From the Investors
Paul Graham of Y Combinator shares the reasons why he believes ‘Startups don’t win by attacking. They win by transcending.’ in “Mean People Fail“
Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures expands on Alex Osterwalder’s ‘Value Proposition Design‘, noting startups ‘should reevaluate (product-market fit) questions periodically’ in “Nailing Your Startup’s Value Proposition“
Michael Cardamone of Acceleprise showcases seven enterprise startups presenting at Acceleprise SF’s first demo day in “Acceleprise SF Class 1 Demo Day 12/1 – Presented by Salesforce for Startups and Silicon Valley Bank“
Mark Suster of Upfront Ventures explains his journey going from working at Accenture to becoming a VC by ‘investing in himself’ in “The Very First Startup Founder You Need to Invest in is You“
Jason Lemkin of Storm Ventures gives Nick Mehta of Gainsight’s list of ten lessons he has learned building his second SaaS company in “The Second-Timers: Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight – ‘Never Stop Hiring Reps’“
Hunter Walk of Homebrew highlights a potential way Lyft could differentiate from Uber and mentions, ‘Changing the battlefield’ is a classic underdog strategy’ in “From Fistbump to Hitchhiker Thumb: Lyft’s March Towards Free?“
Boris Wertz of Version One Ventures details his thoughts on what may come in 2015 for Bitcoin, Virtual Reality, ‘dynamic accelerators’ and ‘mobile-driven enterprise apps’ in “Four Predictions for 2015“
Charlie O’Donnell of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures provides two rules he uses to evaluate both the consumer and labor sides of potential marketplace deals in “Some Rules for Marketplaces and Distributed Workforce Platforms“
From the Operators
Jason Cohen of WP Engine offers his perspective on how to apply the Lindy Effect when ‘strategizing what to do next to build your business’ in “The Lindy Effect on Startup Potential“
Joshua Slayton of AngelList reveals the inner-workings of AngelList’s team culture, success metrics and product failures in “The AngelList Way“
Nir Eyal, Author of Hooked outlines his analysis of the features and ‘hooks’ that ‘could be the key to Slack’s tremendous customer loyalty and high engagement’ in “The Psychology of a Billion-Dollar Enterprise App: Why is Slack so Habit-Forming?“
Leslie Bradshaw of Made by Many advises founders on the seven ‘fundamental elements’ she has used in building her career and four startups in “A Survival Guide for the Millennial Entrepreneur“
Pam McBride of Amity interviews Paul Teshima of Nudge Software to uncover how he helped ‘pioneer’ the practice of Customer Success, in 2000, at Eloqua in “CS in Conversation: Focus on Adoption to Demonstrate the Need for Customer Success“