A Collection of articles from The Review

New to The Review? Start here:

Our most-widely read articles since The Review first started in 2013

View all 7 articles in collection

If you're seeking to improve as a manager:

A manager’s journey can often feel like a lonely uphill climb in the dark. This advice lights the path forward.

View all 7 articles in collection

If you're seeking to improve as a manager:

A manager’s journey can often feel like a lonely uphill climb in the dark. This advice lights the path forward.

Managers, Take Your 1:1 Meetings to the Next Level with These 6 Must Reads

1:1s aren't just line-items on every manager's to-do list—it's critical to make sure these weekly meetings are as impactful and effective as possible. Here's a collection of tactical tips from the Review archives to help you take meetings with your direct reports to the next level.

The Essential Questions That Have Powered This Top Silicon Valley Manager’s Career

After over a decade spent leading teams, Facebook VP of Product Design Julie Zhuo firmly believes that questions are a manager’s best tool. Here, she shares the essential questions she's used to build trust, improve 1:1s and make sure feedback is heard.

Our 6 Must Reads for Managers to Give Feedback That Helps People Grow

Giving constructive feedback that resonates is extremely difficult. You have to strike exactly the right chord for your words to cause change. Here's the best advice we've seen on how to do that.

The Indispensable Document for the Modern Manager

To build the strongest teams from the get-go, PatientPing Co-founder and CEO Jay Desai has written the definitive user guide — on himself. Read on to see how his tactical framework creates the bedrock for productive employee/manager relationships.

These 13 Exercises Will Prepare You for Work's Toughest Situations

Maggie Leung, VP of Content at Nerdwallet, has encountered every management challenge. Here, she shares the one practice that helps her thrive through difficult decisions and conversations.

Three Powerful Conversations Managers Must Have To Develop Their People

Google and Twitter veteran Russ Laraway breaks down the most critical conversations you must have with your employees to help them grow into fulfilling careers.

Fight Like You're Right, Listen Like You're Wrong and Other Keys to Great Management

Stanford Business and Engineering Professor Bob Sutton shares his secrets for effective leadership (including the No Asshole Rule).

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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.

View all 5 articles in collection

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.

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 how to find a co-founder and early conversations, to the set of 50 questions she prototyped 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

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.

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.

View all 6 articles in collection

If you're a hiring manager:

Tips for leading interviews and reducing bias

View all 6 articles in collection

If you're a hiring manager:

Tips for leading interviews and reducing bias

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 the

Our 6 Must Reads for Hiring Tactics that Break the Mold

Hiring at early-stage startups isn't getting easier. And while there's plenty of advice out there, it's tough to find tactics that make a mark. We've assembled the best tips from leaders who've gone off the beaten path in search of unconventional practices and fresh perspectives for every stage of t

Atlassian Boosted Its Female Technical Hires By 80% — Here’s How

As a diversity and inclusion leader, Aubrey Blanche is all about experiments backed up by research and data. Here, she shares what's worked and what hasn't at Atlassian.

Adam Grant On Interviewing to Hire Trailblazers, Nonconformists and Originals

Bestselling author Adam Grant follows up on his highly acclaimed book Originals with a set of interview questions needed to surface and select originals for your startup. Here's what to ask and how to find the nonconformists that will help propel your company forward.

Hire a Top Performer Every Time with These Interview Questions

Koru CEO Kristen Hamilton helps hundreds of people hire and get hired every year. These are the traits she knows translate into excellent performance on the job.

The Simple Numbers That Could Change How You Hire

Eric Feng built much of Hulu from scratch, and is now doing the same thing at Flipboard. Here's his definitive guide on setting up a data-driven hiring process.

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If you're an engineering leader:

Advice for making the leap from IC to manager

View all 8 articles in collection

If you're an engineering leader:

Advice for making the leap from IC to manager

The Engineer’s Guide to Career Growth — Advice from My Time at Stripe and Facebook

Raylene Yung has spent a decade scaling eng and product teams at Facebook and Stripe. Here's her advice for engineers at every stage of their careers, from IC to org leader.

Why This Engineering Leader Thinks You Shouldn’t Aim for Zero Regrettable Attrition

As Greenhouse’s CTO, Mike Boufford built an engineering team that grew from one to 60 in its first five years — with zero regrettable attrition.

How to Size and Assess Teams From an Eng Lead at Stripe, Uber and Digg

Will Larson has developed a framework for the optimal size and state of engineering teams—not only so managers can lead them in a highly efficient and effective way, but with a deeply empathetic and ethical approach.

My Lessons from Interviewing 400+ Engineers Over Three Startups

Engineering leader Marco Rogers (Lever, Yammer, Clover Health) debunks some of the most common recruiting tropes and walks through his four top interviewing practices for startups.

How Instagram Co-founder Mike Krieger Took Its Engineering Org from 0 to 300 People

Instagram Co-founder and CTO Mike Krieger built one of the industry's leading technical teams from scratch. Here's how he navigated rapid scale.

Track and Facilitate Your Engineers’ Flow States In This Simple Way

Cynthia Maxwell has led engineering teams at Slack, Apple, Yahoo! and Pinterest. Here's the management framework that's become one of the most powerful resources in her toolkit.

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.

This Is What Impactful Engineering Leadership Looks Like

Jessica McKellar, former founder and now engineering manager at Dropbox, shares the tenets that have made her an effective technical leader.

View all 7 articles in collection

If you're transitioning from scrappy founder to established CEO:

How to step up as your startup's leader

View all 7 articles in collection

If you're transitioning from scrappy founder to established CEO:

How to step up as your startup's leader

Hit the Emotional Gym — The Founder's Framework for Emotional Fitness

Psychologist and founder Dr. Emily Anhalt shares her seven traits of emotional fitness, why they're crucial for founders right now, plus concrete tactics for shaping up your emotional health.

NerdWallet’s CEO on Navigating the Shift from First-Time Founder to Seasoned Exec

NerdWallet co-founder and CEO Tim Chen reflects on the arc of his journey as founder after more than a decade of company building. He shares the six mindset shifts he needed to make to transition from entrepreneur to executive as his startup scaled, weaving together a collection of lessons that will

I Asked 100 Founders, CEOs and VCs About Career Transitions — Here’s What I Learned

After founding and scaling LendUp for seven years, Sasha Orloff decided to step down as CEO. He shares his journey and his illuminating takeaways about career transitions, structuring time off and founder life after the startup.

The Founder’s Guide to Discipline: Lessons from Front’s Mathilde Collin

Front's CEO and co-founder Mathilde Collin shares why a founder’s discipline matters more than vision, unveiling her own best practices and templates for communication, time management, fundraising and team building.

OpenTable's CEO on How to Dodge Company Breakdown as You Scale

OpenTable's leader Christa Quarles explains how startups can spot and survive their breaking points.

You Aren’t Born Knowing How to Be a CEO

Bazaarvoice CEO Brett Hurt on how new founders can get up to speed fast and the key things they need to know now.

What Scott Cook Wished He Knew About Being a CEO When He Founded Intuit

Intuit Founder Scott Cook on the most important lessons he learned, including the right (and rigorous way) to check references.

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If you're a startup's first people leader:

How to make HR your company's secret weapon from the beginning

View all 6 articles in collection

If you're a startup's first people leader:

How to make HR your company's secret weapon from the beginning

A New Approach to People Ops That Puts Employee Experience First

Patreon's Lucia Guillory is pioneering a new approach to People Ops that creates an end-to-end employee experience AND scales. Early-stage startups take heed.

Warning: This Is Not Your Grandfather’s Talent Planning

So you've heard of radical candor by now, right? That's just one of many tools you'll need to be a better boss, according to Candor, Inc. co-founder Kim Scott. You also must master the different modes of performance on your team — especially for your top people. Here's why.

A People Ops Veteran on Navigating the Gnarliest Conversations

Climate Corporation's Chief People Officer Meg Makalou has been the human resources leader for startups big and small. Here, she tells of the three most daunting conversations people ops executives face — and recommends routes to resolution.

This Company Retains 95% of Its Employees — Here’s Its Secret

Location Labs is known for two things — its impressively low burn rate and its uncanny ability to retain brilliant employees for years and years. Here's how it's managed to hold on to its most valuable talent.

The Only Onboarding Timeline You’ll Need: From Offer to First Friday

Percolate Co-founder Noah Brier shares why your company is only as strong as its onboarding plan.

This is Why People Leave Your Company

Carly Guthrie has run HR for major restaurant groups and startups. Here, she shares lessons for startups looking to hold onto their talent.

View all 7 articles in collection

If you're a founder brushing up on Sales 101:

Essential advice for building a pipeline with your startup's best customers

View all 7 articles in collection

If you're a founder brushing up on Sales 101:

Essential advice for building a pipeline with your startup's best customers

Growth at All Costs is Perilous — This is How to Scale Sales Sustainably

Many founders feel the pressure to spin up sales quickly to hit growth targets, but seasoned sales leader Karen Rhorer knows that this unsustainable strategy can lead to painful layoffs down the road. Here, she shares the four levers and key calculations startups need to understand in order to scale

Start Up on the Right Foot — Build a Customer Advisory Board

Sales leader Peter Kazanjy on creating a group that will ensure you're building a product your customers want, need and will buy.

The Three Frameworks You Need to Kick-start Sales

TalentIQ VP of Sales Whitney Sales offers three indispensable exercises for startups seeking to build their early sales function and tally their first deals.

Here are the Scripts for Sales Success — Emails, Calls and Demos That Close Deals

Seldom do you see sales advice that's so specific, down to the actual language you should use to get customers to say yes. Here, sales expert Peter Kazanjy shares exactly what's worked for him.

The Anatomy of the Perfect Sales Hiring Process

Sales is a unique function to hire for, requiring different criteria and strategy. TalentBin Co-founder Peter Kazanjy has the process nailed. Here it is.

To Build An Amazing Sales Team, Start Here First

TalentBin Co-Founder Peter Kazanjy offers his seasoned advice on how startups can accelerate sales with a strong narrative.

Looking to Scale Your Sales? Seven Bullets to Dodge

Upshift Partners Founder Gabriel Luna-Ostaseski lists the 7 deadly sins of sales that can tank your company before you even have traction.

View all 6 articles in collection

If you're trying to take better care of yourself:

Don't wait until the pot boils over — stop putting self-care on the backburner with these low-lift tactics

View all 6 articles in collection

If you're trying to take better care of yourself:

Don't wait until the pot boils over — stop putting self-care on the backburner with these low-lift tactics

How to Take Personal Development Off the Backburner — Tactical Frameworks for Leveling Up

Building better teams and companies starts with working on yourself. But for startup leaders, making time for personal development is usually last on the list. Here's a collection of tactical tips from the Review archives for getting started.

Hit the Emotional Gym — The Founder's Framework for Emotional Fitness

Psychologist and founder Dr. Emily Anhalt shares her seven traits of emotional fitness, why they're crucial for founders right now, plus concrete tactics for shaping up your emotional health.

When “Grin and Bear It” Isn't the Right Answer — This Behavioral Scientist Shares What to Do Instead

Author and behavioral scientist Matt Wallaert shares how two studies (on holding a pen and carrying around a box of chocolate) can shape our outlook when we're faced with a crisis.

Weathering the Emotional Storms of a Crisis — A Tactical Guide for Individual Contributors and Managers

At work, we're often expected to leave our emotions at the door and maintain a composed, "professional" exterior. But in the midst of this crisis, putting our emotions away in a tidy box until the end of the workday is no longer an option. Liz Fosslien, one-half of the duo behind the book "No Hard F

Our 6 Must Reads to Make Self-Care Your Competitive Advantage

Too many of us abandon healthy habits in order to work more. But the most successful among us know that self-care is a secret weapon to get more done better.

Practical Frameworks for Beating Burnout

After leading a massive division at LinkedIn, and now running three groups at a startup, Roli Saxena knows about burnout. Here's how she fights it with logic.

View all 9 articles in collection

If you're wondering how other startups got their start:

Some of our favorite origin stories from founders and companies that have tread remarkable paths

View all 9 articles in collection

If you're wondering how other startups got their start:

Some of our favorite origin stories from founders and companies that have tread remarkable paths

The Inside Story of How This Startup Turned a 216-Word Pitch Email into a $2.6 Billion Acquisition

Looker went from a single customer to more than 1700, from a small, scrappy team in Santa Cruz to a 700-person company spanning eight offices around the globe. Now on the heels of its acquisition by Google, co-founders Lloyd Tabb and Ben Porterfield, CEO Frank Bien, and first investor Bill Trenchard

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.

PlanGrid's Playbook for Startups to Crack Big, Established Industries

PlanGrid is changing the way the construction industry has operated for years. CEO Tracy Young describes the scrappy strategy that made them a catalyst.

AppNexus' First Pitch — Before It Steered Around the Cloud to Win Big in AdTech

AppNexus opens the vault and shares its very first seed funding pitch deck, created before its impressive pivot.

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

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

There’s a .00006% Chance of Building a Billion Dollar Company: How This Man Did It

David Friedberg, CEO of The Climate Corporation, tells the story of how they built a valuable company from scratch.

Drew Houston’s Morph from Hacker to Hyper-Growth CEO

Dropbox Founder and CEO Drew Houston turned a great piece of software into a massive business. Here's how he got there.

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.

How Design Thinking Transformed Airbnb from a Failing Startup to a Billion Dollar Business

Airbnb Co-founder Joe Gebbia talks about the true meaning of being scrappy and being willing to do things that don't scale.

View all 11 articles in collection

If you're searching for product/market fit:

Demystifying this critical — yet often unstable — stepping stone for every startup

View all 11 articles in collection

If you're searching for product/market fit:

Demystifying this critical — yet often unstable — stepping stone for every startup

Finding Language/Market Fit: How to Make Customers Feel Like You’ve Read Their Minds

After more than a decade of running B2B growth teams at PayPal and investing at 500 Startups, Matt Lerner now spends his days helping early-stage startups with growth. He's seen firsthand how changes in a handful of words can yield jaw-dropping differences in conversion.

The Minimum Viable Testing Process for Evaluating Startup Ideas

The traditional approach is to do some customer research, throw an MVP out there as fast as possible, and hope it hits. After being early at three startups that achieved over $1M in run-rate in their first six months of going live, Gagan Biyani has landed on an approach that’s quite different.

8 Product Hurdles Every Founder Must Clear — This PM-Turned-Founder Shares His Playbooks

Repeat PM turned first-time founder Ryan Glasgow addresses the tough product questions every founder faces, from segmenting the market and iterating on early MVPs, to finding product/market fit and spinning up a second product.

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.

How to Craft Your Product Team at Every Stage, From Pre-Product-Market Fit to Hypergrowth

Former Credit Karma CPO Nikhyl Singhal shares the phases a product org goes through as a startup matures — and his tips for transitioning between them gracefully.

Don’t Serve Burnt Pizza (And Other Lessons in Building Minimum Lovable Products)

Product builders should aim for lovable, not just viable. Jiaona Zhang (product leader at Dropbox, Airbnb, WeWork and lecturer at Stanford) shares her tactics for building MLPs that win users' hearts.

From Zero to IPO: How Growth Needs to Evolve at Every Startup Stage

There's no one-size-fits-all growth advice. Brian Rothenberg, former VP of Growth at Eventbrite, breaks down the three broad phases of the startup lifecycle. For each phase, he identifies key targets that startups should aim for to kick their growth strategy to the next level.

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.

ClassPass’ Founder on How Marketplace Startups Can Achieve Product/Market Fit

It's rarely a straight line to product/market fit. Here are ClassPass founder Payal Kadakia's hard-won tips for marketplace startups that helped her guide her company from a near-bust to a $470M game-changer.

Product Hunt is Everywhere — This is How It Got There

Two years ago, Product Hunt didn't exist. Now it's the toast of the town. In this exclusive article, Found Ryan Hoover tracks its ascent.

When It Comes to Market Leadership, Be the Gorilla

There are three ways to dominate a market: product leadership, cost leadership or customer intimacy leadership. Here's how to achieve it.

View all 8 articles in collection

If you're prepping for performance reviews:

Don't just check a box, tap into a vital conversation with your employees to help them level up

View all 8 articles in collection

If you're prepping for performance reviews:

Don't just check a box, tap into a vital conversation with your employees to help them level up

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

Performance reviews are key to accelerating your report's career. A former Airbnb Product Lead shares the conversation template that he's used to build high-performing teams and motivate growth all year long.

Our 6 Must Reads for Managers to Give Feedback That Helps People Grow

Giving constructive feedback that resonates is extremely difficult. You have to strike exactly the right chord for your words to cause change. Here's the best advice we've seen on how to do that.

Betterment Tested Three Performance Management Systems So You Don't Have To

As Founder and CEO of Betterment, Jon Stein realized startups can't just establish one way to measure employee performance — they have to continually iterate as they grow. Here's how to do it well.

A People Ops Veteran on Navigating the Gnarliest Conversations

Climate Corporation's Chief People Officer Meg Makalou has been the human resources leader for startups big and small. Here, she tells of the three most daunting conversations people ops executives face — and recommends routes to resolution.

How Does Your Leadership Team Rate?

Upstart Founder and CEO Dave Girouard on the uniquely difficult challenge of evaluating and providing feedback to the leaders at your company.

AltSchool's CEO Rebuilt Google's Performance Review System to Work for Startups — Here It Is

Max Ventilla may be revolutionizing early education, but he's also changing the way startups work. Here's how his company handles the critical matter of performance reviews.

One Rubric Changed Box's Engineering Performance — Here's How

Box's SVP Engineering Sam Schillace on the rubric that has helped the company build and maintain a culture of high performance.

The Best Approach to the Worst Conversation: "You're Fired"

Michael Lopp has headed up People Operations at both Palantir and Pinterest. Here, he explains how to fire people the right way.

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If you're in need of some unexpected inspiration:

Sometimes the most creative, game-changing ideas come from different kinds of teachers

View all 9 articles in collection

If you're in need of some unexpected inspiration:

Sometimes the most creative, game-changing ideas come from different kinds of teachers

What Sweetgreen Can Teach Startups About Scaling Intimacy

Co-founder Nathaniel Ru draws on his experience scaling Sweetgreen to offer startups a clearer window into how rapidly growing companies can stay connected with customers, partners and employees.

How Backcountry’s Support Reps Go the Extra Mile — And Get Invited to Their Customers’ Weddings

This online outdoor gear and clothing company blends service and sales to craft a customer experiences that wows. VP of Sales and Customer Service Chris Purkey walks us through how startups can learn from Backcountry's approach to beat the scale of more established competitors with authentic, white

What Your Startup Can Learn from Astronauts, The Daily Show, and the Coach of the Boston Celtics

Organizational psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant jumps into unconventional workplaces to surface insights that'll help the rest of us work smarter and better.

Why Chefs and Soldiers Make the Best Product Managers

Eaze CEO Jim Patterson has a theory that military and kitchen experience are solid indicators of great PMs. Here's why and what startups can look for to hire better.

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.

Shims, Jigs and Other Woodworking Concepts to Conquer Technical Debt

One Medical CTO Kimber Lockhart subscribes to a philosophy -- inspired by woodworking -- that helps startups judiciously control technical debt. Here's how it works.

Lessons from Pixar: Why Software Developers Should Be Storytellers

Martin Reddy, engineering lead at Pixar and CTO at ToyTalk, on why and how founders need to tell compelling stories.

Flying Lessons

Angus Davis, founder and CEO of Swipely, on the lessons he learned from flying that now apply to entrepreneurism.

Spotify’s Design Lead on Why Side Projects Should Be Stupid

If you take what you're doing too seriously, you're likely to squeeze the life out of it. Here's a guide to letting your projects stay stupid and fun.

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If you're seeking some career advice:

Honest, vulnerable advice from folks that have been there

View all 5 articles in collection

If you're seeking some career advice:

Honest, vulnerable advice from folks that have been there

I Asked 100 Founders, CEOs and VCs About Career Transitions — Here’s What I Learned

After founding and scaling LendUp for seven years, Sasha Orloff decided to step down as CEO. He shares his journey and his illuminating takeaways about career transitions, structuring time off and founder life after the startup.

These Seven Emotions Aren't Deadly — They're Your Secret Career Superpowers

It's time to do away with the myth that emotions don't belong in the workplace. With hilarious, relatable illustrations, Liz Fosslien shares how you can tap into anxiety, envy and other "deadly" emotions to boost your career and well-being.

Make Friends With the Monster Chewing on Your Leg, and Other Tips for Surviving Startups

After telling us to 'Give Away your Legos,' Molly Graham is back to dig deeper into tactics for handling the emotional rollercoaster of scaling startups. Here, she shares the strategies she used at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Quip and Facebook to keep her head on straight and defang three common

Harnessing Happiness to Build Your Career — Advice from an Uber Product Leader

Frederique Dame spent the last four years as a top product manager at Uber. But if you ask her what's made her career, it's her attitude. Here's what she knows that others should.

When You're at the Crossroads of Should and Must

This is a pep talk for anyone who’s chosen Should far too long and feels like it’s about time they give Must a shot.

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If you're hoping to get better at talking to customers:

How to unearth early insights and cultivate the powerful customer relationships that will change the trajectory of your product

View all 8 articles in collection

If you're hoping to get better at talking to customers:

How to unearth early insights and cultivate the powerful customer relationships that will change the trajectory of your product

Mastering the Art of the Outcome: How Guru Turned Customer Success Into a Company Cornerstone

At Guru, customer success is at the center of every aspect of company-building, from product design to sales strategy. Co-founder and CEO Rick Nucci shows how a relentless dedication to outcomes gives startups a competitive edge.

How Backcountry’s Support Reps Go the Extra Mile — And Get Invited to Their Customers’ Weddings

This online outdoor gear and clothing company blends service and sales to craft a customer experiences that wows. VP of Sales and Customer Service Chris Purkey walks us through how startups can learn from Backcountry's approach to beat the scale of more established competitors with authentic, white

Start Up on the Right Foot — Build a Customer Advisory Board

Sales leader Peter Kazanjy on creating a group that will ensure you're building a product your customers want, need and will buy.

Your Users Deserve Better — An Inside Look at Remind’s Customer Obsession

Remind's classroom communication app is used in more than half of all US public schools. It's because its co-founder Brett Kopf and team are unabashedly obsessed with their users. Here's how they build remarkable relationships with customers.

'Get in the Van' and Other Tips for Getting Meaningful Customer Feedback

Michael Sippey has been building tech products for over 20 years. His most valuable ideas, though? They came from speaking with customers. Here's how.

Eventbrite's Playbook for Building Amazing Customer Service from Scratch

Eventbrite's VP of Customer Service Dana Kilian on how she built the team that fields millions of questions from scratch.

How to Engage Your Users to Build the Product They Actually Want

Massdrop's first users were so involved in shaping the product that it's become core to the company's culture. And that's a great thing.

This Is How You Get People to Trust Your Product

Startups can't succeed without the trust of their customers. Here, Urbansitter CEO Lynn Perkins shares how to bake trust into your product.

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If you're a founder building out your team:

Essential startup roles and how to fill them

View all 7 articles in collection

If you're a founder building out your team:

Essential startup roles and how to fill them

So You Think You’re Ready to Hire a Marketer? Read This First.

As First Round’s Marketing Expert in Residence, Arielle Jackson often helps early-stage founders navigate the search for a full-time marketer of their own. From the when and the why to the who and the how, Jackson offers a crash course on every aspect of the marketer hiring process.

Defining Growth Design: The Guide to the Role Most Startups are Missing

Angel Steger serves as our guide on a trek to better understand the still developing speciality of growth design. She shares lessons learned from her roles leading the function at Dropbox and Pinterest, and outlines tactics for early-stage startups looking to source, interview and onboard growth des

Why You Need Two Chiefs in the Executive Office

Influitive CEO Mark Organ explains how a chief of staff can power up a CEO to superhuman status. Here, he details a roadmap to hiring and training for this critical role.

Make Operations Your Secret Weapon - Here’s How

Etsy COO Linda Kozlowski knows an operations leader is critical to the success of a company. Here, she sheds light on the most mysterious role in the C-suite — and how startups can hire and empower the right COO for their company.

Find, Vet and Close the Best Product Managers

Todd Jackson is skilled at identifying excellent product managers. Now Dropbox's VP of Product and Design, he shares his process here.

What You Want in a VP Eng from the Recruiters Behind Twitter and Zappos

Top technical recruiters Ali Behnam and Mike Morell of Riviera Partners share how startups can snag a great VP of Engineering.

Asana’s Head of Talent on the Secrets to Finding a Great Startup Recruiter

Asana's Andy Stoe on how startups can bring recruiting in-house, including where to look for a first hire and interview questions.

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If you're joining an early-stage startup:

Life at a startup can be a bit of a rollercoaster. Here are our best reads on how to hang on.

View all 5 articles in collection

If you're joining an early-stage startup:

Life at a startup can be a bit of a rollercoaster. Here are our best reads on how to hang on.

Make Friends With the Monster Chewing on Your Leg, and Other Tips for Surviving Startups

After telling us to 'Give Away your Legos,' Molly Graham is back to dig deeper into tactics for handling the emotional rollercoaster of scaling startups. Here, she shares the strategies she used at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Quip and Facebook to keep her head on straight and defang three common

Hypergrowth and The Law of Startup Physics

Reboot.io founder and professional coach Khalid Halim has guided the leadership at Coinbase, Lyft and Checkr through some of the steepest parts of their growth curve. Here, he shares the two promises every founder must make before hypergrowth.

Read This Before Joining as Employee 1 to 20 at a Startup

Should I work for a startup? Before deciding, find out here the best employee tactics to survive in a starting business and thrive as an early employee.

Our 6 Must Reads if You’re at a Startup With 30+ People

Startups are always evolving, but something transforms them between 30-50 employees. Here's what the Review's experts have to say about navigating that particular inflection point more smoothly.

‘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.

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Insights from Building Instacart

Curated from The Review archives, this collection features hard-won lessons from everyone from CEO Fidji Simo and co-founder Max Mullen, to former execs who helped shape the company's approach to growth, data science, and comp.

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Insights from Building Instacart

Curated from The Review archives, this collection features hard-won lessons from everyone from CEO Fidji Simo and co-founder Max Mullen, to former execs who helped shape the company's approach to growth, data science, and comp.

How Fidji Simo Finds Focus and Creates Conditions for Intentional Work

Instacart CEO and former Facebook VP of Product Fidji Simo shares tactics to master focus in a world where possibilities are endless and the stakes are high.

How Instacart Uses Data to Craft A Bespoke Comp Strategy

When searches for talent are competitive and condensed, startups have a need for speed that makes freestyle negotiations or plug-and-play comp data resources attractive. But that's not how it has to go down.

How A/B Testing at LinkedIn, Wealthfront and eBay Made Me a Better Manager

Instacart VP of Product Elliot Shmukler shares how he uses A/B testing as a management framework to not only accelerate product decisions, but also empower product teams.

Doing Data Science Right — Your Most Common Questions Answered

Veteran data leaders Jeremy Stanley (Instacart, Sailthru) and Daniel Tunkelang (LinkedIn) walk through the wheres, whats, whys and hows of building the perfect data science team.

View all 5 articles in collection

Insights from Building Notion

Curated from The Review archives, this collection features hard-won lessons from everyone from the early marketing team, to execs who helped shape the company's approach to partnerships, data science and product-led growth.

View all 5 articles in collection

Insights from Building Notion

Curated from The Review archives, this collection features hard-won lessons from everyone from the early marketing team, to execs who helped shape the company's approach to partnerships, data science and product-led growth.

How Notion Does Marketing: A Deep-Dive Into its Community, Influencers & Growth Playbooks

We peel back the layers of Notion’s multifaceted marketing strategy, diving deep into three distinct channels that have helped power its meteoric rise: community, influencer marketing, and growth and analytics.

Notion’s Head of Marketing on building a growth marketing engine at a PLG company — Rachel Hepworth

Our guest today is Rachel Hepworth, Head of Marketing at Notion. Rachel currently runs growth marketing at Notion, and sees her job as bringing process and control to all of Notion’s different marketing channels.

Lessons from Notion on building a thriving decentralized community — Ben Lang

Our guest today is Ben Lang, Head of Community at Notion. Since joining the company in 2019, Ben has had his hand in several high-impact projects at Notion that has grown its tight-knit community of passionate Notion evangelists into millions of users today.

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.

Between Sales and Product: Building Out Self-Serve and Customer Experience at Notion & Dropbox

Kate Taylor spent 8 years at Dropbox leading their SMB revenue and scaled sales operation) and is now the Head of Customer Experience at Notion.

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The Best Bits of Company Building Advice since 2013

Every January, our editorial team revisits all of the advice we published in the past year to surface the best tactical wisdom that seasoned company builders had to offer. It's a tradition that's now more than a decade in the making — revisit each time-capsule-like toolkit here.

View all 12 articles in collection

The Best Bits of Company Building Advice since 2013

Every January, our editorial team revisits all of the advice we published in the past year to surface the best tactical wisdom that seasoned company builders had to offer. It's a tradition that's now more than a decade in the making — revisit each time-capsule-like toolkit here.

The 30 Best Pieces of Company Building Advice We Heard in 2024

For the 12th year in a row, we rounded up 30 timeless company-building insights we published from the year before.

The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2023

It’s the first week of the new year, and here on The Review we’re ushering it in with a beloved annual ritual (that we find to be much more delightful than other yearly exercises like annual planning or performance reviews).

The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2022

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 2021

Start the new year off on the right footing with the 30 most impactful insights and ultra-tactical frameworks from every article we published in 2021.

The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2020

We've rounded up 30 standout, must-share insights from the articles we published over the last year. Read on for the most impactful pieces of advice we heard in 2020 — presented with hopes that you can apply them for whatever's to come in 2021.

The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2019

We've rounded up 30 standout, must-share insights from the profiles we published over the last year. Read on for the most impactful pieces of advice we heard in 2019 — presented with hopes that you can apply them to make your next decade even brighter.

The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2018

We've rounded up 30 of the best insights from the articles we published over the last year. Read on for a time-capsule-like toolkit, full of the best tactical wisdom that seasoned company builders had to offer in 2018.

The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2017

The most insightful and transformative pieces of advice we published on the Review in 2017, curated for your perusal and continued excellence. Relevant to everyone working in tech, not just founders.

The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2016

In our annual roundup, we've distilled the top 30 insights from all of our articles published over the last year. Read on to take in tactics and advice from some of the sharpest minds we know.

The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2015

In 2015, we brought you nearly 100 articles chock-full of advice from the best minds in tech. Here, we've distilled this down to the very best, needle-moving insights.

The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2014

A comprehensive list of the top pieces of advice we heard in 2014 from people who are the very best at what they do.

The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2013

Our 2013 roundup of the very best pieces of advice for entrepreneurs shared by experts and leaders across the tech industry.