Ignoring Silicon Valley advice to build a $3B fintech unicorn (Mercury)

Zero to $5M

First Round Partner Meka Asonye interviews founders and early sales hires about the messy (yet exhilarating) phase of going from $0 to their first few million in revenue

Meka Asonye

Zero to $5M
0-$5M: How to Go From Random Wins to Repeatable Revenue
Sales

0-$5M: How to Go From Random Wins to Repeatable Revenue

0-$5M: How to Identify Your ICP — Lessons from Vanta, Clay, Retool
Sales

0-$5M: How to Identify Your ICP — Lessons from Vanta, Clay, Retool

0-$5M: When, Who, and How to Make Your First Sales Hire
Sales

0-$5M: When, Who, and How to Make Your First Sales Hire

0-$5M: How to Nail Founder-Led Sales
Sales

0-$5M: How to Nail Founder-Led Sales

Introducing 0-$5M
Sales

Introducing 0-$5M

Pivoting

Pivot (meaning in business)

Product-led growth

Run Rate

Product-led growth

Lifetime Value

Growth

Gross Margin

Growth

Bootstrapping

How to avoid a co-founder breakup before Series B

Renew Your Co-Founder Vows — and Other Tactics for Strengthening the Most Important Relationship in Your Startup
People & Culture

Renew Your Co-Founder Vows — and Other Tactics for Strengthening the Most Important Relationship in Your Startup

Inside Warp’s coding by prompt mandate (and how the CEO follows it too)

Product

Freemium

Product

Gross Merchandise Value (GMV)

Management

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Product

Churn Rate

Minimum viable product

Beta Testing

Founders, you’re missing this key step on the path to product-market fit

Go Deep to Build Fast: A Research Thinking Toolkit to Speed Up the Discovery Phase
Starting Up

Go Deep to Build Fast: A Research Thinking Toolkit to Speed Up the Discovery Phase

Engineering

Technical Debt

Operations

Cash Runway

Pricing

ARPU

Sales

Break-Even Point

Growth marketing

Growth Hacking

How Brex is building an AI-first operations org

Why Sierra built a design partnership program on “hard mode”

The Hard Way Pays Off: Inside Sierra’s Design Partner Strategy
Product

The Hard Way Pays Off: Inside Sierra’s Design Partner Strategy

Operations

Net Revenue Retention (NRR)

Brand Marketing

K-factor

Operations

ARR

Scaling

Scalability

Launching out of stealth

Stealth Mode

Idea validation tactics they won’t teach you in business school

Is Your Startup Idea Any Good? Borrow These Validation Tactics from the Founders of Linear, Mercury and More
Starting Up

Is Your Startup Idea Any Good? Borrow These Validation Tactics from the Founders of Linear, Mercury and More

What your startup does (and doesn’t) need to come out of stealth

How to Launch Your Startup Out of Stealth, from Figma's First Marketer
PR & Marketing

How to Launch Your Startup Out of Stealth, from Figma's First Marketer

Scale smarter, not bigger: Inside Linktree’s internal AI adoption playbook

How to use your industry outsider status to your advantage

To Learn a New Market, Start by Building Your Product — Tactics From a Twitter PM Turned Healthcare Founder
Starting Up

To Learn a New Market, Start by Building Your Product — Tactics From a Twitter PM Turned Healthcare Founder

Don’t ship your pitch deck to your website

Don’t Ship Your Pitch Deck to Your Website. Here’s How to Translate Your Story for Customers
PR & Marketing

Don’t Ship Your Pitch Deck to Your Website. Here’s How to Translate Your Story for Customers

Inside Owner’s zigzag path to a billion-dollar business

The Story Behind Owner’s Pivots to a Billion-Dollar Business
Product

The Story Behind Owner’s Pivots to a Billion-Dollar Business

Why Linear puts craft above all metrics

Linear’s Path to Product-Market Fit — Quality and Craft > Speed and Scale
Product

Linear’s Path to Product-Market Fit — Quality and Craft > Speed and Scale

How Carta saves 3,500+ hours per month using AI agents

A new publication from First Round: Applied Intelligence

Stop playing customer success hero. Here’s how to build your first team.

The Founder’s Guide to Building a V1 of Customer Success
Starting Up

The Founder’s Guide to Building a V1 of Customer Success

How to go from random wins to repeatable revenue

0-$5M: How to Go From Random Wins to Repeatable Revenue
Sales

0-$5M: How to Go From Random Wins to Repeatable Revenue

How rejecting conventional wisdom grew Sentry to a $3 billion company | David Cramer (Co-founder and CPO)
In Depth

How rejecting conventional wisdom grew Sentry to a $3 billion company | David Cramer (Co-founder and CPO)

Can you be a good micromanager?

Is All Micromanagement Bad? Here's How the Best Startup Leaders Balance Details and Delegation
Management

Is All Micromanagement Bad? Here's How the Best Startup Leaders Balance Details and Delegation

Rent-an-exec: Should you hire a fractional leader?

Should You “Rent” an Exec for Your Startup? A Fractional COO Weighs In
People & Culture

Should You “Rent” an Exec for Your Startup? A Fractional COO Weighs In

Inside Figma's human-centered approach to building AI

The Art of Evals: How Figma Put People at the Center of Its AI Product
Product

The Art of Evals: How Figma Put People at the Center of Its AI Product

How to hang on to conviction in an emerging market: Braze's long game to PMF

How to Build for a Market That Doesn’t Exist Yet — Braze’s Path to Product-Market Fit
Product

How to Build for a Market That Doesn’t Exist Yet — Braze’s Path to Product-Market Fit

How to spot the wrong customer before they burn your roadmap

0-$5M: How to Identify Your ICP — Lessons from Vanta, Clay, Retool
Sales

0-$5M: How to Identify Your ICP — Lessons from Vanta, Clay, Retool

Thinking about becoming a founder? Here’s how to emotionally prepare

Thinking About Taking the Founder Leap? Here’s How to Prep for the Emotional Gauntlet
Starting Up

Thinking About Taking the Founder Leap? Here’s How to Prep for the Emotional Gauntlet

How to make craft your moat

The Unsung Ingredient in Stripe, Square and Linear’s Success: Taste
Product

The Unsung Ingredient in Stripe, Square and Linear’s Success: Taste

How to build and grow the human side of your engineering org

Mastering the Human Side of Engineering: Lessons from Apple, Palantir and Slack
Engineering

Mastering the Human Side of Engineering: Lessons from Apple, Palantir and Slack

From weekend project to Fortune 10 adoption

From Weekend Project to Fortune 10 Adoption — Reducto's Path to Product-Market Fit
Product

From Weekend Project to Fortune 10 Adoption — Reducto's Path to Product-Market Fit

Inside Superhuman’s onboarding strategy: from human-led to self-serve

Obsessing Over Onboarding for 10+ Years — The Architect of Superhuman's Onboarding Shares His Playbook
Product

Obsessing Over Onboarding for 10+ Years — The Architect of Superhuman's Onboarding Shares His Playbook

From two-person consultancy to $4.2B software business — dbt Labs’ Path to PMF

How dbt Labs Built a $4.2B Software Business out of a Two-Person Consultancy
Product

How dbt Labs Built a $4.2B Software Business out of a Two-Person Consultancy

A playbook for running “founder-led” growth

You’re Not Ready for a Head of Growth: Run This Founder-Led Growth Playbook Instead
Starting Up

You’re Not Ready for a Head of Growth: Run This Founder-Led Growth Playbook Instead

Square’s former CEO on the two crucial components of org design

How to Intentionally Design Your Org, From Square’s Former CEO
People & Culture

How to Intentionally Design Your Org, From Square’s Former CEO

The Pivot to Product-Market Fit: How Plaid, Clay, Lattice & Other Startups Broke Out
Product

The Pivot to Product-Market Fit: How Plaid, Clay, Lattice & Other Startups Broke Out

A playbook for building deep tech startups

Building a Deep Tech Company? Most Startup Advice Doesn’t Apply — Read This Instead
Starting Up

Building a Deep Tech Company? Most Startup Advice Doesn’t Apply — Read This Instead

Scrappy tactics and a huge post-COVID pivot | Owner’s unconventional journey to product-market fit | Adam Guild (Co-founder and CEO of Owner)
In Depth

Scrappy tactics and a huge post-COVID pivot | Owner’s unconventional journey to product-market fit | Adam Guild (Co-founder and CEO of Owner)

17,784 hours: Exactly how one startup founder spent 5 years building

How I Spent 17,784 Hours in 5 Years as a Startup Founder
Starting Up

How I Spent 17,784 Hours in 5 Years as a Startup Founder

How Plaid, Clay, Lattice & other startups pivoted to find PMF

A complete guide to your startup’s first sales hire

A complete guide to your startup’s first sales hire

0-$5M: When, Who, and How to Make Your First Sales Hire
Sales

0-$5M: When, Who, and How to Make Your First Sales Hire

How Figma chooses, builds & launches new products

How Figma chooses, builds & launches new products

Lessons in Product Scaling and Storytelling from Figma’s CPO
Product

Lessons in Product Scaling and Storytelling from Figma’s CPO

The rotation program that keeps this startup’s engineers learning (and not leaving)

The Rotation Program That Keeps This Startup’s Engineers Learning — and Not Leaving
Engineering

The Rotation Program That Keeps This Startup’s Engineers Learning — and Not Leaving

Introducing our new 0 to $5M series — how to nail founder-led sales

0-$5M: How to Nail Founder-Led Sales
Sales

0-$5M: How to Nail Founder-Led Sales

Introducing 0-$5M
Sales

Introducing 0-$5M

EvolutionIQ’s path to product-market fit — and a $730M acquisition

EvolutionIQ Just Got Acquired for $730M — Here's Their Playbook For Building an Enduring AI Business
Product

EvolutionIQ Just Got Acquired for $730M — Here's Their Playbook For Building an Enduring AI Business

An engineering leader’s advice for pivoting from manager to IC

An engineering leader’s advice for pivoting from manager to IC

This 90-Day Plan Turns Engineering Leaders Back into Frontline Developers
Engineering

This 90-Day Plan Turns Engineering Leaders Back into Frontline Developers

10x, 10x, 6x — The exact GTM moves behind Clay’s explosive revenue growth

The GTM Inflection Points That Powered Clay to a $1B+ Valuation
Starting Up

The GTM Inflection Points That Powered Clay to a $1B+ Valuation

Inside Clay's unconventional path to $1.25B: Rethinking GTM, pricing, and enterprise sales | Varun Anand (Co-founder and Head of Operations)
In Depth

Inside Clay's unconventional path to $1.25B: Rethinking GTM, pricing, and enterprise sales | Varun Anand (Co-founder and Head of Operations)

The inside story of the idea & launch of Figma Slides

How to Make Your Product Idea Go Viral Inside Your Company: Lessons from Figma Slides
Product

How to Make Your Product Idea Go Viral Inside Your Company: Lessons from Figma Slides

Sam Corcos

Sam Corcos