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5 Things that Kill Startups with Y Combinator

This post is by Amelia Ibarra from SaaStr


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Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel is featured in one of our most-watched SaaStr videos of all time — so we were delighted to have him back during our SaaStr at Home event to share the top 5 things that kill startups after their seed rounds, and how to avoid them. In this tactical session, he highlights the trends he’s seen most commonly seen in startups that die and offers insights on the causes, symptoms, and solutions. #1 Fake product-market fit You’re company building before product building. This is one of the most common symptoms of “impending death” for post-seed companies. So why do founders believe they have market fit, even if they don’t? Causes:
  1. Raising money from impressive people
  2. Raising a series of pre-product market fit
  3. Magical thinking (ignoring the obvious!)
  4. Lack of strong technical talent
There is a common misconception that product-market fit means you’ve conceptually built what Continue reading "5 Things that Kill Startups with Y Combinator"
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Paradigm Shifts and the Future of Data Infrastructure with Snowflake, Neo4j, and Cockroach Labs

This post is by Amelia Ibarra from SaaStr


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We recently brought together Denise Persson, CMO @ Snowflake, Emil Eifrem, CEO @ Neo4j, and Spencer Kimball, CEO & Co-founder @ Cockroach Labs, to discuss the future of data infrastructure in the Cloud. In undergoing a sudden shift this year to the cloud of the future, these three leaders discussed 3 main paradigm shifts: #1 Everything is moving to the cloud #2 Data is becoming a strategic asset #3 We are in the midst of a big generational shift when it comes to data infrastructure The truth is, most companies are already falling behind with the ramifications of 2020 and need to move quickly. So how do we change our businesses by fundamentally exploiting the benefits of the cloud? #1 You shouldn’t go with a cloud-specific platform service Instead, opt for the independent service and be aware of company trade-offs. #2 Avoid having any one vendor have significant
future of data infastructure
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5 Leadership Lessons Everyone Needs Right Now From Github COO Erica Brescia

This post is by Amelia Ibarra from SaaStr


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One of our top sessions from our recent Annual at Home event was from Github’s COO, Erica Brescia. For those unfamiliar with her background, Brescia started off as the founder and COO of Bitnami, a 75 person startup. Just over a year ago, she sold to VMware and the company has since doubled in size. In her session, Erica shares her hard-earned leadership lessons–  from selling her company to what she’s learned at Github, we’ll share her most essential leadership principles for any stage of business. #1 Build a Support Staff Early The truth is, founders are frugal. You want to lead by example and get everything done with your own two hands. But that “do it all” mindset, is actually harming your ability to execute. In fact, every task you do that is not actively building your business is distractive of the work truly adding to reaching your goals. Time Continue reading "5 Leadership Lessons Everyone Needs Right Now From Github COO Erica Brescia"
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Lessons From Downturns & Turnarounds with Chris O’Neill (Video + Transcript)

This post is by Team SaaStr from SaaStr


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Portag3 Ventures Partner Chris O’Neill discusses leadership and teamwork lessons he’s picked up in his career through a hobby and a metaphor of sailing. Chris O’Neill | Partner @ Portag3 Ventures   I’m thrilled to be with you here today, thank you Jason and the SaaStr community for including me. I’ve spent a bunch of my career in and out of the valley. So I’ve been in the valley off and on for about 22 years. I’ve held a bunch of technology leadership roles in startups, in rocket ships and turnarounds, including about 10 years at Google, and just over three years leading efforts at Evernote. I currently serve on the board of directors at Gap and earlier this year, I decided to take my operator experience and perspective to pursue a career as a full-time investor. I grew up in a really small town in Canada on the shores
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The Cadence: How to Turn Your SaaS Startup into an Army with David Sacks (Video + Transcript)

This post is by Team SaaStr from SaaStr


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David Sacks, General Partner at Craft Ventures joins the New New in Ventures to discuss The Cadence and how to structure around it while building a start-up. David Sacks | General Partner @ Craft Ventures   When you start growing above 50 employees, and certainly get to 100, things change, you now have teams, which means you have functional leaders. Rather than the CEO running around telling the engineers exactly what to build, you now have product managers. So, the company starts getting divided up into functional areas, or silos, product management, sales, customers support, marketing and so on, and this siloing of the org chart I think means that not everyone knows what everyone else is doing, and there’s a general feeling of disorganization or chaos in most startups. Really, the better the startup is doing, the more chaos there is, because they’re growing faster, this isn’t a problem
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Changing the Way We Work with Founding Partner Lan Xuezhao at Basis Set Ventures (Video + Transcript)

This post is by Team SaaStr from SaaStr


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Lan Xuezhao is the Founding Partner at Basis Set Ventures. Today She discusses how everything is changing in the current climate, the  rise of war-time founders, having teams work remote, and the supply-chain reimagined Lan Xuezhao | Founding Partner @ Basis Set Ventures   Good afternoon and good morning wherever you are in the world today watching us at the New New in Venture. Today we are joined by Lan, the founding and managing partner of Basis Set Ventures. Thank you so much Lan. Thank you. Thank you so much. It’s great chatting with all of you. I have a long presentation here I would like to walk through and would love to answer any questions or ask you any questions. I don’t know how interaction … We’re going to actually have a few questions for you guys, but let’s go through this and see whether we can open up
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Starting Up In A Downturn with Cloudflare COO and Co-Founder Michelle Zatelyn (Video + Transcript)

This post is by Team SaaStr from SaaStr


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Hear from Michelle Zatlyn, co-founder and COO of Cloudflare. Michelle started the company during an economic downturn in 2009. Now, Cloudflare runs one of the world’s largest networks that helps make the Internet more secure, fast, and reliable, with a market cap of more than $6B. Despite the challenges of uncertainty, money not flowing, and a generally dark mood, she was able to do it and learned a lot along the way. In this talk, Michelle will share how she made her business idea come to life and some lessons learned that can help other entrepreneurs—from solving a real, meaningful problem, to communicating in a crisis, prioritizing when there’s a true lack of resources and more. Michelle Zatelyn | COO + Co-Founder @ Cloudflare   Michelle:
During the economic downturn right after the financial crisis in 2008. And so we started to work on this in 2009. And while
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The Midas List Live (Video + Transcript)

This post is by Team SaaStr from SaaStr


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A discussion about venture capital and the effects  Covid-19 has had on in the industry. Join Nicole Quinn, General Partner at Lightspeed Ventures, Ann Miura-Ko, Founding Partner at Floodgate, and Alex Konrad, Senior Editor at Forbes as they talk about what they have seen in the industry lately and how they are moving forward. Nicole Quinn | General Partner @ Lightspeed Ann Miura-Ko | Founding Partner @ Floodgate Alex Konrad  | Senior Editor @ Forbes   Speaker 1:
Good afternoon and good morning wherever you are and tuning in on around the world. Welcome to the Midas List live. We are joined by Alex Konrad, senior editor of Forbes. Nicole Quinn, general partner of Lightspeed Venture Partners and Ann Miura-Ko, co-founding partner of Floodgate, and I’ll hand it over to you. Alex Konrad:
Hello everyone, well it’s awesome to be here. I’m Alex Konrad, the editor of the Midas List
Continue reading "The Midas List Live (Video + Transcript)"