empathy to create the leading visual development platform for building powerful websites without writing code.

The Secret to an In Sync Startup? Ditch Your Meetings and Try an Asynchronous Culture

Sidharth Kakkar (co-founder & CEO of Subscript) share his playbook for ditching your meetings and moving to an asynchronous culture.

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Binti’s Path to Product-Market Fit — Lessons in Immersive User Research

Binti founder Felicia Curcuru shares her biggest lessons in immersive user research.

The Rounds’ Path to Product-Market Fit: Accelerating the Eco-Friendly Delivery Startup through Gut Intuition

The Rounds co-founder Alex Torrey walks through the key milestones on his startup’s journey to product-market fit.

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If you're thinking about starting a company:

Advice for pressure-testing ideas, finding a co-founder, and all you need to know before taking the founder's leap.

This Founder Built Startups in 2008, 2016 and 2018. Here’s What He’s Learned About Resiliency

Bob Moore's first brush with life as a founder started in 2008—three days before Lehman Brothers collapsed. Since he cut his teeth as a first-time founder in turbulent times, he's gone on to build two other companies. Here, Moore shares the lessons he's learned along the way, from weathering bear markets and losing out to the competition, to finding (and falling out of) product/market fit.

The Founder Dating Playbook – Here’s the Process I Used to Find My Co-Founder

Gloria Lin opens up about her pre-founder journey, from founder dating and early conversations to how she prototyped with potential partners to narrow in on a specific idea. Her playbook is one of the most detailed and intentional processes we’ve ever seen — and the set of 50 questions she used to probe compatibility is an essential tool for any entrepreneur looking to team up on a startup idea.

Navigating the Leap from Big Tech to Startups — Advice from a Former Google and Flipkart Exec

Punit Soni cut his teeth as a product leader at large companies such Google, Motorola and Flipkart before venturing out on his own to found Suki, a healthcare startup. Here, he shares his observations on the differences between the two experiences, noting what surprised him, what he felt unprepared for, and what aspiring entrepreneurs should consider as they look to make a similar leap from big to small.

Future Founders, Here’s How to Spot and Build in Nonobvious Markets

Nonobvious markets can lead to hypergrowth, but they’re hard to spot in the moment. Leaning on his experience as a seasoned investor and operator, Elad Gil shares four principles to help uncover the three types of opportunities that others are overlooking.

Here's the Advice I Give All of Our First Time Founders

According to First Round Partner Rob Hayes, there are only three things new founders need to focus on to succeed.

90% of Feedback is Crap: How to Find the Next Big Startup Idea

Flatiron Health Co-founder Nat Turner on the process he uses to distill, pitch and iterate on new ideas.

“Sweat the Details” and Other Commandments for Mapping Out a Career in Product

Veteran product leader Jiaona Zhang walks us through the biggest lessons from her entire career in product at Dropbox, Airbnb, WeWork and now Webflow, from breaking into the function as a first-time PM to tactical tips for navigating transitions into more senior roles.

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The Startup’s Guide to Customer Advocacy: How to Get Closer to Your Champions

Customer advocacy is more than just case studies. Kalina Bryant (formerly of Asana, Talkdesk and Marketo) shares tactical advice for turning customers into advocates, with tailored pointers for startups on a budget.

X1's Path to Product-Market Fit — How the Consumer Credit Card Company Pulled off a Pandemic Pivot

X1 founder and CEO Deepak Rao unpacks the key milestones on the journey to product-market fit.

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The Startup Founder’s Guide to Hiring a Data Scientist

Mengying Li, Growth Data Science Lead at Notion, shares her framework for testing whether you're ready to hire a data scientist for your startup.

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Pull, Don’t Push: How Catalysts Overcome Barriers and Drive Product Adoption

Marketing expert Jonah Berger shares his framework for becoming a catalyst – lessons for lowering barriers to change when building and selling products.

Retool’s Path to Product-Market Fit — Lessons for Getting to 100 Happy Customers, Faster

Retool founder and CEO David Hsu unpacks the key milestones on the journey to product-market fit.

Close up of building model planes, with tools

Small Habits Co-Founders Can Hang On to as They Build the Plane While Flying It

Labelbox’s Manu Sharma and Brian Rieger have turned a decade-long friendship into a lasting business partnership, scaling the AI developer tool startup since co-founding it together in 2017. Here, they share small habits that co-founders can rely on to bolster their relationship at any stage — from getting aligned on decision rights to thoughtfully crafting an executive team.

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Photo of Maven founder and CEO Kate Ryder and First Round Partner Todd Jackson

Maven's Path to Product-Market Fit — Lessons for Leveraging Community in the Early Days

In the second post for our new series, "Paths to Product-Market Fit," Maven founder and CEO Kate Ryder sits down with First Round partner Todd Jackson to share the inside story of the first female-led telemedicine startup to achieve unicorn status.

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The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2022

We rounded up 30 essential insights for startups in the coming year, no matter the climate.

How to be an Exceptional Chief of Staff: Advice for Scaling Impact at Startups

10 tactical tips and guiding principles for a new Chief of Staff to lean on as they scale their impact at a startup.

From BigCo to Startup: 20 Tips for Evaluating Early-Stage Companies & Making the Leap

We crowdsourced a tactical guide for first-time startup job-seekers on how to evaluate career opportunities at early-stage companies.

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Airtable's Path to Product-Market Fit — Lessons for Building Horizontal Products

Airtable co-founder Andrew Ofstad unpacks the key milestones on their journey to product-market fit..