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What Obama’s Tech Startup Has to Teach About Adaptability
Management

What Obama’s Tech Startup Has to Teach About Adaptability

USDS marketing chief and former head of marketing for Google X Janine Gianfredi shares her lessons on how to build adaptable teams, even in the most rigid and regulated environments.
Your Database is Your Prison — Here’s How Expensify Broke Free
Engineering

Your Database is Your Prison — Here’s How Expensify Broke Free

Startups can fall into dangerous defaults when it comes to database architecture. Expensify founder and CEO David Barrett shares how his company sidestepped these missteps and made its database architecture one of its competitive advantages.
The Case For Startups to Put CX at Their Core
PR & Marketing

The Case For Startups to Put CX at Their Core

At eero, the Customer Experience (CX) team is known as the "truth squad." Here's how its CEO and Co-founder Nick Weaver and Head of CX Dana Lindsay built and scaled an essential — but often overlooked — discipline at startups.
When Fear Is a Competitive Advantage — 4 Steps to Make It Work for You
People & Culture

When Fear Is a Competitive Advantage — 4 Steps to Make It Work for You

Justin Milano and Dan Cordaro have built their reputations on the science of overcoming fear — today, they help dozens of startups turn these feelings into opportunity.
The Three Infrastructure Mistakes Your Company Must Not Make
Engineering

The Three Infrastructure Mistakes Your Company Must Not Make

Avi Freedman has worked in networking for 30+ years and seen over 100 startups scale their infrastructure. Here are the most vital pieces of advice he has to share.
The SEO Tips That Helped Tally 20 Million Visits A Month
Product

The SEO Tips That Helped Tally 20 Million Visits A Month

Yummly Chief Growth Officer Ethan Smith outlines the inflection points and key tenets for high-performance SEO.
How to Lead and Rally a Company Through a Layoff
Management

How to Lead and Rally a Company Through a Layoff

For decades, HR leader and Mensch Ventures' founder Beth Steinberg has tackled complex talent challenges at some of the biggest names in technology and retail. Here, she opens her playbook on a topic that many avoid before it's too late: layoffs.
The Most Surefire Way I’ve Found to Win Enterprise Deals
Sales

The Most Surefire Way I’ve Found to Win Enterprise Deals

General Assembly's Anand Chopra-McGowan shares the tactics that helped GA tighten its sales cycle to win big enterprise clients.
On Receiving (and Truly Hearing) Radical Candor
Management

On Receiving (and Truly Hearing) Radical Candor

Candor Inc. co-founders Kim Scott and Russ Laraway have both written and spoken often on how to give radical candor to colleagues. Here they turn the tables and focus on how to receive it.
What You Must Know To Build Savvy Push Notifications
Product

What You Must Know To Build Savvy Push Notifications

With a few missteps, a push notification can transform from invitation to intrusion. Here, Noah Weiss, Slack's Head of Search, Learning and Intelligence, maps out the history and machinery behind push notifications — and the principles that can help startups use them well.
The Rewards of Creator-Driven Cultures — And The Engineers That Can Deliver Them
Engineering

The Rewards of Creator-Driven Cultures — And The Engineers That Can Deliver Them

From the earliest web browsers to cookies, JetInsight Co-founder and CTO Lou Montulli developed some of his most pivotal and enduring work in creator-driven cultures. Here, he covers how to create that environment — and why engineers must lead the way.
The Power of the Elastic Product Team — Airbnb’s First PM on How to Build Your Own
Product

The Power of the Elastic Product Team — Airbnb’s First PM on How to Build Your Own

Over the last 5 years, Jonathan Golden has watched Airbnb explode in size and productivity. Here's what that journey looked like on the product team that powered it.
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For the founder's notepad:
"If you personally want to grow as fast as your company, you have to give away your job every couple months." – Molly Graham
“Asking ‘Why can't this be done sooner?’ methodically, reliably and habitually can have a profound impact on the speed of your organization.” – Dave Girouard
“End every meeting or conversation with the feeling and optimism you’d like to have at the start of your next conversation with the person.” – Chris Fralic
“Focus is doing things with a clear intention. It doesn’t mean you charge single-minded toward a goal. It means you pay rapt and incremental attention to how you need to turn the rudder on a project.” – Fidji Simo
“It’s essential to grow with the company — rather than having the company grow around you.” – Cristina Cordova 
“You have to be impatient with shipping, but patient with your career.” – James Everingham
“‘I trust you, make the call’ might be the six most powerful words you can hear from a manager.” – Sean Twersky
“Your job as a CEO is to build fire departments, not put out fires.” – Sam Corcos 
“Can you say with confidence that each report would want to be on your team again? If you aren’t sure that the answer is yes, it’s probably no — much like how if you have to ask, ‘Am I in love?’ you’re probably not.” – Julie Zhuo 
“People can get addicted to yak shaving. An effective engineering generalist knows when to move on. Pay attention to whether they used their time wisely, not just the results.” – Mike Krieger 
“It sounds so simple to say that bosses need to tell employees when they're screwing up. But it very rarely happens.” – Kim Scott
“You’ll know you understand the customer problem enough when you can predict 75% of what a customer tells you. Keep having these conversations until three-quarters of it is stuff you already know.” – Christina Cacioppo
“I have a rule: no company swag until the business has at least $250K of revenue or 250k users. Until then, you don’t get to “feel” the benefits of having started a company.” – Gagan Biyani
“The business model ends up becoming the business. It’s equally important as the market you’re going after and the product that you build.” – Jay Simons 
“If speed is the yin, the yang is prioritization. You can’t be fast if you don’t know what’s important.” – Jaleh Rezaei
“If you treat your connections as a kind of personal ATM you use for frequent withdrawals, you’ll quickly be disappointed (and overdrawn).” – Karen Wickre 
“Delighting the customer always yields better returns than countering or copying a competitor. It’s just a lot harder to do.” – Andy Rachleff 
“When you’re a founder, every moment you’re not writing code or getting users, you need to be making a conscious choice: Is whatever you’re doing worth your time?” – Alexis Ohanian
“‘Why would a customer not want this?’ is often a far more interesting question than why they would.” – Rick Song
“When you leave the planning process wondering if you put too many resources behind a single bet, that’s the bet that ends up succeeding. Bold ideas need bold resourcing.” – Lenny Rachitsky and Nels Gilbreth
“Treat customer development as a one-on-one with a direct report — you just want to ask the hard questions.” – Ryan Glasgow
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