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How to Build a Culture of Ownership, and Other Engineering Leadership Tips from Plaid & Dropbox
Engineering

How to Build a Culture of Ownership, and Other Engineering Leadership Tips from Plaid & Dropbox

Jean-Denis Grèze has led engineering teams at Plaid and Dropbox: Here’s what he’s learned about crafting a bottoms-up culture, hiring and motivating large teams.
Unpacking 5 of Atlassian’s Most Unconventional Company-Building Moves
Product

Unpacking 5 of Atlassian’s Most Unconventional Company-Building Moves

After a 12-year run at Atlassian, Jay Simons digs into how the company's story runs contrary to conventional startup wisdom, unpacking their product-led growth flywheel, reliance on channel partners, strategy for launching new products, and slow-burn enterprise strategy.
The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2020
Management

The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2020

We've rounded up 30 standout, must-share insights from the articles we published over the last year. Read on for the most impactful pieces of advice we heard in 2020 — presented with hopes that you can apply them for whatever's to come in 2021.
Fresh Off IPO, Upstart’s CEO Shares Why the Startup Isn’t a Typical Success Story
Starting Up

Fresh Off IPO, Upstart’s CEO Shares Why the Startup Isn’t a Typical Success Story

Upstart was founded by three individuals who barely knew each other, was forced to make a company-saving pivot, and flew under the radar in Silicon Valley for the past 8 years — but this once-scrappy startup just went public.
A Tactical Guide to Managing Up: 30 Tips from the Smartest People We Know
Management

A Tactical Guide to Managing Up: 30 Tips from the Smartest People We Know

Top startup leaders share their best tips for managing up, including communication tactics, building trust, and goal setting with your manager.
How This 5X Founder Creates an Internal Culture With a “Crazy Focus” on Storytelling
Management

How This 5X Founder Creates an Internal Culture With a “Crazy Focus” on Storytelling

As David Cancel puts it, they are “obsessed with story internally” at Drift. From the inspiration they’ve taken from the screenplay writing world, to how storytelling training is part of their onboarding, we dig deep into how he created this culture as the CEO.
The Case for Adding DesignOps to Your Org Chart — Lessons From InVision
Design

The Case for Adding DesignOps to Your Org Chart — Lessons From InVision

Drawing on her experience in design operations at InVision, Automattic and Hot Studio, Alison Rand explains what DesignOps can achieve for your startup, and how to get a successful team up and running.
The First-Time Founder’s Guide to Learning Everything the Hard Way
Starting Up

The First-Time Founder’s Guide to Learning Everything the Hard Way

Steve El-Hage picks his head up and shares his biggest lessons as a first-time founder from the 8-year, heads-down journey of building Drop.
Build Products That Solve Real Problems With This Lightweight JTBD Framework
Product

Build Products That Solve Real Problems With This Lightweight JTBD Framework

Drawing on her experiences building products at Lumosity, Oculus, and Facebook's New Product Experimentation group, Sunita Mohanty shares a lightweight "jobs-to-be-done" framework for early-stage product teams, along with templates and go-to-market tactics.
Finding Startup Ideas and Building in Heavily-Regulated Spaces — Lessons from Cash App & Carbon Health
Product

Finding Startup Ideas and Building in Heavily-Regulated Spaces — Lessons from Cash App & Carbon Health

Ayo Omojola shares his lessons for going unreasonably deep when building products in heavily-regulated industries like healthcare and financial services with Carbon Health and Cash App.
6 Counterintuitive Rules for Being a Better Manager — Advice from Lambda School, Quip & Facebook
Management

6 Counterintuitive Rules for Being a Better Manager — Advice from Lambda School, Quip & Facebook

Carly Guthrie has run HR for major restaurant groups and startups. Here, she shares lessons for startups looking to hold onto their talent.
Your Marketing Org is Slow. Here’s a Framework to Move Faster.
PR & Marketing

Your Marketing Org is Slow. Here’s a Framework to Move Faster.

Former Gusto marketing leader Jaleh Rezaei shares a six-step framework for how marketers can "get out of the basement" and start thinking speed-first.
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For the founder's notepad:
"If you personally want to grow as fast as your company, you have to give away your job every couple months." – Molly Graham
“Asking ‘Why can't this be done sooner?’ methodically, reliably and habitually can have a profound impact on the speed of your organization.” – Dave Girouard
“End every meeting or conversation with the feeling and optimism you’d like to have at the start of your next conversation with the person.” – Chris Fralic
“Focus is doing things with a clear intention. It doesn’t mean you charge single-minded toward a goal. It means you pay rapt and incremental attention to how you need to turn the rudder on a project.” – Fidji Simo
“It’s essential to grow with the company — rather than having the company grow around you.” – Cristina Cordova 
“You have to be impatient with shipping, but patient with your career.” – James Everingham
“‘I trust you, make the call’ might be the six most powerful words you can hear from a manager.” – Sean Twersky
“Your job as a CEO is to build fire departments, not put out fires.” – Sam Corcos 
“Can you say with confidence that each report would want to be on your team again? If you aren’t sure that the answer is yes, it’s probably no — much like how if you have to ask, ‘Am I in love?’ you’re probably not.” – Julie Zhuo 
“People can get addicted to yak shaving. An effective engineering generalist knows when to move on. Pay attention to whether they used their time wisely, not just the results.” – Mike Krieger 
“It sounds so simple to say that bosses need to tell employees when they're screwing up. But it very rarely happens.” – Kim Scott
“You’ll know you understand the customer problem enough when you can predict 75% of what a customer tells you. Keep having these conversations until three-quarters of it is stuff you already know.” – Christina Cacioppo
“I have a rule: no company swag until the business has at least $250K of revenue or 250k users. Until then, you don’t get to “feel” the benefits of having started a company.” – Gagan Biyani
“The business model ends up becoming the business. It’s equally important as the market you’re going after and the product that you build.” – Jay Simons 
“If speed is the yin, the yang is prioritization. You can’t be fast if you don’t know what’s important.” – Jaleh Rezaei
“If you treat your connections as a kind of personal ATM you use for frequent withdrawals, you’ll quickly be disappointed (and overdrawn).” – Karen Wickre 
“Delighting the customer always yields better returns than countering or copying a competitor. It’s just a lot harder to do.” – Andy Rachleff 
“When you’re a founder, every moment you’re not writing code or getting users, you need to be making a conscious choice: Is whatever you’re doing worth your time?” – Alexis Ohanian
“‘Why would a customer not want this?’ is often a far more interesting question than why they would.” – Rick Song
“When you leave the planning process wondering if you put too many resources behind a single bet, that’s the bet that ends up succeeding. Bold ideas need bold resourcing.” – Lenny Rachitsky and Nels Gilbreth
“Treat customer development as a one-on-one with a direct report — you just want to ask the hard questions.” – Ryan Glasgow
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