Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, January 19, 2009 Lean hiring tips In preparing for the strategy series panel this week, I have been doing some thinking about costs. And all of that cost was caused by one activity: hiring. Hiring is no different from any other company process. Sounds a little abstract, though, doesnt it?

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Austin Startup

MAY 10, 2021

Hologram , a global cellular platform for IoT, announced it hired Mike Georgoff this month as its first Chief Product Officer as the organization continues its growth. three companies he previously worked for had successful exits including two acquisitions and one IPO. To learn more about Hologram, please visit www.hologram.io.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

And this is happening in mezzanine (pre-IPO) deals as well. And post IPO deals, although these tend to correct more quickly. If everybody is over-paying for early-to-mid stage deals you’d imagine that these all need to feed into a frenzied M&A and IPO market that will garner big returns for these risks investors are taking.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 15, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, July 15, 2010 Some IPO speculation Inspired by Steve Blank’s post today about the “lost decade&# of IPO’s , I’d like to make some predictions. The fact that IPO’s are disappearing makes intuitive sense to me. Let me be clear: Steve is the historian.

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YoungUpstarts

MAY 24, 2018

These tax liabilities, which many companies believe don’t exist, can turn into a heavy burden in the event that a company seeks investors, financing, IPO or sale. Additionally, changing legislation with regard to remote sellers (e.g.,

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Hunter Walker

NOVEMBER 26, 2015

I was DMing Wharton Professor Adam Grant before he even finished delivering the talk describing different startup hiring models and their correlation to success or failure. The actual research about whether culture fit hiring impacts success or not! Selection is the primary judgment criteria for how employees are hired.

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Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

Exactly three months after its $48 Million funding announcement, Smooth-Stone today detailed its company momentum, including significant new executive hires, new office space and renaming the company. The new name, Calxeda , pronounced “Cal-zeh-dah,” is a derivative of the Latin for “Smooth-Stone.” Naval Nuclear Power Program.

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YoungUpstarts

MAY 6, 2019

Hiring more resources. When you are done with making product improvements, start hiring more resources that can work to solidify your brand presence. You might have to hire more team members because your initial team will be struggling to manage all those customers. So, hire more people or go for outsourcing to remote workers.

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The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 29, 2021

We can trace the Midwest’s renaissance to Sprout Social’s successful initial public offering (IPO) , which saw the company debut on public markets at a price of $17 per share and rise to over $120 per share today. So much has gone right for the industry and it goes to show how one successful IPO can bring focus to a region.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2023

You are now entering the rollout stage , with money required for marketing, hiring a full-time team, and a production process. The new investors you need at this stage are investment bankers, private equity, or competitors, to buy you out via merger or acquisition (M&A), or to go public with an Initial Public Offering (IPO).

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” So your Q1 results will be $180,000 less profitable than if you hadn’t hired them. One of them is profitability.

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www.drowningamerican.com

JUNE 22, 2012

Next → How we Hire for Sweat Equity (Part 2)… Posted on April 7, 2011 by Travis Biziorek. The first time we hired partners for Kibin was way back in late 2009. I’ve heard people say it’s impossible to hire good developers right now. I want to hire before I have the ability to pay anyone.

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crowdSPRING Blog

MAY 25, 2011

Excellent tips for startups on hiring product managers – [link]. Interesting perspective on LinkedIn’s IPO – arguing that the IPO price was reasonable – [link]. And here’s another side – suggesting that LinkedIn shareholders might have been scammed in the IPO – [link].

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

Early-stage investors in technology startups are only looking for growth-oriented companies that can achieve an “exit&# someday – either via selling your company to a larger company or via an IPO. And the CEO they would hire to come in and run the business when you go would always be a mercenary.

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NZ Entrepreneur

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

experiments to build a product, find customers, test business models and hire amazing people. It is not uncommon for startup directors to be more deeply involved in the operations of the business when the company is entering a new market, hiring critical team members or raising capital. Underpinning this growth is good governance.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2015

If you grew up inside of Facebook through its rise, its IPO and it becoming an 800-pound gorilla you will see the world through that lens precisely because you are so powerful that you’re used to getting your way because you’re, well, Facebook. Even big countries must be mindful of Hobbesian forces.

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YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 21, 2016

When are we looking for funding, investors, or going IPO? Hire qualified internal resources or outsource as needed for the required IT positions. Do we deal with foreign companies that create our product? Are we looking at 100% growth within the next X number of months? Bring on a security-conscious CTO at the beginning.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

In response, venture capital firms like Sequoia and Andreessen/Horowitz are hiring new partners just to work with their portfolio companies and match them to corporations. VCs like acquisitions as much as IPOs because the acquiring companies often can rationalize paying large multiples over the current valuation of the startup.

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Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 29, 2018

I was responsible for hiring the team, fundraising, establishing our Board of Directors and Advisors, and selling our initial clients. And even if somehow you avoid it until your IPO, remember that an IPO is a fundraising event itself. And there were other offers along the path to IPO that we also turned down.

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View from Seed

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. NextView Ventures: Thinking back to before anyone knew HubSpot or the company was headed towards an IPO, where did you even start to market the company?

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 22, 2020

You are now entering the rollout stage , with money required for marketing, hiring a full-time team, and a production process. The new investors you need at this stage are investment bankers, private equity, or competitors, to buy you out via merger or acquisition (M&A), or to go public with an Initial Public Offering (IPO).

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David Teten

MARCH 14, 2018

– Hire more non-Partner staff. – Hire more Partners. For a VC fund to be actively engaged in a large number of investments, it needs to hire more Partners to sit on more boards. If you’re thinking of hiring a Partner, I suggest see How to Negotiate a Partner Role at a Venture Capital or Private Equity Firm.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 6, 2020

It seems that most of you entrepreneurs I meet in my role as business advisor are convinced that starting a new business requires equity investors, exponential growth, and a plan to go public via IPO. You want to be your own boss, and do things your way.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 13, 2014

People often ask me what VCs look for when we hire partners and many have asked how to become VCs themselves one day. billion IPO), Envestnet (Chicago, $1.25 billion IPO), HealthDataInsights (Las Vegas, $400 million) as well as LA (Maker Studios $1 billion, TrueCar $1.3 They like to say it was an 8-year interview process).

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A Crowded Space

OCTOBER 3, 2018

A huge congratulations to the entire Upwork team on a successful IPO! Mistakes of Hiring Like most founding employees, people tend to ask me what lessons I learned throughout my tenure at the company (hence, this post). While it may seem obvious, I can say that hiring mistakes are what taught me the most.

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Hunter Walker

JANUARY 17, 2014

As a startup CEO, one of your greatest responsibilities is to hire the best talent. Most often the startup has failed to proactively address three essential questions that can make the difference between success and failure, or even prevent you from hiring someone you regret. Look for hires who ran towards high-priority, new projects.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2019

Investors bet that by offering prospective hires a stake in the company’s future growth- with a visible time horizon of a payoff – employees would act more like owners and work harder– and that would align employee interests with the investor interests. Much has changed about the economics of startups in the two decades.

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Hunter Walker

AUGUST 1, 2021

I never heard about giraffes after Google’s IPO, although reportedly one early engineer did buy a carnival-size ferris wheel. Those of us who’ve had access to the right hiring manager, or cap table, or referral network have already put ourselves in a position to capitalize, but the pie can be expanded.

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crowdSPRING Blog

MAY 2, 2014

Why a standard resume is not enough for hiring – crowdspring.co/1k6oLBD. Hottest Pre-IPO Adtech Startups | Business Insider – crowdspring.co/1k6cUmV. Why a standard resume is not enough for hiring – crowdspring.co/1k6oLBD. The Sharing Economy Is About Desperation | NYMag – crowdspring.co/1k6bGZ4.

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Venture Chronicles

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

Like most people, I had the opportunity to review Facebook’s IPO filing yesterday and admit that, like Apple’s recent earnings announcement, this is pretty damn impressive. Lastly, I’ll refrain from repeating the oft-repeated mantra about hiring the best people… would you hire anyone but the best?

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prosperati.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Hiring Of all the issues we ran into when we first built our team, hiring was the most critical. So when you first start building your team, the most important hire should be your lead architect. The cliches of hiring the best of the best is as true in Malaysia as it is in the US. Culture creation is not easy.

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Haystack

OCTOBER 13, 2019

Yet, looking back, not much changed — there’s more money than every in the early-stage ecosystem, bigger financing rounds, large private pre-IPO growth rounds, and much more. .” Then at the end of 2017, the same worry about 2018; rinse and repeat last year, looking toward 2019.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

Hire fewer employees until you’re bursting at the seems with work for the ones you have. If by overnight you mean 2-3 years of people second-guessing the category followed by 2-3 years of steady growth, followed by large numbers categorized as overnight success and 9-10 years later a chance at an IPO.

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Hunter Walker

AUGUST 26, 2022

Hunter Walk: Ok, so we first met when you were leading comms at enterprise software company Box, a startup you joined when they were still pretty early and stayed at until post-IPO. I tried to get hired at Better Place and failed. When I learned they were hiring a community manager, I threw everything I had at the interview process.

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Hunter Walker

MAY 11, 2022

Think Of Your First Non-Investor Board Member As a Senior Hire, And Not Your IPO Board. It’s like hiring — you wouldn’t not fill a product lead role just because the Chief Product Office you might need five years from now isn’t currently a fit. Being a CEO and running a startup is hard! And for the most part they do.

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Reid Hoffman

DECEMBER 10, 2020

With Airbnb’s IPO, I thought the time was right to take a look back at the past decade (Greylock led Airbnb’s Series A in November 2010) and reflect on what I learned from the journey. Even though the company had been on track for an IPO, it retrenched and laid off 25% of the team. HOW GREYLOCK INVESTED IN AIRBNB.

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Hunter Walker

MAY 13, 2023

Especially in the early days of mobile/iOS engineering, if you hired strong technical talent into your early stage company, you basically created an acquisition outcome floor. Sometimes you’d even get lucky and receive stock in the acquirer, which was how I gained pre-IPO equity in high growth stars like Pinterest and Facebook.

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