The 239 interview questions technical startup founders should ask every candidate
There are few things as exciting as meeting with amazing new people who might be the right one to join your team.
Founder Resources
Real Talk: Cyber Markets and Seed-Stage Startups in 2024
There are plenty of market assessments showing venture funding totals in cybersecurity startups have retreated from their recent highs.
5 Ways a Small Team Can Make a Big Impact
Hang out with people who have the same job as you. You’ll find that often you are going through the same challenges, and there are plenty of opportunities to learn from each other’s experiences.
You Can't Cross the Valley of Death Alone
It’s a long road from the test site to the battlefield. A defense tech startup’s product may show early promise in the R&D phase, as users eager to test new tools provide positive feedback and a company wins funding from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to keep developing it.
100 Interviews with People You Don't Know: The Cornerstones of Customer Discovery
You’re an early-stage startup and you’ve just raised your first round of funding. You’ve successfully demonstrated to investors that you have a great idea, you’ve had the lived experience to understand the market, you’ve won over a few early customers, and you’re the team to do it.
How to Build Customer Personas That Make Your Startup Customer-Centric
If you are trying to build and sell a product, whether you know it or not, you’re already using personas.
How Strategic Planning Drives Post-Investment Acceleration for Startups
When we meet with startups, among the many things that we are evaluating, there are two big questions we are working to answer that we’ve written on before — “Can we achieve alignment?” and “Is this team coachable?”
How to Get the Most Out of Your Investor Updates (and the Checklist You Need to Get it Done)
The purpose of an investor update at face value is to inform the people who have put capital into your business how things are going. They gave you their money, you owe it to them to tell them how and what it is doing.
How Startup CEOs Lead Great Board Meetings That Drive Results
The purpose of the board meeting is to provide the 3 month view on the 12 month plan into the 36 month journey.
Message to CEOs: Stop Thinking You Have to Outthink the World
My challenge to entrepreneurs is this: stop thinking up new ideas, start executing on your existing ones, and stay focused until you achieve your goals.
Just Add Water (and Sunlight, and Sleep, and Gratitude): An Energy Management Playbook for Startup Founders
As the year wraps up, it’s abundantly clear that everyone is BURNED OUT.
Get It Done or Leave it Behind: How to Write a Year-End Anti-Resolution List
A few years ago I started making an “anti-resolutions list” at the end of the year. As someone with an early December birthday, I consider myself lucky in that I get a reflective head start on one year coming to an end, and another nearing its beginning.