A recent conversation with a founder: His company developed a B2B SaaS product. They showed some initial promise but ultimately couldn’t achieve meaningful growth. They didn’t reach product/market fit. Then they kept developing more features. And some more features. All of a sudden, they had a product with 12 different main features, none of which … Continue reading Building A Game Changer
As widely known by now, research indicates that the highest-performing teams are psychologically safe teams. Leaders must ensure that people feel they are being heard and that anyone can express their opinions freely. However, a leader’s job is to make decisions, which sometimes involves the leader stepping in and making a proprietary decision based on … Continue reading Finding The Right Balance
Interesting case study: What should Lyft do? At a recent dinner, a few of us were casually chatting about our consumer experience with Lyft (“Do any of you guys use Lyft any more?”) A few things mentioned by the group: I don’t have data, but anecdotally, at least the folks in my circle seem to … Continue reading What Should Lyft Do
With so many articles and videos on the internet, it’s easy to overthink or take an overly academic approach to GTM. But GTM is really finding an answer to this simple question: “For X, we solve Y problems by providing better solutions than Z” Or, an even simpler version can be: “We do A better … Continue reading We Do A Better Than B
How startups should position their product: Be like Lululemon’s day 1. Lululemon is now a general athletic brand for everyone, but when they started they were about one thing only – yoga pants for women. The key here is not to see yoga pants as they’re worn today. You should go back to the late … Continue reading Lululemon’s Day 1
Some observations from a recent Asian American businesspeople gathering (This is a light posting, so please don’t take this too seriously 🙂 These were just my random observations, but if anybody wants to see some real posts on the topic, follow Dave Lu – he has really thoughtful posts, including his seminal essay “How the … Continue reading At a Recent Asian American Gathering
I always recommend founders consider doing a secondary transaction and taking some money off the table, if they can: Continue reading Taking Some Money Off The Table
Some people asked about my sabbatical experience, so I created a quick slide. Feel free to share/forward. Also please share your own experience, learnings, and tips if you recently took some time off! Continue reading On Sabbatical
Imagine you’re meeting a VC today and pitching your company. Now, also imagine the VC goes home tonight and tells his or her spouse about the meeting with you. How do you think the VC would (or should) describe your product to the spouse? Remember, this is for someone who doesn’t have any context, and … Continue reading How They’ll Explain To Others
What I’ve seen over the years is, early stage companies rarely grow beyond their founders’ capabilities; or at least, companies model after their founders really closely. If the founder is unfocused, chances are the whole company is unfocused. If the founder is incapable of making decisions, the company is likely to have meetings after meetings … Continue reading Sharpen The Tooth