Startup Systems

Necessary chaos embraces the uncertainty inherent to startups. Here are a few examples:

As growth accelerates and larger teams are needed, people stretch into new roles, teams scale and split, and new processes are formed.

After a promising call with a potential new customer, the product roadmap is re-prioritized to incorporate features that will... See more

Takeaways:

1. Engineers continued to be the predominant function across the first three hires. Not shown in the chart, but 100% of companies hired at least one engineer among their first three hires .


2. Interestingly, customer success/support continues to be a popular role for the first three hires. Of the non-engineer hires, almost a quarter of them are

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There are few companies that have successfully scaled taste better than MSCHF (pronounced “mischief”). Well, not exactly a company, as they explained to me when I visited their Brooklyn-based workshop set across the street from a skate park, but an “artist’s collective that happened to raise venture capital.” Or, according to their self-selected... See more

According to self-determination theory, humans have three basic needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. One reason why nudges toward change often backfire is that they can feel like a violation of autonomy, leading someone to do the opposite as a way to regain a sense of freedom.

As a result, well-intended feedback can actually reinforce the... See more

The most exciting thing about professional project management is that it trades away excitement for systems thinking and intentional action. We make heroes out of people who show up with the last-minute save, but the real work is in not needing the last minute.

And it’s helpful to realize that it’s a skill, a choice, a set of tools to be learned,... See more

First Round Capital’s PMF framework consists of four levels: nascent, developing, strong, extreme

1. Level one: Nascent product-market fit. Likely a pre-seed or seed-stage company. The goal in this stage is to find three to five customers with a problem worth solving, engage with them, deliver a solution, and validate that solution. [examples: Vanta,

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