Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World

Clarity and shared understanding of goals (i.e., everyone gives the same answer to the question “Why are we building this and what do we hope to achieve with it?”). Unity around the specific work required and how each person will contribute to it (i.e., everyone can give an answer to the question “What am I supposed to be doing and how does that fi

path for ICs to progress means you get the best people in the right roles with the ability to advance their careers and their pay. Forcing management to be the only way up will cost you talent in places you need it, and worse, install the wrong people in those roles, harming everyone on the team. CHAPTER 15 VULNERABILITY ≠ WEAKNESS In Silicon Valle

What criteria should be applied to people we hire, those we promote, and those we let go? What makes someone a good person versus a bad person? How should hard-to-resolve conflicts be handled at our organization? What’s your preferred form of communication and why? What enables you to deliver your best work? What stops you from it?

What traits and behaviors should be rewarded and recognized in our employees? Which ones should be discouraged?

The classic funnel optimization promoted by many marketers has this peculiar idea that we must race to turn as many visitors as we can into paid customers and that any missed opportunity represents a flaw in our marketing process.

The best entrepreneurs . . . know how to tell an amazing story that will convince talent and investors to join in on the journey. —Alejandro Cremades, 2016

Ask questions during skip levels (meetings where a senior manager meets with team members who report to the managers below them) with engineers that go beyond identifying problems and into concrete solutions. For example, asking, “What good development practices did your last company have that you don’t see in play here?” surfaces best practices.

Transparency can’t just be a tactic, though. It has to be a core value

let’s be real: phone calls are terrifying). This approach has been historically uncommon

What traits and behaviors should be rewarded and recognized in our employees? Which ones should be discouraged?