SaaS
Excluding VC funds, I've directly invested in a few dozen startups. While the jury's still out on my performance, I can share a few things that I've learned along the way: * This isn't easy. Though I'd never thought I'
Growth
Back in 2018, Rory O'Driscoll, a VC at Scale and the inventor of the SaaS magic number, came up with another important SaaS concept: the Mendoza line for SaaS growth. Taking an idea from baseball, the Mendoza line is a measure of "offensive futility" named after
Private Equity
All strategy is a function of situation. Situation varies not only as a function of the individual company and market, but also of time. Remember that classic Silicon Valley strategy books were written in a different time and thus had some implicit assumptions built into them. For example, * That you’
Startups
“When you read their profiles and interview them, you think one thing: these people are gods.” -- European founder on early US hiring. Despite numerous warnings, I continue to see many European founders fall into the same trap when it comes to hiring in the first years of their US
Career
Many concepts in Silicon Valley are defined from the point of view of the venture capitalist (VC), not the employee or founder. For example, the term "exit" is a misnomer when seen from the employee point of view. An IPO is usually anything but an exit for executives
Entrepreneurship
Just a quick post to highlight my third and most recent appearance on 20VC with the amazing Harry Stebbings (Spotify, YouTube). It is always, always a pleasure to speak with Harry. He's such an effective interviewer that you quickly get into detail and stories that others miss. So
AI
Well, it’s that time of year again, time for my annual predictions post, now in its tenth incarnation. As per my custom, let’s review my 2023 predictions before presenting those for 2024. Please remember that I do these for fun and fun alone. See my FAQ for my
Management
Startup CEOs can learn an important lesson from pilots. Specifically, to always fly the aircraft first. Sounds obvious, like maybe you shouldn't need to remind pilots to do this, but here’s what they teach them and why: From the earliest days of flight training, pilots are taught
Metrics
Just a quick post to share the slides from the presentation I gave today at the KiwiSaaS conference to discuss the SaaS metrics that matter in 2023 and 2024. The presentation has three sections: First, an introduction which quickly reviews the ways the startup world has changed in the past
Leadership
"Is a dream a lie if don't come true?" -- Bruce Springsteen The River was one of my favorite songs in college and whenever I listen to the above line near the end, I start thinking about Silicon Valley. Consider three entrepreneurs. Founder 1: Elizabeth Holmes.
HR
Just a quick post to highlight my recent appearance on the AI and the Future of Work podcast hosted by my friend Dan Turchin. I joined Dan to discuss my work-in-process 2023 predictions post (which I really need to get finished in the next week). We start out by reviewing
Management
Here are the slides from the Balderton Capital webinar I did today with Michael Lavner, entitled How to Emerge Stronger from the Downturn than You Went In. We discuss: * The importance of how founders/CEOs frame challenges to the organization. * What we mean by "stronger." * Focus, how to