What's New

This week's additions focus on founder stories, strategy, and finance, with new digests from Y Combinator, Ahrefs, and Bill Gallagher. Highlights include Getting rich from startup equity is statistically unlikely — don't join for that. Hunter and Clearbit find company emails instantly, with different accuracy tradeoffs.

Goal setting

YouTube

Why you should (or should not) work at a startup

Y Combinator November 2, 2018

Goal setting 8

Case studies 7

Getting rich from startup equity is statistically unlikely — don't join for that.
Startups hand you roles you're unqualified for, compressing years of learning into months.
Slope matters more than starting point — failing startups teach as much as winning ones.

Prospecting & outreach

YouTube

Four practical methods to find anyone's email address

Ahrefs October 31, 2018

Prospecting & outreach 9

Email marketing 5

Hunter and Clearbit find company emails instantly, with different accuracy tradeoffs.
Search operators and Twitter can surface personal Gmail or Yahoo addresses.
Email permutator plus LinkedIn Sales Navigator confirms the right address pattern.

Business models

YouTube

Blitzscaling: how the fastest-growing companies prioritise speed over efficiency

Bill Gallagher October 31, 2018

Business models 9

Management 7

MVP & prototyping 5

First to scale beats first to market in winner-take-most markets
Four rules: ship embarrassing products, tolerate bad management, let fires burn, ignore customers
Founders who can't grow as fast as their company become the ceiling, not the floor

Founder interviews

Podcast

Paul Allen on founding Microsoft and life after leaving

Founders October 30, 2018

Founder interviews 10

Business models 6

Equity & cap tables 5

Bill Gates quietly schemed to dilute Allen's equity while he was on chemotherapy.
Retaining software ownership — not royalties — was the decision that built Microsoft.
Allen's regret: eight driven years made him wealthy but left his real passions deferred.

Origin stories

Podcast

From SMS Payments to Social Wallets: The Venmo Story

Acquired October 29, 2018

Origin stories 9

Pivoting 7

Fundraising & VC 6

How Andrew Kortina pivoted from SMS musicians to consumer peer-to-peer payments
Why Venmo's real business model always required merchant adoption, never fees
Bill Widmore was the only investor who understood acquiring a cash-burning startup

What's New

29 October 2018

Why you should (or should not) work at a startup

Four practical methods to find anyone's email address

Blitzscaling: how the fastest-growing companies prioritise speed over efficiency

Paul Allen on founding Microsoft and life after leaving

From SMS Payments to Social Wallets: The Venmo Story

Be among the first to get personalised recommendations tailored to your stage in business.

Be among the first to get personalised recommendations tailored to your stage in business.