From the Investors Andrew Russ of AWS’s Startup & Venture Capital Program covers the definition, theory, different flavors of VC, how investment teams are structured, deal sourcing basics, business models, and more in “VC 101: How VCs Operate, and What You Should Know as a Founder”
David Dorsey of Osage University Partners considers some quantitative data about the academic and career background of startup founders — university spin-outs in particular — who have received VC funding since 2009 in “Who are the Founders of University Spinouts?” Alex Mittal of FundersClub shares a collection of important hiring lessons learned by him and by some of his portfolio founders in “Real Hiring Advice for Early Stage Startup Founders” Steven Sinofsky of Andreessen Horowitz details a few tips for how to think about whether the team’s management culture is heading in the right direction, written from the perspective of the manager in “Management Is Not About Asking People To Do Stuff” Josh Breinlinger of Jackson Square Ventures believes the best marketplaces know that you must segment users and provide different experiences for different levels of users in “Tiering Marketplace Users”
From the Operators Steve Blank, Adjunct Professor at Stanford University and serial founder, explores the seven limits to startups and innovation that no longer exist and ways the process of innovation has been forever changed in “Innovation, Change and the Rest of Your Life” Aaron Levie of Box outlines what he learned when building his company and how to create a successful product that resonates with both small scale customers and big enterprises in “How to Build a Product: Part II with Aaron Levie” Christopher Steiner of ZRankings digs into how entrepreneurs and VCs look to enable the new paradigm: more power to content creators, with easier and more numerous paths to distribution in “Where ESPN Falters, Startups And Content Creators Can Prosper” Ali Schultz of Reboot.io discusses how to navigate the startup world without losing yourself in the fire in “How to Avoid Burnout” Sam DeBrule of Canopy highlights awesome, not awesome, and game-changing ML & AI posts from the past week in “Countries to Fight Wars Over Data Centers?”
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Gabe Larsen of InsideSales notes that 74% of salespeople reported not knowing how to do social selling and gives reasons why salespeople should not become social sellers, but to just do what works in “Social Selling is Dead” Martijn de Kuijper of Revue shares his learnings about what exactly is a personal newsletter, provides some examples for inspiration, and offers advice on how to start yours in “The Definitive Guide to Personal Newsletters” Douglas Cook of Skyscanner Growth provides 36 slides about their transition over the past 2 years, moving from a traditional marketing structure to a Lean, Agile, Growth Hacking team — and all the buzzwords in-between in “Beneath the Growth Iceberg”
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