462 Posts found for Source: First Round Review

When Leslie Ziegler joined the founding team of Rock Health in 2010, she had an enormous task ahead of her: make the intimidating world of institutional health care approachable for startup founders. No matter what the firm did next, its brand was going to have to do this heavy lifting, and as a veteran art director with the likes of McCann Erickson and DDB, this … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Leslie Ziegler | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Brand, Entrepreneurship, Marketing / Sales

When somebody knows that their review is going to directly affect their comp, they are just waiting for you to stop talking and tell them what it says on that piece of paper you’re holding. Simply tell your report from the outset that they won’t be getting their comp change then and there. Then you can open the door for vastly more productive conversations around … [ Read more ]

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

One of the greatest sources of compensation inequity is that question every candidate dreads: What are you making now? It’s a really common practice, and it compounds a lot of biases. If someone is not a great negotiator, for example, or took a lower salary to work in the nonprofit sector, they’re set up to under-earn for their whole career. The truth is, the last … [ Read more ]

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

The clearest indicator of the values driving a company — your own or one you’re considering joining — is already in motion from the start, in one of the last places you’re probably looking: compensation.

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

After three decades leading data teams at companies like LiveOps, Netscape, and ReadyForce, Lloyd Tabb’s biggest learning isn’t what you would expect — or want to hear: You’re measuring the wrong metrics. We all are.

In this exclusive interview, Tabb shares how to abide by metrics that generate direction — not pats on backs — so that your company can act on what’s most essential to … [ Read more ]

Content: Thought Leader | Author: Lloyd Tabb | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Management

If you’re a B2B startup founder, having warm relationships with a crowd of prospective customers is an ideal. But it can also be a reality. In this exclusive interview, Peter Kazanjy shares the steps any startup — no matter how small — can use to build its own, robust Customer Advisory Board. He covers how to recruit members, gather high-quality feedback, keep relationships strong, and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Pete Kazanjy | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Entrepreneurship

After two decades leading engineering teams for giants like Facebook and EMI to Linden Lab and Reddit, Bethanye Blount realized that the most meaningful, even existential, problems she’d encountered were not in code but in comp — and that there are data-driven best practices for solving them. Now, as co-founder of Compaas, Blount is on a mission to help startups ensure that the story their … [ Read more ]

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

When you say thank you, you increase your own happiness. I know of one executive who puts 10 pennies in his left pocket every morning. Every time he thanks someone or expresses gratitude, he moves a penny to his right pocket. He won’t go home until his left pocket is empty. Whatever you need to do to remind yourself to say positive things at work, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Scott Crabtree | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personal Development, Productivity / Work Tips

A huge difference between happy people and unhappy people is how they cope. Three top coping strategies recommended by doctors sound common enough but are too rarely practiced: 1) Talk to someone who cares about you (not just anyone, it won’t have the same effect); 2) meditate or try to be mindful for even just a few minutes; and 3) get physical exercise.

Content: Quotation | Author: Scott Crabtree | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

A lot of people believe that multitasking makes them even more efficient at what they’re doing. Science shows otherwise, in dramatic fashion. Most importantly, multitasking makes attaining flow impossible. That’s the happiest, most productive state of mind, and you can get into it simply by focusing completely for 20 minutes or more on a challenging but possible task.

Content: Quotation | Author: Scott Crabtree | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Personal Development, Productivity / Work Tips, Work

Great goals go beyond SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant to your interests, and time-bound). They have specific milestones that help provide a sense of progress, which is crucial to happiness at work. If you start off with well-defined goals that will allow you to realize success and that have multiple steps toward an endpoint, you are much more likely to enjoy working toward them.

Content: Quotation | Author: Scott Crabtree | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Goals, Management, Organizational Behavior, Productivity / Work Tips, Success / Failure

There’s a common assumption that you will be happy when you are successful. But the reverse is actually true, and not just anecdotally. Hard neurological science supports the idea that happy people have more capacity to succeed. And beyond that, that happiness is not a genetic mandate, or a product of circumstance. It’s a choice.

Content: Quotation | Author: Scott Crabtree | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Career, Personal Development, Personality / Behavior, Success / Failure

Most founders set out to create something iconic but don’t know where to start. At First Round’s recent CEO Summit, Caryn Marooney, Head of Technology Communications for Facebook, boiled down this massive challenge into an execution plan and guidelines for startups to craft an image that will resonate with the public and the press, launch on a strong note, and build momentum as they grow … [ Read more ]

Content: Thought Leader | Author: Caryn Marooney | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Public Relations

The simplest way to implement an idea effectively may not be the simplest way to implement that idea. “Minimum” comes first in “MVP,” but “viable” is at its core.

Content: Quotation | Author: Gina Gotthilf | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Customer Related, Management, Marketing / Sales, Project Management, Strategy

When hiring candidates, ask for their operating manual. Tell candidates: “Imagine you’re a robot. What does your manual say under ‘ideal operating conditions.’” Once they answer, follow-up with this question: “What does the ‘warning label’ say?” You’re likely to get insightful, unpredictable and humorous answers in this very low-lift way of gauging self-awareness and revealing personality.

Content: Quotation | Author: Unknown | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Human Resources

Kabam’s story is pretty well known. In a Cinderella story twist, the social network-turned-sports-turned-gaming company weathered three major pivots in 10 years to ultimately sell for $800 million. This is pretty much unheard of. But there’s a big chunk of this unlikely tale that hasn’t been told — how they managed to pull it off. In this exclusive interview, Co-founder and CEO Kevin Chou shares … [ Read more ]

Content: Case Study | Author: Kevin Chou | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Entrepreneurship | Company: Kabam

If you don’t consistently teach more and more people how to make the decisions or find resolutions consistent with your company’s goals, you’re going to stall out. Trust saves a huge amount of time.

Content: Quotation | Author: Claire Hughes Johnson | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Management, Training & Development, Trust

One of the biggest challenges any growing company faces is equipping employees with the information, agency and confidence to make decisions for the company on their own. As a founder or executive leader, you can’t always be there to make a call. You have to trust that others can do it in order to keep pushing the frontier of your business. To make this possible, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Claire Hughes Johnson | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior, Training & Development

Your principles should be clear and explicit enough that the people who consult them will make the same decisions a founder of your company would. They should also be defined in a way that acknowledges potential tensions. When two principles seem to conflict, the context should tell you which principle should take precedence. In this way, your core tenets serve more as a guide to … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Claire Hughes Johnson | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

A lot of companies don’t decide how they want to grow until they’re well into their growth phase. For a long time, your actions pull your company along, and then all of a sudden it switches — your existing business starts pushing your behavior. External forces like feature requests, the need for more customer support, the need to create a team to do X when … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Claire Hughes Johnson | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Management, Organizational Behavior