451 Posts found for Source: First Round Review

We designed our [hiring] process to test these [quantitative] skills first, then move on to more subjective (yet still measurable) skills like problem solving and communication. Only at the end do we get to the most subjective of all — how the candidate works on a team and fits into the culture. These later stage, more subjective criteria are the most time-consuming to evaluate and … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jeremy Stanley | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources

Investing in an always-on process will force you to treat hiring as a discipline. This will drive consistency in protocol and results, enable you to collect data about your successes and failures, and force you to manage your talent pipeline with the same care you manage your data pipelines.

Content: Quotation | Author: Jeremy Stanley | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources

Your response to failure should be as transparent as possible. When people see someone fail, and then see that our response is not to fire them but to get them the help they need to improve, everyone is empowered. Everyone feels more comfortable to ask questions and to admit fault. And that’s how organizations really end up getting better — when people feel like they … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ray Smith | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

In my work as an angel investor and advisor, I often find myself dishing out the same advice: Do the work to make sure you are building a product that people will actually find valuable. That requires an incredibly deep understanding of the user, their hopes, and their motivations, instead of taking the easier path of operating off of untested assumptions.

Many entrepreneurs may do this … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Sunita Mohanty | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Market Research, Marketing / Sales, Project Management

A direct line of communication between a sales ops leader and someone analyzing user behavior is hugely valuable. Together we can go through the data and figure out what we need to change in our process. Who should sales development reps be calling? Who should the customer success team be worried about for renewals? Your analytics person could say, “Hey, here are your top users, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Don Otvos | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Marketing / Sales

You always want to compensate your reps based on what they can actually control. You want to tie as much of people’s compensation as you can to things like “meetings set” or “demos given” — actual activities. When you’re at a startup, it’s hard to figure out what your quotas should be — there’s usually no precedent, so you throw a number out there, and … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Don Otvos | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Compensation, Human Resources, Marketing / Sales

In this exclusive interview, Molly Graham shares her six rules for how to be a good manager. Some come seemingly out of left field, others are nuanced takes on common pearls of wisdom — but true to what we’ve come to expect whenever we sit down with Graham, all are useful rules of thumb for any startup leader or new manager to lean on. From … [ Read more ]

Content: Thought Leader | Author: Molly Graham | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Management

Empathy isn’t natural for everyone, but I have a way I like to test for it. I ask people to recount a conflict on the job. Then I ask them to describe what was going on inside the other person’s head. If they can explain why the other person wanted them to do something, that’s the sign of empathy — and a manager.

Content: Quotation | Author: David Loftesness | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources

As a candidate, prepping for a job interview can feel like a job that’s never fully done. Today we’re focusing on those moments when the interviewer turns to candidates and asks the inevitable, “Do you have any questions for me?” at the end of the interview. It’s critical to come up with a slate of good questions to ask that uncover vital information about the … [ Read more ]

Content: Career Information | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Career, Interviewing

Make your remote team members first-class citizens. If a benefit, perk or experience is created for your in-office team members, find a way to create parity for those who aren’t in person. That means mailing items given to your in-office team to remote workers — or if you cover lunch for your in-office team, send your remote team a gift card or stipend for food … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Bob Moore | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Teamwork

There’s a difference between delegating and absolving yourself of responsibility.

Content: Quotation | Author: Bob Moore | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Management

Resilient founders don’t ask “Which competitor are we scared of?” Instead, it’s “What fully-formed company would be an existential threat to us, whether it exists or not? And if it doesn’t exist, why aren’t we building it?”

Content: Quotation | Author: Bob Moore | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Management, Strategy

I don’t worry about competition, I worry about my own vision being wrong, which creates an opportunity for competition to succeed. If anything, I think we spent too much energy thinking about the noise everyone else was making and not enough thinking about our own place in the real market.

Content: Quotation | Author: Bob Moore | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Competitive Intelligence, Entrepreneurship, Management, Strategy

Product/market fit isn’t a diploma you hang on your company’s wall. It’s a moving target that you constantly have to monitor. Take it from me — you can find it, only to watch it slip through your fingers.

Content: Quotation | Author: Bob Moore | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Management, Marketing / Sales

Unstructured meetings are a waste of time. Remember, time is your most precious resource as a manager — and wasted time harms yourself and your team.

Content: Quotation | Author: Karen Rhorer | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Productivity / Work Tips

One of the most common startup failure modes is investing in too many channels at once, and as a result not investing in any one channel enough. As an example, betting big on both SEO and virality feels like a really good idea (“We’ll grow twice as fast!”), but in practice it rarely works. And it’s often not clear that either of these routes are … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Dan Hockenmaier, Lenny Rachitsky | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Marketing / Sales

When your direct report asks for advice, turn it around and ask “Before I answer, what do you think?”

Content: Quotation | Author: Lenny Rachitsky | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Management

Keep track of instances where your report did well, didn’t do well, or generally did something noteworthy. Share these things with your report in weekly 1:1s and save them in a running file so you can refer to them come performance season.

Content: Quotation | Author: Lenny Rachitsky | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Management

[Ask your direct reports, “What’s harder than it should be?”] It helps you identify patterns when you talk to various people. It helps you smell smoke early. That question could apply to many situations, jobs and companies. And it isn’t judgmental.

Content: Quotation | Author: Maggie Leung | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Management

Your job as a manager isn’t to dole out advice or ‘save the day’ — it’s to empower your report to find the answer herself. She has more context than you on the problems she’s dealing with, so she’s in the best position to uncover the solution.

Content: Quotation | Author: Julie Zhuo | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Management