From the Investors
Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures welcomes the tougher startup environment, as he says, ‘it will make all of us better’ in “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going”
Nino Marakovic and Steve Abbott of Sapphire Ventures believe ‘we all need to process the new reality, get on the same page and be realistic in our expectations for valuations and returns’ in “Bridging the Valuation Disequilibrium”
David Skok of Matrix Partners presents his slides as an intro to SaaS metrics, unit economics, LTV and churn, variable price axes and more in “SaaStr Slides: The Key Drivers for SaaS Success”
Jonathan Hsu of Social Capital releases their “8-ball” framework for diligence as a free tool for all startups to measure early product-market fit in “Diligence at Social capital, Epilogue: Introducing the 8-ball and ‘GaaP for Startups’”
Michael Gilroy of Canaan Partners explores the marketplace lending analog of e-commerce, with some guidance as to how to avoid a negative outcome in “A Look at the Marketplace Lending Originator Ecosystem”
Angel Investor, Joanne Wilson expresses angst towards the fundraising process and praises founders that make it through the ‘slog’ in “Frustrations of Early Stage Investing”
Guy Turner of Hyde Park Venture Partners explores his first HPVP 360 process, what he learned and how a 360 review can help scaling startups in “What do people really think of you?”
From the Operators
Sean Ellis of GrowthHackers defines broad participation, transparent learning, and weekly cadence as his ‘growth company requirements’ in “Building a Company-Wide Growth Culture” (slides)
John Saddington of TOMO finds an opportunity to be reminded of how important “organizational debt” is in “What Zenefits Has Taught (and Reminded) Me as a Startup and Business Leader”
Barry Kramer, Khang Tran and Nicole Harper of Fenwick & West LLP provide information on the current terms of unicorn financings, and identifies trends in changes in those terms over time in “The Terms Behind Unicorn Valuations”
Rachael Ludwick of Glowforge compares technical training to diversity training and declares they are not and should not be treated the same in “Good Intentions Fail at Scale”
Jeffrey Qua of Glassbreakers sees side projects as a way to test new technologies and a lesson in understanding both the self and the world in “The Importance of Personal Side Projects”
Kyle Samani of LookingForHisNextAdventure writes about the deception of growth rates as they relate to hiring and revenue decline in “The Deception of Positive and Negative Growth Percentages”
All This Has Happened Before (read more)
Worried about the current market correction that is hitting your favorite startup, and your portfolio? Don’t sweat it too much, according to journalist Owen Thomas, who sees old patterns in current events.
Here’s the post
