From the Operators
Wade Foster of Zapier discusses how their users have guided product strategy, why they built a remote team, operating outside of Silicon Valley, and more in "Zapier’s Wade Foster on bringing easy automation to the enterprise"
Hiten Shah of Quick Sprout argues that having a robust feature set is ok if the features are relevant and deliver success to each of your customer segments in "Feature Creep Isn’t the Real Problem"
Steli Efti of Close.io has an outline to create a startup pitch deck, made even more interesting as it comes from from a sales expert in "How to create a killer startup pitch"
Matt Blumberg of Return Path assembles a slidedeck for their team explaining how VC works (and based it on Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson's book Venture Deals) in "How Venture Capital Firms Work, for Entrepreneurs and Startups"
David Wallerstein of Tencent is on the YC Podcast, talking about WeChat, operating in China, the rise of the largest gaming company in the world, and so much more in "Tencent’s Chief eXploration Officer, David Wallerstein on WeChat, QQ, and Gaming"
From the Investors
Noah Jessop of Founder Collective acknowledges the "gradients" or blend of different types of seed stage investments available right now, and points out the dangers associated with the repeated subsequent small rounds in "The ‘Seed Stage’ is Now The ‘Seed Gradient’"
Wade Chambers and Josh McFarland of Greylock Partners discuss traits and characteristics found in the best engineering leaders, along with strategy to build an environment that fosters such characteristics in "Building Up Great Engineering Leaders"
Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures argues that for early stage companies, payback period (rather than LTV/CAC) is a better measure of financial health due to an early startup's inability to accurately predict customer lifetimes in "The False Confidence of the LTV/CAC Ratio for Early Stage SaaS Startups"
Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures is following up a series of posts on board effectiveness, advising that a lead director that assists in moving decisions forward and can ensure meaningful decisions have a consensus in "Board Effectiveness Tip #5: Have a Lead Director"
Bryce Roberts of Indie.vc explains how their investment model factors in returns as they advocate for profitability and sustainability, saying that their strategy could produce "one of the best performing venture funds of all time" in "How We Think About Returns"
Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures explains the danger in taxing options and RSUs upon vesting found in the latest revision of the proposed US tax plan in "Don’t Tax Options And RSUs Upon Vesting!"
Events!
It starts today - one of our favorite sources of sales insights, Close.io, is hosting a free online sales summit featuring video interviews with 50+ top sales leaders, executives, bestselling authors and entrepreneurs. It's happening all THIS WEEK, so check it out and register here!
