How This Founder Ditched All Meetings and Went Completely Async

As the co-founder and CEO of Subscript, Sidharth Kakkar ditched all the company’s meetings and decided to make the startup’s culture completely asynchronous. He shares his playbook for moving away from a meetings-heavy culture, with three pillars for other founders to lean on.

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

Photo of Felicia Curcuru and Todd Jackson 

Binti's Path to Product-Market Fit 

In this post in our “Paths to Product-Market Fit” series, Binti’s co-founder and CEO Felicia Curcuru sits down with First Round partner Todd Jackson to tell the story of how her time spent shadowing family social workers in San Francisco empowered her to build a product now used by a third of the country’s child welfare agencies. 

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

Sweat the Details - Lessons 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.

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

The Startup’s Guide to Customer Advocacy

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.

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

X1's Path to Product-Market Fit

In our "Paths to Product-Market Fit" series, X1 founder and CEO Deepak Rao sits down with First Round partner Todd Jackson to share the dramatic story of how his company pivoted during the pandemic and found product-market fit with a bold launch strategy.

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

Photo of puzzle pieces making up a lightbulb 

Are you ready to hire a data scientist? Mengying Li, Growth Data Science Lead at Notion, shares her framework for testing whether you should invest in this key hire and how to find the right data science skillset for your startup.

The Startup Founder’s Guide to Hiring a Data Scientist

Image of two hands pulling on a rubber band

How Catalysts Change Minds and Drive Product Adoption

Marketing expert Jonah Berger has spent years probing into the science behind changing people’s minds, and why becoming an effective change agent is about lowering barriers, not pushing harder. He distilled five of the most common barriers into a simple framework and walks us through how founders can more effectively build and sell products. 

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

Retool's Path to Product-Market Fit — Lessons for Nailing Your ICP 

In the latest post for our new series, "Paths to Product-Market Fit," Retool founder and CEO David Hsu sits down with First Round partner Todd Jackson to share how the internal tools company hypothesized, tested and iterated its way to 100 happy customers

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

Close up of building model planes, with tools

5 techniques to strengthen your co-founder relationship at any stage

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.

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

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

Maven's Path to Product-Market Fit

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.

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

Illustration of Sam Corcos, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, Annie Duke, David Nunez, Ximena Vengoechea

The best company-building advice is timeless, with a focus on the fundamentals. We rounded up 30 essential insights for startups to lean on in the coming year, no matter the climate.

The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2022

10 Tips on How to be an Exceptional Startup Chief of Staff

10 tactical tips and guiding principles for a new Chief of Staff to lean on as they scale their impact at a startup — from building better systems, not just booking more meetings and finding an executive's superpower.

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

20 Tips for Evaluating Startups to Join: Advice for Job-Seekers

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

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

Art for Paths to Product Market Fit Series - green and red background, featuring graph and squiggly line elements (representing the long, winding journey), along with photos of Todd Jackson and Andrew Ofstad

Airtable's Path to Product-Market Fit

In the first post for our new series, "Paths to Product-Market Fit," Airtable co-founder Andrew Ofstad sits down with First Round partner Todd Jackson to share the inside story of the no-code platform's long journey and the challenges they came across while building a horizontal product. 

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

How to Make Internal Documentation Your Startup’s Secret Weapon

David Nunez, an early hire at Stripe and Uber, shares his step-by-step playbook for establishing good internal documentation habits at your startup. He unpacks his tested tactics for creating a culture of documentation, setting the quality bar and keeping things organized.