The Top 25 Fastest Growing 500 Startups Batch 20 Demo Day Companies (read)

This 500 Startups batch pitched to an audience of Venture Capitalists, Angel Investors, and decision makers at large tech companies, in hopes of closing their first (or next) round of funding. This list of companies includes products and services ranging from a crowdsourced texting ticket app, an open alternative to Siri, ecommerce retargeting software, automation technology for individual investors, a leadership tool for millennial teams, biometric based personal nutrition, and Machine Learning analytics for city planning, natural language interface software for databases, fundraising software for universities, and more.

We ranked this batch of 41 companies and found the following 25 with the highest Mattermark Growth Score.

Scroll down to see 11 open startup and VC jobs

Weekly Digest: Top 10 Featured Posts

Samir Kaji of First Republic believes that for managers that are starting funds, it’s simply important to understand the mathematical realities, and adjust their investment decisions accordingly in "Micro-VC — Smaller is Better, but the Math is Still Really Hard"

Gil Dibner takes an in-depth look at Systems of Intelligence, barriers to entry, and enterprise VC investing in the post-SaaS world “Is This The VC Meta-Thesis We’ve Been Looking For?”

Alex Mittal of FundersClub shares a collection of important hiring lessons learned by him and by some of his portfolio founders in “Real Hiring Advice for Early Stage Startup Founders”

Steven Sinofsky of Andreessen Horowitz details a few tips for how to think about whether the team’s management culture is heading in the right direction, written from the perspective of the manager in “Management Is Not About Asking People To Do Stuff”

Jim Scheinman of Maven Ventures recounts the lessons learned from his time at the first failed social network in "Friendster: Lessons from a Missed $400B Opportunity"

Aaron Levie of Box outlines what he learned when building his company and how to create a successful product that resonates with both small scale customers and big enterprises in “How to Build a Product: Part II with Aaron Levie”

Wade Foster of Zapier explains why thinking outside the Silicon Valley box positioned Zapier to build a uniquely customer- and employee-first culture in “How Zapier Pulled Off Its One-and-Done Approach to Fundraising”

Steve Blank, Adjunct Professor at Stanford University and serial founder, explores the seven limits to startups and innovation that no longer exist and ways the process of innovation has been forever changed in “Innovation, Change and the Rest of Your Life”

Brooke Goodbary of Natero lays out the timeline to understand your product’s use case, know when and how to encourage customers to take actions that drive value, and have a vision of where you want to lead your team in the future in “First 90 Days in Customer Success”

Marc Hemeon of Design, Inc., believes good design principles can be learned and exercised by anyone and gives you a basic knowledge of practical design tips you can apply today in “How to Not Suck at Design, a 5 Minute Guide for the Non-Designer.”

Your Sales Success Depends on These 4 Data Points (read)

Data will make you better at your job and your life easier. It allows sales managers to understand a customer's preferences and pain points — what gets them most excited and what keeps them up at night. The more specific the data, the better you'll be able to segment and personalize.

Whether you're looking to revamp how and what data you collect or you're starting from scratch, here are four types of data that will help you build customer relationships and ultimately hit your numbers.

The Perfect Amount of Global Business News, in Five Minutes

If you're not already subscribed to Quartz's excellent Daily Brief email, you probably should be. The Daily Brief is just the right amount of global business news you want each morning, contains stories from around the web, and feels like it was written by a smart, trusted advisor.

Check it out here.

Must-Reads From This Week's Raise The Bar

Gabe Larsen of InsideSales notes that 74% of salespeople reported not knowing how to do social selling and gives reasons why salespeople should not become social sellers, but to just do what works in “Social Selling is Dead”

Martijn de Kuijper of Revue shares his learnings about what exactly is a personal newsletter, provides some examples for inspiration, and offers advice on how to start yours in “The Definitive Guide to Personal Newsletters”

Douglas Cook of Skyscanner Growth provides 36 slides about their transition over the past 2 years, moving from a traditional marketing structure to a Lean, Agile, Growth Hacking team — and all the buzzwords in-between in “Beneath the Growth Iceberg”

Raise The Bar is our other newsletter focused on sifting through the mountains of content out there around sales, marketing, and growth to help the community of DOERS who grow companies.