Founder interviews

Podcast

How Diane Greene built VMware by following ideas sideways

Masters of Scale November 10, 2017

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Founder interviews 9

Pivoting 7

Vision & mission 6

• Scalable ideas rarely come head-on — learn to spot them sideways.
• VMware found its market by chasing pain, not a master plan.
• Greene named the cloud 'Elastic Sky' years before the term existed.

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Conversion rate optimisation

YouTube

10 actionable tips to improve any eCommerce website

Noah Kagan November 9, 2017

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Conversion rate optimisation 9

Email marketing 7

Referral programs 5

• 98% of visitors won't buy — capture their email instead
• Your best product page often beats a generic homepage
• Vague taglines kill conversions; specific numbers and social proof don't

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Business models

Podcast

How PayPal escaped competition using exponential growth

Masters of Scale November 8, 2017

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Business models 9

Growth hacking 7

Origin stories 6

• Winning competitions makes you excellent at the wrong things
• 7% daily user growth from 24 people beat eBay's payment product
• Burn $10M/month to outrun rivals — profitability can wait

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Origin stories

Podcast

How Atlassian built an $11B company without raising venture capital

Acquired November 7, 2017

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Origin stories 9

Bootstrapping 8

Business models 7

• Atlassian scaled to $320M revenue spending only 20% on sales and marketing.
• No VC, no sales team — product quality alone drove all enterprise growth.
• The IPO was a liquidity event, not a capital raise; founders kept 78% combined.

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