All of our Starting Up articles

How to design a high-impact growth org for a PLG startup — Webflow & Dropbox’s Melissa Tan

Our guest today is Melissa Tan, GM of Self-Service and Head of Growth at Webflow and formerly Head of Growth and Monetization for Dropbox Business.

Starting Up

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

As a repeat founder, Daniel Debow has successfully sold three different startups. He reveals his no-nonsense playbook for other startup founders on how to run an M&A process from top to bottom.

Starting Up

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.

How to scale your career alongside your startup: Mike Boufford’s lessons after 10 years at Greenhouse

For our first episode of 2023, our guest is Mike Boufford, CTO of Greenhouse, an applicant tracking system and recruiting platform. Mike has a unique career as an engineering leader.

Deepak Rao on how X1 pivoted, launched, built a +600K-long waitlist and fundraised in tough times

Todd Jackson is back on the mic to guest host another product-market fit focused episode this week. He chats with Deepak Rao, co-founder and CEO of X1, a consumer fintech startup that’s building a credit card for a new generation. Just last week, X1 announced a $15 million funding round.

What startups can learn from enterprise corporate messaging — Sara Varni’s lessons from Salesforce & Twilio

Our guest is Sara Varni, CMO of Attentive, a conversational commerce platform. Before joining Attentive, Sara was Twilio’s CMO and spent 10 years as a senior marketing leader at Salesforce.

The art of starting a startup — Gagan Biyani’s advice for generating, validating, and executing on ideas

Today’s episode is with Gagan Biyani, co-founder and CEO of Maven, a company that empowers the world’s experts to offer cohort-based courses directly to their audience.

How to handle comp challenges at every startup stage — Kaitlyn Knopp’s advice from Pequity, Instacart, Cruise & Google

Today’s episode is with Kaitlyn Knopp, founder and CEO of Pequity, which automates HR workflows to make compensation more equitable and scalable.

Management

The Tactical Guide to Making Better Decisions When Starting and Scaling Companies

The First Round team has been lucky to work with retired poker player and decision-making expert Annie Duke in a special capacity these past few years. Here, we open-source some of the advice she gives to help founders face down uncertainty and make better decisions.

Starting Up

23 Tactical Company Building Lessons, Learned From Scaling Stripe & Notion

From Stripe to Notion, Cristina Cordova has worked on some of the biggest products in tech. She shares tactical tidbits on what she’s learned about about scaling companies and shaping your career.

Starting Up

The Company-Building Cornerstones Every Founder Needs to Focus On — Advice From HubSpot’s Dharmesh Shah

Dharmesh Shah has spent the last 15 years as co-founder & CTO of HubSpot. He pinpoints the inflection points and key decisions that other founders face in the early days, from choosing a co-founder to crafting the culture, and shares unconventional advice.

After building hundreds of startup brands, Arielle Jackson shares 6 early marketing missteps to avoid

Today’s episode is with Arielle Jackson. For the past 7 years, she’s helped hundreds of companies build their positioning and brands from the ground up, both as our Marketing Expert in Residence here at First Round and in her own consulting work.