451 Posts found for Source: First Round Review

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

What your people work on speaks to what’s immediate. How they describe their work signals their vision.

Content: Quotation | Author: Vanessa Hope Schneider | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

[For new leaders hired from the outside] there are two relationships to focus on at the start: how your team fits into your company. And how your company fits into the landscape. The CEO has those cliff notes. I spent a lot of time on the phone with him before I even got started in the role.

Content: Quotation | Author: Vanessa Hope Schneider | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Leadership, Management

By any measure, Instagram’s major milestones are staggering. The entire startup ecosystem sat up and took notice when Facebook acquired it for $1B only a year and a half after its founding. But that was both the result and beginning of mind-boggling, exponential growth in its user base, from 30 million monthly active users when it was acquired in 2012 to 200 million two years … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Mike Krieger | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Human Resources, Management

Chris Fralic is a successful VC himself, responsible for First Round’s investments in Warby Parker, Roblox, HotelTonight and Adaptly among others. When asked what’s made his career possible, he’ll tell you outright it’s the relationships — built deliberately over many years. This might sound like a common response, but among his peers, he’s acknowledged to be a world-class super-connector with rarefied expertise.

In this piece, … [ Read more ]

Content: Thought Leader | Author: Chris Fralic | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Career, Networking, Personal Development

At First Round, we get asked all the time how companies can capture mindshare and customer fascination when they have hardly any resources to throw at it. Well, Kenneth Lin’s company Credit Karma did exactly that to create a company now worth over $3 billion, and he broke down how for the audience at our last CEO Summit. In this piece, we share his answers … [ Read more ]

Content: Case Study | Author: Kenneth Lin | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Kim Scott, co-founder of Candor, Inc., has built her career around creating bullshit-free zones where people love their work and working together. Inspired by her talk at First Round’s CEO Summit, Scott shares her epiphany about management — and the mindset and framework it takes to really build a kick-ass team, starting with deciphering the distinct attributes and incentives of high-performers.

Content: Thought Leader | Author: Kim Scott | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Human Resources

Having three different career conversations — life story, dreams, and career action plan — is a much better course of action. It’ll help you decode who’s in superstar mode, rock star mode and — most critically — who is changing modes. Taken together, these three conversations, with each person who reports directly to you, will help you balance growth and stability so your team can … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Kim Scott | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Management

Take note of the lifetime of superstars. Make sure you identify a successor because you often can’t retain your superstars. They’re going to leave you better than they found you. Make the most of them while you get them, but don’t assume they are going to stick around forever because they often don’t. Whatever you do, don’t confuse management and growth. Don’t automatically manager-track the … [ Read more ]

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

Performance is a key factor — it’s important to distinguish excellent performance from low performance. That’s fine. But often when we think about so called ‘talent planning’ — we use the word ‘potential.’ ‘Potential’ is exactly the wrong word. The problem with “potential” is that when you mark someone as low-potential, you devalue your rock stars off the bat. Instead, use the word growth trajectory. … [ Read more ]

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

People in superstar mode want a world they can change. Those in rock star mode seek a world they can stabilize. You’ll need both.

Content: Quotation | Author: Kim Scott | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Caitlin Kalinowski is a master of the prototyping process, with a deep understanding of where, when and how changes should be slotted in, from the first iteration to the last. It’s made her a highly sought-after engineer in Silicon Valley. In this exclusive interview, Kalinowski discusses how and why you must define your non-negotiables before starting to build prototypes. She dives deep on specific approaches … [ Read more ]

Content: Thought Leader | Author: Caitlin Kalinowski | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Management, Operations | Companies: Apple, Oculus