Kellblog

OCTOBER 16, 2023

When a company is transitioning from founder-led sales (FLS) to sales-led sales (SLS), you hear the word “playbook” a lot. For early-stage companies, this rubs me the wrong way because when I hear playbook, it conjures up an image of: A large sales enablement team A hefty three-ring binder full of paper (or its digital equivalent) A lot of templates (which perhaps commit the cardinal sin of the template leading the content ) A formal onboarding program that teaches playbook contents

Startup 91

Startup Sales Sales Enablement Leadership 91

SaaStr

OCTOBER 16, 2023

We’re hiring at SaaStr!! We’ve got at least 6 roles open: Director of Email / Growth Marketing. Take over our complex email campaigns to drive event attendance and ticket sales, as well as our 4 weekly newsletters. VP/Director of Events. Own the Annual + Europa, or at least a big piece of them. Director of Sponsor Success. Make 50+ of our top 200 sponsors more successful and happy.

Sales Hiring 284

Sales Hiring Healthcare Growth Marketing Sales 284

The Daily Egg

OCTOBER 16, 2023

As digital communication tools and technologies continue to evolve, one of the constant truths is that simplicity usually wins over complexity. Voice. The post Is 100 Kbps Still Sensible for VoIP Bandwidth Requirements? appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Communication 269

Communication Technology 269

SaaStr

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Dear SaaStr: Why Do Many Startup CEOs Quit After Their Companies Are Acquired? Five reasons: First, it’s very difficult for most founder-CEOs to work for someone els e. They generally don’t mind working with others. They don’t even need to be “the boss”. But being told what to do, especially when it’s not clearly “right”? Tough. The only real answer here is to let the founder-CEO sort of run things AND … Economically, most acquirers get things wrong.

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Startup Consulting Acquisition Retention 263

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Generative AI is upending the way product developers & end-users alike are interacting with data. Despite the potential of AI, many are left with questions about the future of product development: How will AI impact my business and contribute to its success? What can product managers and developers expect in the future with the widespread adoption of AI?

Generative AI

Buffer Resources

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Thanks to ever-changing social media algorithms and the ever-growing list of platforms that make them, it’s easier than ever to become a creator. However, because anyone can become a creator, there’s also more noise than ever for your potential audience to cut through. So, while it’s great (and ideal) to build a platform off your personality, it’s not the most realistic method.

Social Media 118

Social Media Venture Capital AI Search Banking 118

User Pilot

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Like any form of analytics, product marketing analytics is all about capturing key data and optimizing the customer experience using that data. Unlike marketing analytics which focuses on replicating marketing successes, product analytics focuses on improving the product. In this article, we explore some of the differences between both. We also dive deeper into the tools and processes needed for product analytics.

Product Marketing 99

Product Marketing Data Marketing Acquisition 99

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

There are lots of challenges in being public while trying to innovate, and limits to being a private company as well; but it’s rare to see a company go public then private then back to public again. As is the case with Dell Technologies, one of the largest tech companies — which went private 2012-2013 and then also pulled off one of the most epic mergers of all time with Dell + EMC + VMWare 2015-2016 (and which we wrote about here at the time).

Innovation 85

Innovation Cloud AI Trends 85

Nimble - Sales

OCTOBER 16, 2023

In today’s digital age, email communication remains a cornerstone of professional interaction. Whether you’re reaching out to a potential client, a colleague, or your boss, the way you craft your emails can significantly impact your professional image. To ensure that your emails convey your message effectively and maintain a high level of professionalism, follow these […] The post Composing Professional Emails: Do’s and Dont’s appeared first on Nimble Blog.

Communication 64

Communication 64

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

In this episode from September 2020, originally recorded for the Commonwealth Club of California, Netflix CEO and co-founder Reed Hastings talks about his new book “No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention” with a16z co-founder and fellow author Ben Horowitz, who also wrote a bestselling book about culture in 2019. During the conversation, Reed tells the story of Netflix’s evolution and his management philosophy, including the hard lesson he learned about what hap

Innovation 85

Innovation Management Marketing 85

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Payments

TurnKey Labs

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Hiring offshore employees is a strategic move that offers both opportunities and obstacles to organizations worldwide. The lure of cost savings and access to a global talent pool is enticing, but it comes with its fair share of challenges. As US-based companies contemplate offshore hiring, they navigate a landscape filled with promise and pitfalls.

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Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

In this episode from February 2021, early Amazon execs Colin Bryar and Bill Carr — in conversation with a16z’s Sonal Chokshi — go beyond the well-known artifacts of Amazon innovation, like the memo and the press release, and share the leadership principles, decision making practices, and operational processes that helped Amazon continue to innovate, invent new products and learn from its mistakes, as it scaled.

Innovation 84

Innovation Scaling Leadership 84

Zuora

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Meet Esteban Abarca, one of Zuora’s Managed Services Engineers located in Costa Rica. Today, we sat down to chat with […] The post Growth, impact, and belonging as a Managed Services Engineer at Zuora appeared first on Zuora.

Engineering 52

Engineering Management 52

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

While building and shaping culture is as relevant as ever for startups and companies today, leaders have sought the answers to these questions for hundreds of years – and there is practical advice to be had by examining different cultures across time and around the globe. In this episode from December 2019, a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz sits down with host Sonal Choksi to talk about what actually makes up culture, whether in a company or any organization or team, as based on Ben’s best-selling bo

Startup 84

Startup 84

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Start-ups & SMBs launching products quickly must bundle dashboards, reports, & self-service analytics into apps. Customers expect rapid value from your product (time-to-value), data security, and access to advanced capabilities. Traditional Business Intelligence (BI) tools can provide valuable data analysis capabilities, but they have a barrier to entry that can stop small and midsize businesses from capitalizing on them.

SaaS

SmartKarrot

OCTOBER 16, 2023

To keep up with the ever-changing business landscape, it is crucial for companies to stay prepared and resilient in the face of unexpected challenges. One effective way to achieve this is through the implementation of digital playbooks in business continuity planning. This approach combines the power of digital tools with strategic guidance to ensure smooth operations, optimize customer success , and drive sustained growth.

Technical Review 10

Technical Review Systems Review Software Review Business 10

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

In this episode from July 2019, Kurt House, CEO and co-founder of Kobold Metals, John Thompson, professor of earth and geosciences at Cornell; and Connie Chan, a16z general partner for consumer, talk with editorial partner Hanne Winarsky about the way technology is transforming how we find cobalt, and the mining industry as a whole, as well as the science behind why cobalt is so critical for batteries, the data and knowledge behind mining today vs the past, and more.

Data 82

Data Technology 82

User Pilot

OCTOBER 16, 2023

In this article, we’ll explain how you can generate ideas, run experiments, generate a falsifiable hypothesis, validate multiple hypotheses with analytics , and use what you learn to drive growth. Let’s get right into it! TL:DR Lean experimentation is a systematic, scientific process for testing and validating hypotheses about products , services, and features using the least amount of time and resources possible.

Scale 93

Scale Innovation Interviewing Metrics 93

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

It seems like investors are especially obsessed with the psychology of decision making — high stakes, after all — but all kinds of decisions, whether in life or business — like dating, product management, what to eat or watch on Netflix — are an “investment portfolio” of decisions… even if you sometimes feel like you’re making one big decision at a time (like, say, marriage or what product to develop next or who to hire).

Underperforming Technical Team 80

Underperforming Technical Team Investment Scale Sales Hiring 80

Speaker: Timothy Chan, PhD., Head of Data Science

Are you ready to move beyond the basics and take a deep dive into the cutting-edge techniques that are reshaping the landscape of experimentation? 🌐 From Sequential Testing to Multi-Armed Bandits, Switchback Experiments to Stratified Sampling, Timothy Chan, Data Science Lead, is here to unravel the mysteries of these powerful methodologies that are revolutionizing how we approach testing.

Innovation

Buffer Resources

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Get the need-to-know highlights from the social media industry that happened the week of October 9-13. Meta Creator Compensation for AI Chatbots Meta is investing heavily in creators , with a whopping $5 million deal for a top creator’s contribution to AI chatbots. Explore Meta’s creator programs to potentially monetize your contributions.

Social Media 88

Social Media AI Search Payments AI 88

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

This week, we have a special episode for you, from our newest podcast, “ web3 with a16z “ This episode features Chris Dixon – founding general partner of a16z crypto and former entrepreneur himself – and Kevin Rose – the co-founder of Proof Collective, as well as co-founder of Digg, former investor at GV, and longtime entrepreneur and podcaster.

AI 80

AI Trends 80

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

One of the toughest challenges for founders — and especially technical founders who are used to focusing so much on product features over sales — is striking “product-market fit”. The concept can be defined many ways , but the simple definition shared in this episode is: it’s when you understand the business value of your product. And that comes down to users, which is where the concept of “product-market- sales fit” comes in, observes Jyoti Bansal, founding CEO of AppDynamics (which was ac

Product Marketing 80

Product Marketing Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 80

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

In this wide-ranging conversation from April 2019, a16z’s Frank Chen sits down with Ken Kocienda, a longtime software engineer and designer at Apple from 2001 to 2017, who wrote a book about his career there, called Creative Selection. They discuss Ken’s unconventional path from freelance photographer to software engineer at Apple, his work on many core products from Safari web browser to iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch and features like Autocorrect, what it was like to demo new products for Steve

Software 80

Software Software Engineering Engineering 80

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While data platforms, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and programming platforms have evolved to leverage big data and streaming data, the front-end user experience has not kept up. Holding onto old BI technology while everything else moves forward is holding back organizations. Traditional Business Intelligence (BI) aren’t built for modern data platforms and don’t work on modern architectures.

Artificial Intelligence

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Behind many great leaders, you’ll usually find a great mentor. The mentor-mentee relationship is often one of the most important and most fulfilling relationships people have, in both their careers and in their lives. So how do you find a mentor? What are different kinds of mentorship? And how can it help you break into an industry – or help others break in themselves?

Leadership 79

Leadership 79

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Gross margins–which are essentially a company’s revenue from products and services minus the costs to deliver those products and services to customers–are one of the most important financial metrics for any startup and growing business. And yet, figuring out what goes into the “cost” for delivering products and services is not as simple as it may sound, particularly for high-growth software businesses that might use emerging business models or be leveraging new technology.

Business Model 78

Business Model Cloud Startup Technology 78

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

In this episode from October 2019, People.AI founder and CEO Oleg Rogynskyy and a16z partner Peter Lauten discuss with Das Rush about what the rise of AI in B2B means for enterprises, workers, and startups. They explain why AI provides a strong first mover advantage to enterprises that adopt it early; how it can automate lower level tasks, maximize our focus, and, ultimately, make our work more meaningful; and for startups, they provide a playbook for seizing the next AI opportunity.

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AI B2B Enterprise Startup 77

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Every founder’s journey is unique, and a16z general partner David Ulevitch’s is no exception. From working in tech during the Dot Com boom to founding and guiding his own startups to successful exits to becoming an investor, he shares his story with The Modern CTO’s Joel Beasley. But while every journey is different, some of the lessons remain the same.

CTO 77

CTO Startup 77

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Explore how integrated payment strategies impact investor and buyer evaluations. Payments are more than a feature — they’re a key to long-term success and market differentiation. They help SaaS companies offer seamless user experiences and efficient operations. Investors and strategic buyers assess these integrated payment strategies as a measure of a company's growth potential and sustainability.

Payments

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

In this episode from October 2019, a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen and former a16z podcast showrunner Sonal Choksi bring on MIT economist and bestselling author Andrew McAfee to discuss why the lessons of human growth in times past, from the Industrial Revolution onwards, might not apply to our future. It used to be that the only way for humanity to grow — and progress — was through destroying the environment.

Technology 76

Technology 76

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

In this episode from February 2017, a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz and Jason Rosenthal, former Lytro CEO (now Vice President, Subscription Services, at Google) share stories and lessons learned from doing whatever they could to help their companies survive in hard times, including making and living through major pivots, selling new products before they were ready, figuring out financing with market and industry headwinds against them, and more.

Startup 74

Startup Finance Subscription Payment Features 74

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

In this crossover episode from new show “web3 with a16z”, a16z general partners Chris Dixon and Ali Yahya and a16z crypto head of research Tim Roughgarden, with host Sonal Choksi, set context and discuss the connections between blockchain, crypto, and web3, as well as how lessons from earlier eras of the web do and don’t apply to the current moment.

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Blockchain 62