All of our Starting Up articles

Here’s What You Can Really Expect When Pitching Your Seed-Stage Startup at a VC Partner Meeting
There isn't much advice to guide founders on navigating their first VC partner meeting. So First Round Partner and former founder Liz Wessel shares her playbook for seed-stage startups tackling one of fundraising's most opaque processes

Starting an Analytics Org From Scratch — Lessons From a Decade at DoorDash
DoorDash VP Jessica Lachs has grown the company’s analytics team from a band of scrappy generalists to a highly specialized 300-person org. Here, she spells out how founders can lay the groundwork for an analytics function at their startup and pick the right first hires for the team.

Navigating the Legal Maze: A Founder’s Guide to Hiring Lawyers at Every Stage of Your Startup
Veteran legal executive Irene Liu provides a comprehensive guide on the startup legal roadmap and how to engage lawyers as you scale. She offers insider advice on hiring outside and in-house counsel and building strong founder-lawyer partnerships.

How to Know if Your Idea’s the Right One — A Founder’s Guide for Successful Early-Stage Customer Discovery
Jeanette Mellinger, BetterUp's Head of UXR and former Head of UXR for Uber Eats, unpacks her approachable three-step playbook for early-stage customer discovery so founders can build something users really want.

The Secret to Running Effective Growth Sprints — Follow This Process to Learn Faster
"With every growth experiment, you're not just trying to optimize your return on ad spend, lower your CPA, or bag a few new logos ahead of the next fundraise. You're fundamentally learning and making progress toward a simple question: How are we going to grow this business?"

How Talent Teams Can Better Weather Boom-and-Bust Cycles — Advice from Two Decades at Gem, Facebook, and Robinhood
Richard Cho has led talent acquisition teams at large tech firms for the better part of two decades. He’s collected the lessons he’s learned from operating in both hiring booms and busts, offering a thoughtful guide on how startup talent teams can do more — with less.