From the Operators
Gleb Budman of Backblaze finishes a series about entrepreneurship by covering transparency, in everything from IP & data to acquisitions & product design, in "The Decision on Transparency"
Craig Miller of Shopify believes that a simple name change from Marketing to Growth can be a key driver to a team’s success, plus hear several other key takeaways from FirstMark's CMO Summit in "Marketing lessons from the world’s leading CMOs"
Andy Rachleff of Wealthfront has insights on hiring the first five employees, pivoting, and the controversial advice he's received in "Essential Startup Advice from Entrepreneur and Investor Andy Rachleff"
From the Investors
Leo Polovets of Susa Ventures (in an interview with former Mattermark Daily curator Sam DeBrule) discusses how startups are modernizing pen and paper workflows by bringing them online in "AI Ethics and the Race to Bring Pen & Paper Industries Online"
Rachel Crawford of Village Capital advises startup founders to approach recruiting as strategy, and look at it through the eyes of the investor, not just the operator, in "Hire for the stage you want to reach, not the stage you’re at"
Jason Lemkin of SaaStr believes that the recent boom in small-checks from big funds has magnified the potential for problems when a huge name passes on a follow up investment in "Small Checks From Large Venture Funds: Maybe One is Enough"
Paul Arnold of Switch Ventures has a guide for VCs to ensure they hear the best pitches and minimize missing the biggest opportunities, even while navigating the thousands of conversations they have each year in "How to Say Yes"
Jon Callaghan of True Ventures explains the five tactics that can actually result in a great board meeting in "Tactical Advice for Better Board Meetings"
Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners follows up a post explaining why they invest in companies competing with Amazon to hypothesize that the side projects at tech giants run with B or C-level players, and therefore are open to being outpaced by a startup in "Why Amazon, Facebook and Google can all be beaten."
