View from Seed

DECEMBER 17, 2015

I recently chatted with Saurya about how he approaches hiring engineers at Google and what founders can learn. We hire generalists because the company wants to be able to dissolve one division one day if it’s not working, and then move those same people into something else that’s new or already working.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Engineer Software Review Founder 120

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JULY 21, 2022

Beyond offering disruptive and fair pricing, we’re becoming the go-to, trusted one-stop shop to discover and hire the talent clients always wanted, but didn’t know how to find and didn’t think they could afford. RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder? And your least?

Early Stage 156

Early Stage San Francisco Michigan Portfolio 156

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SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

Many startup CEOs hire COOs or launch companies with a co-founder carrying the title. When should founders hire one? For most of my career, I’ve served startups and early-stage companies as an operating executive or advisor. More importantly, A-players attract and hire other A-players. Based on what criteria?

Hiring 336

Hiring Cofounder Startup Technical Cofounder 336

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MARCH 3, 2015

Ellie Mirman was the first marketer hired by the CMO of HubSpot, the Boston-based marketing software startup that IPOed in 2014. EM: When you’re at an early stage, you don’t know what that buyer path looks like yet, so you should be trying all different strategies to get data and figure out the playbook.

Marketing 120

Marketing Sales Cycle Startup CTO Hire 120

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APRIL 21, 2015

On the heels of our research on HBS entrepreneurs , NextView’s Dimitri Dadiomov (HBS ’15) interviewed several top founders on the early stages of their companies. On Launching and Finding Early Traction. Do you find yourself hiring operators or PMs with that background?

Founder 120

Founder Las Vegas Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

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NOVEMBER 4, 2019

And the ultimate uncertainties for a seed stage company are around talent and customer demand. Although this seems obvious, you’d be surprised how many early stage companies immediately invest too much time and energy to build a product that doesn’t really prove anything.

Seed Stage 180

Seed Stage Bootstrapping Demand Early Stage 180

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APRIL 30, 2015

In many instances, you raise an institutional round to either fulfill a product strategy or go-to-market strategy or you’re increasing sales and marketing hires, so you have better visibility into what needs to happen in the next six, 12, 18 months. But the costs are definitely there.

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

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MARCH 16, 2016

These companies have a long way to go until global dominance in many cases, but they are all growing, hiring, and strengthening the local community right now. This is true when it comes to early-stage funding, but also as it relates to support platforms being built by local firms to help Boston-based startups. Much more funding.

Boston 215

Boston Early Stage Artificial Inteligence Semantic 215

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MAY 14, 2019

Third, repeat founders are likely to execute at a much higher level early on. Their early hires are probably much stronger too, which allows for better execution as well. Hire the kind of people that are a fit for this stage, which usually means individual contributors (not executives), and generalists vs. specialists.

Founder 256

Founder Agile Cofounder Seed Capital 256

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JULY 26, 2022

RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder? As we build and grow, I get a crash course in every domain of business – Product Development 101, Digital Marketing 101, Hiring 101 and so forth. Enter Poplin, the first pre-pregnancy wellness platform for couples. And your least?

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley Later Stage Early Stage Founder 156

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AUGUST 6, 2015

Of late, I’ve encountered numerous potential startup candidates and newly hired employees who have no idea what their equity means. It falls on the hiring company to thoroughly explain equity options to their new employees. It falls on the hiring company to thoroughly explain equity options to their new employees.

Equity 120

Equity Employee Cap Table Stock Options 120

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APRIL 16, 2015

An easy way to think about it is that value over time doesn’t go up and to the right in a straight line like this: Instead, it’s more of a stair step like this: So, what are the value inflection points that create the stair steps, and how does one think about it at the earliest stages? These might include: Bring on a technical co-founder.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Cofounder Early Stage Startup 120

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APRIL 8, 2020

He helps early-stage startups with sales, marketing, and general “go to market” topics. Another thing you should slow down with is hiring. So track who you want to hire, and watch, and connect with them during this time. He has experience in B2B, supply chain, robotics, SaaS, and IoT spaces.

B2B 156

B2B Angel Investor Vertical Early Stage 156

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FEBRUARY 18, 2016

This forces companies to be more discplined on the hiring front (and likely much less competitive with bigger companies —  see The Information’s great post on this ) which will then poentially slow progress towards the key milestones needed to raise a Series A. These two costs suck up a lot of the money in an early stage company.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage San Francisco Startup Valuation 120

View from Seed

AUGUST 6, 2015

Of late, I’ve encountered numerous potential startup candidates and newly hired employees who have no idea what their equity means. It falls on the hiring company to thoroughly explain equity options to their new employees. It falls on the hiring company to thoroughly explain equity options to their new employees.

Equity 120

Equity Employee Cap Table Stock Options 120

View from Seed

JANUARY 13, 2015

When you are thinking about joining an early stage company, how should you be evaluating the risk of the overall company? How should you be weighing the presence of a great founding team versus early signs of traction? This post is mostly from the early stage investor’s perspective, but what does this mean for founders?

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage B2B Distribution Early Stage 120

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JULY 28, 2015

Early-stage growth and marketing is increasingly about being able to break down a go-to-market strategy to its core components and then rapidly craft experiments, test them efficiently, scale what works, and keep on searching. Having heard their feedback and synthesizing my other discussions, it boils down to two things.

Boston 120

Boston Marketing Early Stage Startup 120

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NOVEMBER 12, 2015

Here’s the test: Think of the person you are most desperate to hire. Which companies would you be most worried about if they hired her instead? But for an early stage company, you can be pretty simple and straight forward in the way you approach this. The first list is the 1-3 competitors that you care the most about.

Due Diligence 120

Due Diligence Startup Early Stage Hiring 120

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APRIL 2, 2020

How to Think about Hiring. One challenge here for seed and early stage companies is that candidates are probably going to be slightly more risk averse during times like this. The more empathy and understanding around the table right now, the better.

Partner 156

Partner Marketing Portfolio Early Stage 156

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APRIL 2, 2015

” So it’s no wonder that one aspect of an early-stage startup’s existence can be perpetually up for debate: their graphic design. These all serve as doorways to different but important audiences that a founder needs to impress, ranging from investors to target customers or users to potential new hires.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Design Startup Early Stage 120

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FEBRUARY 19, 2015

I called the recruiter running the search and told him I was going to step down and hire a CEO. So, in order to hire a CEO, we have to give someone their first shot at the job.” It’s nice to get great valuations and hire A-players. His response changed the way I thought about the CEO role for the next five years.

Founder 120

Founder Startup Cofounder Business Model 120

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FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Most startups don’t have the luxury of hiring an experienced PM early in their journey. So, what are the things founders can learn to do well BEFORE they can hire a great first product hire to make sure the company stays focused and iterates fast? and by then the market has likely shifted.

Hiring 120

Hiring Bandwidth Product Early Stage 120

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MARCH 22, 2016

This is for the early-stage companies — the entrepreneurs with great ideas and tireless work ethics who feel like they’ve emailed half of the country’s news outlets with nothing but the rare “thanks, but not interested” reply to show for it. You have a new hire (if they’re not the CEO or CTO, reporters probably won’t care).

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage San Francisco Startup CTO Hire 120

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FEBRUARY 9, 2016

As a result, the interview process during the seed stage can feel a bit more meandering to the hiring manager — who is most likely the founder(s) given the size and stage of the company. Here’s what we learned… Hire a Missionary. If it’s a seed-stage hire, you should already know the person.

Founder 120

Founder Seed Stage Cofounder Boston 120

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JANUARY 24, 2018

And they tell us over and over again that they just care about four things: Hiring and developing a great team. When we create new platform initiatives, our team tries to think about how we can be the most impactful with our portfolio companies. We don’t sit in a room and pontificate about what they need — we just ask.

Operations 176

Operations Cofounder Technical Review Angel Investor 176

View from Seed

MAY 27, 2015

But we noticed that while the information in these podcasts is interesting, many are often far removed from the actual day-to-day challenges of very early stage founders that are just trying to go from nothing to something. We find that these are great, and I personally listen to many of them.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Early Stage Non-Compete Silicon Valley 120

View from Seed

DECEMBER 23, 2015

To help entrepreneurs, we launched a platform of resources as part of our new site, a 5-star-rated podcast specifically to discuss this topic, and several new internal systems and programs to better serve our entrepreneurs facing challenges like hiring or raising their next round. As a result, we hired Tim Devane to be our NY-based Principal.

Boston 120

Boston New York Incubator Early Stage 120

View from Seed

MAY 29, 2019

At the early stages of building a company, it is tremendously helpful to tap into a broad support network outside of your immediate circle. Some funds have elevated or hired junior professionals to “partner” titles to try to address this.

Syndicate 267

Syndicate Syndication Cofounder Cap Table 267