Blitzscaling is the ultimate test for managers and company builders. As employee count increases and communication becomes harder, a lot can break down. Founders that can weather these challenges and evolve their management practices build strong, enduring companies. Greylock's John Lilly experienced this hypergrowth first hand as CEO of Mozilla, the organization behind Firefox, the open source Web browser used by more than 450M people. In this discussion with Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh, John shares tactical advice to navigate key team transitions, hire for fast decision making, and build a strong company culture.
Blitzscaling is the ultimate test for managers and company builders. As employee count increases and communication becomes harder, a lot can break down. Founders that can weather these challenges and evolve their management practices build strong, enduring companies. Greylock's John Lilly experienced this hypergrowth first hand as CEO of Mozilla, the organization behind Firefox, the open source Web browser used by more than 450M people. In this discussion with Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh, John shares tactical advice to navigate key team transitions, hire for fast decision making, and build a strong company culture.
A replacement for the normal business plan might work for startups, where traditional planning square pegs the round hole.
If the scientific method was good enough for her, it’s good enough for you.
Startups, by definition, traffic in the unknown. Business plans are, for founders, a futile-feeling exercise in predicting the future. (“Am I trying to show my investors I’m ambitious? Or realistic? What kind of guesses do they want me to make when I still need to figure out how we’ll make money?!”)
Maybe there’s a better way: a plan which, instead of predicting your achievements and the results of those achievements, identifies the unknowns you plan to make known, aka the hypotheses you plan to validate. (Paging all you Lean Startup people…)
Call it a Thesis Plan (because it’s better than my original name of a Guessness Plan, which rhymes with business plan?… I’m a dad, OK).
Startups begin life with an intention — “there must be a better way to buy and sell bonds than calling up a bunch of people all day long and comparing prices?!” — and a guess as to how to act on that intention — “what if we put bond prices on a computer so people could just look them up instantly?” Startups advance by making the unknown known, using intuition and data to validate the building blocks of a business. (For example: It’s technically possible to list bond prices and share them with people in different offices at different times… buyers want to know prices in real time… they’re willing to (Read more...)
There's more to comp transparency than just sharing everyone's salaries in a spreadsheet. Compaas co-founder and CEO bethanye Blount makes the case for opening up and gives a rundown on the full spectrum of pay transparency options, sharing tips for how startups can find the right setting and communicate changes to the team.
Bradley Tusk of Tusk Ventures joins Nick to discuss Corruption, Extortion and the Fight Against Entrenched Interests-- How a VC Saves Startups from Death by Politics. In this episode, we cover:
Why and how did you get into VC?
You have a nice model where you generate revenue through Tusk Strategies, which allows you to hire great talent and invest forward in startups. How has the model changed over time and how is the organization structured today?
How were you able to get allocations and generate dealflow when you were new to VC?
You spent some time in Illinois w/ an infamous Governor of our's... and you're very candid in the book about the issues and illegal acts that Rod Blagoyevich instructed you to do. Give us some of the highlights and lowlights from the experience.
You highlight the importance of narrative many times throughout the book. Can you touch on the key points w/ regard to picking and framing your narrative for tech startups?
You've said that when large industry incumbents are disrupted, "they punch back, and they punch hard"... have you seen situations where startups have died b/c of response of a large incumbent? Talk about some of your experiences.
Have you worked w/ any tech companies who's mission doesn't align w/ your political beliefs?
How can you possibly win a prolonged battle going jurisdiction by jurisdiction?
I enjoyed the section of the book you call "Pick your enemies = Win Your Battles (Strangle the baby in the (Read more...)
Bradley Tusk of Tusk Ventures joins Nick to discuss Corruption, Extortion and the Fight Against Entrenched Interests-- How a VC Saves Startups from Death by Politics. In this episode, we cover:
Why and how did you get into VC?
You have a nice model where you generate revenue through Tusk Strategies, which allows you to hire great talent and invest forward in startups. How has the model changed over time and how is the organization structured today?
How were you able to get allocations and generate dealflow when you were new to VC?
You spent some time in Illinois w/ an infamous Governor of our's... and you're very candid in the book about the issues and illegal acts that Rod Blagoyevich instructed you to do. Give us some of the highlights and lowlights from the experience.
You highlight the importance of narrative many times throughout the book. Can you touch on the key points w/ regard to picking and framing your narrative for tech startups?
You've said that when large industry incumbents are disrupted, "they punch back, and they punch hard"... have you seen situations where startups have died b/c of response of a large incumbent? Talk about some of your experiences.
Have you worked w/ any tech companies who's mission doesn't align w/ your political beliefs?
How can you possibly win a prolonged battle going jurisdiction by jurisdiction?
I enjoyed the section of the book you call "Pick your enemies = Win Your Battles (Strangle the baby in the (Read more...)
The lessons of blitzscaling to achieve market dominance are counterintuitive. The strategy requires a shift from the traditional thinking of growth to a prioritization of speed over anything else. Greylock Partner Josh McFarland founded and scaled TellApart (which was acquired by Twitter in 2015), and he will be the first to tell you the risks and rewards of blitzscaling. In this discussion with Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh, Josh encourages founders to throw out the conventional approach of decision making and embrace the art of fast decision making and willingness to experiment.
The lessons of blitzscaling to achieve market dominance are counterintuitive. The strategy requires a shift from the traditional thinking of growth to a prioritization of speed over anything else. Greylock Partner Josh McFarland founded and scaled TellApart (which was acquired by Twitter in 2015), and he will be the first to tell you the risks and rewards of blitzscaling. In this discussion with Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh, Josh encourages founders to throw out the conventional approach of decision making and embrace the art of fast decision making and willingness to experiment.
