462 Posts found for Source: First Round Review

Whether the entire product itself is a platform devoted to bringing folks together or community efforts provide an outlet for bonding over mutual love of a product, it seems as though more and more startups are getting into the community building game these days.

But “community” itself is still a rather fuzzy concept. It’s a murky and almost mystical world where connection is currency and authenticity … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Bailey Richardson | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Customer Related

High-stakes decisions are seldom clearly cut. On a team, it’s difficult to get consensus on what the “best” option even means; with an excess of choices, leaders can fall into the paralysis of indecision, wasting precious time and opportunities. How do you make a choice that optimizes for both speed and sagacity? Should you place more weight on data, or go with your gut? How … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Decision Making, Management

Onboarding is so much more than the standard-issue IT set-up and friendly pointers for working the coffee machine. To help break down the essential ingredients of an excellent onboarding process, we gathered perspectives on onboarding from the Review’s most seasoned operators to help you maximize the impact of those decisive first interactions.

Their tactical advice spans a template for the ideal Day One timeline, to how … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Human Resources

Given the high-stakes nature of every hire, interviewing chops are always in need of sharpening. And that means our hunt for a crazy-good interview question is never over. We’re endlessly fascinated by the go-to inquiry in everyone’s back pocket, the kind that makes you want to steal it for your own hiring toolkit. To that end, we’ve spent the past few months reaching out to … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Human Resources

While plans are projected in months, we know the true progress happens by the week, day and hour — where all the distraction traps are laid and it’s easier to lose your way. It’s on those time horizons where competing priorities clamor for our limited time, and finding focus becomes all the more vital, despite the stumbling blocks that stand in our way. When we … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Personal Development, Productivity / Work Tips

[Sean] Ellis [has] found a leading [product/market fit] indicator: just ask users “how would you feel if you could no longer use the product?” and measure the percent who answer “very disappointed.” After benchmarking nearly a hundred startups with his customer development survey, Ellis found that the magic number was 40%. Companies that struggled to find growth almost always had less than 40% of users … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Rahul Vohra | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Customer Related, Innovation, Management

To increase your product/market fit […] spend half your time doubling down on what users already love and the other half on addressing what’s holding others back.

Content: Quotation | Author: Rahul Vohra | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Customer Related, Innovation, Management

Compensation is culture, period. It’s how you pay your people and it’s where the rubber hits the road. It’s the metric you can’t cheat. It’s naive to think that you’re just going to give people money and they’re not going to feel everything that’s attached to it. Pay is incredibly personal and emotionally charged. It directly affects how we live our lives and how we … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Bethanye McKinney Blount | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Compensation, Culture, Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

When you start talking about pay transparency, the first thing everyone thinks is “I’m going to know how much everybody makes.” I think a better way to frame it is “I’m going to understand why I’m paid what I’m paid and how I can increase my comp.” It’s about making sure employees understand their current reality and see a career development path in front of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Bethanye McKinney Blount | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Compensation, Human Resources

Your challenge is to create product experiences for two different mindsets, one for your potential customers and one for your engaged customers. Initially, if you want your prospective customers to engage, think of them as lazy, vain, and selfish. Then for the customers who survive the first 30 seconds and actually come through the door, build a meaningful experience and relationship that lasts a lifetime. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Scott Belsky | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Customer Related, Innovation, Market Research

Whether you’re building a product, creating art, or writing a book, you need to remember that your customers or patrons make sweeping judgments in their first experience interacting with your creation – especially in the first thirty seconds. I call this the “first mile,” and it is the most critical yet underserved part of a product. […] In a world of moving fast and pushing … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Scott Belsky | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Customer Related, Innovation, Marketing / Sales

Life is just time and how you use it. Every product or service in your life either helps you spend time or save time. […] The only exceptions are rare products … that add a time-consuming action to your plate while also making that experience faster than it normally would be.

Content: Quotation | Author: Scott Belsky | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Innovation, Marketing / Sales

Simple is sticky. It is very hard to make a product—or any customer experience—simple. It is even harder to keep it simple. The more obvious and intuitive a product is, the harder it is to optimize it without adding complication.

Content: Quotation | Author: Scott Belsky | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Innovation

As Vinod Khosla has observed, your market entry strategy is often different from your market disruption strategy. And too many people focus on how small the market entry side is, but the entry point almost definitionally has to be small, because you have to find a space that isn’t covered or saturated by incumbents. If you find a gap and push your way through, often … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Elad Gil, Vinod Khosla | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Strategy

A lot of founders will go to customers and say “Hey, would you want to use this?” And customers will say “That’s great, we’d love to use it.” And so the founders go off and build it, but when then they come back with a product, no one’s using it. That’s because what they should have asked is, “Would you pay for this?” Being interested … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Elad Gil | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Customer Related, Entrepreneurship, Market Research

Markets with potential usually have a changing dynamic that allows new players to climb in and make room for themselves. It could be falling costs, new tech or a new distribution channel. Whatever it is, if you’ve heard something was difficult, you can’t just stop there because things have probably changed.

Content: Quotation | Author: Elad Gil | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Strategy

As a general rule, when I make investments, it’s market first and the strength of the team second, which is quite different from a lot of other angel investors who are more founder-driven. I think that’s a mistake. Even if you have a strong founding team that’s able to pivot, they’ll probably stay trapped in the market they’re already in. Many great teams get taken … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Elad Gil | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Entrepreneurship

You can have more decisions than decision-makers, but if you have more decision-makers than decisions, that’s when you run into problems.

Content: Quotation | Author: James Everingham | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Decision Making, Management

When you think of transparency, you usually default to the communication aspect: telling everyone what’s happening or admitting when you’ve made a mistake. But when folks say that things aren’t transparent, what they’re probably getting at is that decision-making isn’t transparent. It’s the feeling that decisions sometimes roll on down from the lofty perch of the leadership team, seemingly out of nowhere. Instead, pull back … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: James Everingham | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Communication, Decision Making, Management, Organizational Behavior

As a two-time founder and a seasoned engineering leader, Bethanye McKinney Blount has seen misunderstanding around comp rear its head time and time again. And in her experience, this hesitation to pull back the curtain on paychecks and think more deliberately about a compensation philosophy tends to cause problems down the line as startups scale. In this exclusive interview, Blount tackles the thorny questions startups … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Bethanye McKinney Blount | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Compensation, Human Resources