The NFX Podcast

How Tracy Young Sold PlanGrid for $875M and Navigated Tragedy Jan 21, 2026

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(0:00) Introduction to Tracy Young

(0:04) Tracy Young's background and early career

(2:39) Lessons learned from construction industry

(5:33) Founding of PlanGrid

(8:03) Experience with Y Combinator and early product market fit

(13:18) Sales strategies and early adoption

(18:23) Fundraising advice and managing executive leadership

(22:42) Focus areas and executive relationship red flags as PlanGrid scaled

(25:11) Importance of firing quickly and Tracy stepping down

(26:46) M&A with Autodesk and growth challenges

(31:00) Board's perspective on acquisition and independence

(35:20) Leadership changes and maximizing M&A options

(41:40) Post-acquisition experience and transition to coaching

(44:12) Founding Tiger Eye and establishing core values

(47:36) Balancing work and family with wholeheartedness

(49:01) Adhering to core values during financial stress

(51:10) Future of TigerEye and AI's impact

(52:44) Reflections on leadership growth and redefining success

(55:13) Closing remarks

Key Points:
- Seeing the hard work and perseverance of her immigrant parents inspired Tracy Young to build a career and ultimately co-found successful startups like PlanGrid and TigerEye.

- Tracy Young emphasizes the importance of hiring the right people and maintaining strong core values, including the need for honesty and a no-jerks policy, to create a productive and positive work environment.

- The decision to sell PlanGrid to Autodesk was driven by a combination of financial prudence, market dynamics, and the realization that scaling further might require a different leadership approach.

The NFX Podcast w/ Alex Babin of HerculesAI Mar 20, 2024

Hercules builds high-quality, enterprise-grade AI solutions based on data extraction, transformation, and verification, while integrating with enterprise systems and tools for maintenance and monitoring. Join NFX general partner James Currier and HerculesAI CEO Alex Babin talk about the latest breakthroughs in the AI space of enterprise companies.

Real Estate’s Hidden AI Revolution (Sunday Readouts) Oct 22, 2023

This is an essay readout using an AI voice clone of NFX general partner, Pete Flint. AI has the potential to smooth out many links in the real estate production chain and create a cascade that will close the productivity gap. This essay reveals what’s on the way and how founders can seize this opportunity. Read the full essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/ai-revolution-proptech

"Astronauts for Inner Space" with Raed Khawaja Jul 26, 2023

Morgan Beller calls up Raed Khawaja - CEO & Co-Founder at Open - to catch up and talk about the current movement around one's 'inner-space'. Open is a social space for meditation, movement, and practice — on and offline, who’s raised close to $15M to help friends be present together. They blend old and new to bring you to the here and now on their app, in person at their Venice Beach studio, and even in the sky on JetBlue airlines. Their hybrid method strengthens the mind-body connection. NFX operates as a pre-seed and seed stage VC that is transforming how true innovators are funded - subscribe, share, and stay tuned for more episodes of 'Phone a Friend' with General Partner Morgan Beller.

Generative Tech Begins (Sunday Readouts) Jul 23, 2023

This is an essay readout using an AI voice clone of NFX general partner, James Currier. Generative Tech is the next step in software. It’s a new level of human-machine partnership. It turns deep learning engines into collaborators to generate new content and ideas nearly like a human would. This area is so new, and moving so fast, you can have an advantage in your chosen area in a few months… for now. Read the full essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/generative-tech

3 Waves of Successful Generative Tech Startups (Sunday Readouts) Jul 16, 2023

This is an essay readout using an AI voice clone of NFX general partner, James Currier. Every 14 years there’s a tech revolution, and we have now entered the Generative Tech revolution. Anything you’re interested in, anything you’re working on is going to be impacted by generative tech and generative AI. In addition to the AI model companies, many unicorns and decacorns will be built, starting now. We’re already seeing three types of winners. If you can wrap your mind around what is happening with these new capabilities and see the future better than others, there is no better time to build something huge. Read the full essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/3-waves-generative-ai-startups

AI x Speed (Sunday Readouts) Jun 25, 2023

This is an essay readout using an AI voice clone of NFX general partner, James Currier. The AI revolution just ratcheted up the speed bar for startups. You think you’re moving fast enough. You’re not. Speed is the number one advantage of a startup. But now that generative AI here, your definition of speed has to increase 10x. Read the full essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/speed-and-ai

Building Your Startup’s Attention Flywheel with Vijay Chattha (Founder of VSC) Jan 20, 2023

There’s a concept in network theory called Preferential Attachment. When one node gets ahead, it attracts more resources, and more attention. It's a snowball effect. PR for your company works the same way. Once you become the biggest node, more resources flow to you. Today, NFX General Partner James Currier sits down with Vijay Chattha, founder of PR agency VSC to reveal how to build that attention flywheel. VSC has worked with NFX unicorn companies like Mammoth Biosciences, Poshmark, and Outdoorsy, to build attention and momentum from the ground up.

The Strategies of Elite CEOs with Avishai Abrahami (CEO & Co-Founder of Wix) Jan 18, 2023

The transition from Founder to CEO is a watershed moment in your company, and in your life. A great Founder creates something from nothing. A great CEO takes the next step, and builds mechanisms of success. They turn that vision into a well-functioning machine. Becoming a great CEO is a matter of tactics and personal growth. Today, NFX General Partner Gigi Levy-Weiss reveals how to get there, with special guest Avishai Abrahami, the founder of Wix. Avishai built Wix into a company of about 5,000 people, with 1.4 billion in revenue. They’ll cover how Founders can become great CEOs, measurements that most startups miss, the difference between good failure and bad failure, and more. (edited)

NFXBio: Deal or Die – A Guide to TechBio Business Development and Strategy Jan 10, 2023

There are two parts to building a bioplatform: you have to focus on the science, then you have to think about the business side. When do you partner? When do you develop your own products? How can you determine the real value of a deal? How do you build a strategic network? What avenues are Founders overlooking right now? These are questions our companies ask us all the time. Today, Head of NFXBio Omri Amirav-Dory, Yael Gruenbaum-Cohen, a venture partner at aMoon Fund, and Peter Nell, former Chief Business Officer and head of Therapeutics at Mammoth Biosciences, are charting a roadmap for successful bioplatform business development.

NFXBio: Tech Founders, Don’t Be Afraid of Bio Jan 05, 2023

There’s huge value in integrating tech and bio. But many tech entrepreneurs don’t realize what they can bring to the field. Tech entrepreneurs: you can come to bio, if you learn to speak the language. Today, head of NFX Bio Omri Amirav-Drory sits down with his former co-founder at Genome Compiler, and Founder of Mana.bio Yogev Debbi. Yogev has bridged the gap between tech and bio several times in his career. Here’s how to build a culture of trust, leverage your fresh perspective, and build impactful companies at the intersection of tech and bio.

Ep 11: Network Effects In TechBio (NFX Masterclass) Dec 21, 2022

Biology is the most advanced technology on earth. It’s a nanotechnology that actually works, and it scales. The rest of the world will benefit when there are more TechBio founders and investors in the space and this sector has never been more central to shaping a better future. The next significant phase of human progress is going to be led by these Scientist-Founders who build TechBio companies capable of unlocking that future. In this episode, general partner Omri Drory explores how network effects are helping TechBio companies cure diseases, fight climate change, and tackle some of the biggest issues facing humanity today. This is an audio version of final episode from The Network Effects Masterclass, curated for audio and listening on the go. For the full video experience, transcripts, and recommended reading, join the free Network Effects Masterclass at - NFX.com/masterclass.

Ep 10: Network Effects In Gaming (NFX Masterclass) Dec 14, 2022

We are in the first wave of web3 games, and some believe that games don't have network effects built into their development or long-term strategy. In this episode, listen to NFX partner Gigi Levy-Weiss as he dives into the world of defensibility within the gaming industry, sharing the 4 layers of network effects, the future of virtual goods, and a case study on Steam - the leading platform for video game development. This is an audio version of episode 10 from The Network Effects Masterclass, curated for audio and listening on the go. For the full video experience, transcripts, and recommended reading, join the free Network Effects Masterclass at - NFX.com/masterclass.

Ep 9: Why Network Effects Are (Even) More Powerful In Web3 (NFX Masterclass) Dec 07, 2022

In Web3, network effects are fundamental and critical to survival. If you’re building in Web3 properly, then it should automatically include network effects. Listen in as General Partner Morgan Beller acts like the river guide of network effects for Web3 as she shares her experience and insights on how to be defensible in this new world. Eventually, we will see Web3 swallow Web2 - look how much we’ve learned since that white paper for BTC arrived in 2009. Founders on the frontlines of the Web3 world are educating us on how to remain defensible and retain growth amongst competitors. This is an audio version of episode 9 from The Network Effects Masterclass, curated for audio and listening on the go. For the full video experience, transcripts, and recommended reading, join the free Network Effects Masterclass at - NFX.com/masterclass.

NFXBio: The Promise of Synthetic Embryos with Dr. Jacob Hanna of Renewal Bio Dec 06, 2022

We're highlighting a breakthrough moment - this summer, Dr. Jacob Hanna, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science published a paper demonstrating that synthetic mouse embryos could be grown outside the womb, without an egg or sperm. This is a major advance that was covered by Nature, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and others. Today, the head of NFXBio Omri Amirav-Drory is sitting down with Dr. Hanna to discuss how we reached this milestone, what it means for science, and how entrepreneurship can help bring this technology out of the lab.

Ep 8: Your Life Is Driven By Network Effects (NFX Masterclass) Nov 30, 2022

What city you live in. Who you date or marry. Which job you choose. What clothes you wear. We all think we make these choices ourselves. It certainly feels like we’re in full control. The unseen hand in them all is the networks that surround us and the powerful math they exert on us. This episode outlines how we see network effects impacting nearly every aspect of your life. It will hopefully help you make decisions that are more true to the kind of life you want to lead. This is an audio version of episode 8 from The Network Effects Masterclass, curated for audio and listening on the go. For the full video experience, transcripts, and recommended reading, join the free Network Effects Masterclass at - NFX.com/masterclass.

Ep. 7 - Network Problems Demand Network Solutions (NFX Masterclass) Nov 23, 2022

We spend a lot of time teaching Founders how to use network effects to create these giant, world-changing businesses, but we think that too little has been said about how society should adapt to these new network effect behemoths we’re helping create. This episode is hosted by general partner James Currier as he discusses how network effect businesses are reshaping the world, why it's our responsibility to design and thoughtfully set up social contracts with our different constituents, and the need to have a perspective about what you are giving and getting from the people on these networks. This is an audio version of episode 7 from The Network Effects Masterclass, curated for audio and listening on the go. For the full video experience, transcripts, and recommended reading, join the free Network Effects Masterclass at - NFX.com/masterclass.

NFXBio: TechBio Platforms Developing a Universal Vaccine & Beating Treatment-Resistant Cancer Nov 22, 2022

In biology we have a saying: what doesn’t kill you mutates and tries again. Cancer. Deadly viruses. These problems are so hard to tackle because the goalposts are always moving. Thanks to evolution, these diseases often outpace therapies and vaccines. Today, NFX General Partner and Head of NFX Bio Omri Amirav-Drory is sitting down with two Founders using platforms to stay a step ahead of evolution. Jacob Glanville, Founder of Centivax, has developed a platform to create broad spectrum vaccines capable of arming the immune system against rapidly mutating viruses (like COVID-19 or influenza). Nick Goldner, Founder of resistanceBio, discusses his approach for mapping all the possible resistance paths a cancer can take in the human body – and developing therapies to shut those escape routes down. Here’s why we need platforms to tackle biology’s biggest problems, what it takes to build a platform company, and their advice for fundraising in Techbio.

Ep. 6 - Case Studies: Network Effects In Action (NFX Masterclass) Nov 18, 2022

These are case studies and stories that outline network effects in the wild - it is a montage of how big tech companies like Trulia, Meta, Uber, and even Bitcoin navigate their defensibility over time. For the best experience of this episode, watch our case studies at nfx.com/masterclass or by searching on YouTube to get the visual side of these deep dives. That was episode 6 of 11, from the Network effects masterclass. Stay tuned and subscribe as next up is Ep. 7 - Network Problems Demand Network Solutions, here on the NFX podcast. This is an audio version of episode 6 from The Network Effects Masterclass, curated for audio and listening on the go. For the full video experience, transcripts, and recommended reading, join the free Network Effects Masterclass at - NFX.com/masterclass.

Ep. 5 - Network Bonding Theory (NFX Masterclass) Nov 09, 2022

Realize that your startup itself is a network. Your goal is to bond people to it. When you attach, or bond, one node to your network, it adds value to all the other nodes. This is episode 5, from the NFX Masterclass, covering Network Bonding Theory. Learn best practices for bonding nodes to your network led by NFX General Partner James Currier as he shows you a set of mechanisms that will help you build network effects startups even better. This is an audio version of episode 5 from The Network Effects Masterclass, curated for audio and listening on the go. For the full video experience, transcripts, and recommended reading, join the free Network Effects Masterclass at - NFX.com/masterclass.

Ep. 4 - The 4 Pillars of Defensibility (NFX Masterclass) Oct 26, 2022

Durability = Network Effects + Economies of Scale + Brand + Embedding + IP. Learn about these other 4 strategies for startup durability outside of network effects from NFX General Partner, Pete Flint. Value creation mostly accrues in the out-years when usage, revenue, and growth compound. Founders who win big spend more time at the beginning on creating products and business mechanisms that follow these five durability factors and thus drive increasing returns at scale. This is an audio version of episode 4 from The Network Effects Masterclass, curated for audio and listening on the go. For the full video experience, transcripts, and recommended reading, join the free Network Effects Masterclass at - NFX.com/masterclass.

Ep. 3 - Mapping Out the 16 Network Effects (NFX Masterclass) Oct 19, 2022

Unlock the NFX map to understand how each network effect works — in episode 3 of the Network Effects Masterclass, General Partner James Currier will review the 16 types of network effects and how they reinforce each other in powerful ways. Learn to analyze the NFX map to determine how to engineer sustained, long-term growth into your startup. This is an abridged version of episode 3 from The Network Effects Masterclass, curated for audio and listening on the go. For the full video experience, transcripts, and recommended reading, join the free Network Effects Masterclass at - NFX.com/masterclass.

Ep. 2 - The Underlying Properties Of Network Theory (NFX Masterclass) Oct 12, 2022

Unlearn what you thought you knew about network effects. This episode takes you to the very beginning and lays out network theory from square one. Listen in as James covers the basics of network principles to use as a launchpad for the rest of the course and see how your startup behaves as a network itself. This is an abridged version of episode 2 from The Network Effects Masterclass, curated for audio and listening on the go. For the full video experience, transcripts, and recommended reading, join the free Network Effects Masterclass at - NFX.com/masterclass.

Ep. 1 - Why Network Effects Are Mission Critical (NFX Masterclass) Oct 05, 2022

Few understand the hidden complexities of network effects - learn all there is to know about building iconic companies from day one. This is episode 1 of the Network Effects Masterclass (audio edition). You'll hear a short introduction from NFX Partner James Currier on what you will learn in this masterclass to build your company into the next world-class startup and understand why network effects are the #1 advantage in driving exponential growth. This is an abridged version of episode 1 from The Network Effects Masterclass, curated for audio and listening on the go. For the full video experience, transcripts, and recommended reading, join the free Network Effects Masterclass at - NFX.com/masterclass. Stay tuned for weekly episodes until we finish the course.

Coming Soon: The Network Effects Masterclass [special audio edition] Sep 22, 2022

At NFX, we've spent over 20 years studying the power of network effects. As founders, we’ve built them into companies worth $10B+. As investors, we teach our founders these playbooks. Now we’re putting everything we know into an 11-episode Network Effects Masterclass, made for early-stage startup founders and their teams. There will be a full video and transcript experience on NFX.com — but we’re also abridging each episode for a native audio experience here for our NFX podcast listeners. Few understand the hidden complexities of network effects - learn everything there is to know about building iconic companies from day one. Coming soon to The NFX Podcast.

NFXBio: Academia or Startup? A Decision Matrix for Future Scientist-Founders Jul 21, 2022

NFX Bio is committed to backing Scientist-Founders who are inspired to change the world. But there are far fewer scientists-Founders today than there should be. Instead, scientists often follow the path that academia paves for them: from graduate school, to a PhD, to a postdoc, to another role in academia. In this episode, NFX General Partner and Head of NFX Bio, Omri Amirav-Drory, sat down with Stanford professor and Pumpkinseed Founder Jennifer Dionne and former Columbia professor and Founder of Eleven Therapeutics Yaniv Erlich to discuss forging your own path: starting your own company. Here’s how to think through leaving academia, how to know whether it’s time to spin out of your university, and the key takeaways from each of their scientist-turned-founder journeys. Read the full essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/techbio-scientists-academia-or-startup

Crazy Until It’s Not: New Story Charity’s Bitcoin-Based Mortgages, NFTs, and 3D-Printed Homes Dec 14, 2021

Some problems are so big, they feel crazy to even try to solve them. Global homelessness, for example. 1.6 billion people today are living without adequate housing*. This represents a massive, underserved market, and a type of problem often overlooked by tech Founders. Fortunately, Brett Hagler and his Co-Founders at New Story Charity are tackling it head-on, with an unlikely combination of 3D printed homes, Bitcoin-based mortgages, and fundraising via NFTs. Pete Flint has had the privilege of serving on New Story’s board since they graduated YCombinator in 2015 and have since witnessed their impressive, fearless growth. What looked at first like an intractable problem now seems like fertile ground for radical proptech-meets-Web3 innovation. Real estate is the story of our lives.

The Inside Story of Nextdoor with Sarah Friar Nov 18, 2021

Nextdoor, the social media app for neighborhoods, which is actively used in 1 in 3 households in the U.S., was recently valued at $4.3B and listed on the NYSE last week (November 8, 2021) under the ticker symbol "KIND." Today’s episode is a glimpse into the thoughtful, humanist view of Sarah Friar, the CEO of Nextdoor, former CFO of Square, and board member of Slack. She cautions us not to disappear into the metaverse, and also encourages today’s and tomorrow’s Founders to cure gaps in the world — and do it with eyes wide open to consequences at scale. There’s more tension than there is harmony between “offline vs. online,” and yet one company is uniquely positioned to bridge the two for the benefit of us all.

Building Confidence Networks In Latin America Nov 10, 2021

NFX has been increasingly active in LatAm over the last few years, largely drawn there by an incredibly talented pool of Founders in the region. To understand the unique challenges and opportunities of LatAm, James talked with Antonia Rojas, the youngest female partner at ALLVP and a rising star in the startup ecosystem there. They co-led the Nuvocargo Seed round together. Based in Mexico City, she has a “boots on the ground” view of Latin America that I love. Methods for building network effects there is not what one might think -- and as a result, go-to-market in Latin America demands building trust bridges and leveraging confidence networks. Understanding the psychology of LatAm consumers is a powerful unlock for new Founders entering the region.

Eynat Guez & Gigi Levy-Weiss on 7 Mental Shifts For Hiring Now Oct 28, 2021

The Covid pandemic removed barriers to global hiring and remote team building. It exposed startups, by necessity, to all-new solutions for growing and bonding their teams. Most companies advanced through the pandemic by stages: first survival mode, then waiting it out -- and now they are ready to fundamentally shift their hiring strategies to reflect our new reality. It’s clear now that there are lasting shifts in the market, and that Founders and CEOs need to update their mental models for hiring. Our guest today, Eynat Guez, sees this recent change in strategy more clearly than most. She’s the Co-Founder and CEO of Papaya Global, a global people & payroll platform, now valued at $3.7 Billion. Eynat is also the first-ever female CEO of a unicorn company in Israel. Her insights on hiring are twofold. First, she builds from her own experience rapidly scaling her global team to unicorn status during the pandemic. Second, from working directly with Papaya’s clients to grow their teams. Today she shares with us her set of mental models for building a world-class team -- wherever it may be.

Community-First Company Building with Cuy Sheffield & Micah Johnson Oct 21, 2021

The next evolution of companies will be created in public with early customers, partners, and supporters. They’ll be community-owned and operated, building upon the playbooks created by early NFT and play-to-earn projects. Because many of the web 3.0 advantages are hard to adopt as a large web 2.0 company, as a Founder you have to focus on the big ideas: ownership, collaboration, and community. In today's episode, NFX Partner Morgan Beller talks with Cuy Sheffield (head of crypto at Visa) and Micah Johnson (Bored Apes, CryptoPunks, and Aku and former professional baseball player) as they explore tactics for building community, no matter what industry you’re in. Listen to their conversation as they uncover why Founders can’t skip the community-building part anymore, as it’s essential to company building in today's ecosystem.

A Founder’s Exponential Toolset with Azeem Azhar & James Currier Sep 14, 2021

Visionary Founders, instead of solving market failures or fixing problems that are clear, push market evolution. They commit to pushing society to the upward bend of the exponential technology curve. Today, our friend Azeem Azhar, former VC-backed Founder, creator of The Exponential View blog, and author of the new book The Exponential Age, gives Founders specific hooks and non-obvious ways of explaining how quickly something’s going to change — right before it does. For Founders, market needs are often a lagging indicator of technological progress. In many cases, like the iPhone, we didn’t even know that we needed a thing, until the thing made us want it. Read the full NFX Essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/exponential-age/

NFXBio: Inside a Scientist-Founder’s Journey from Pre-Seed to Series D Sep 09, 2021

Today, Mammoth Biosciences announced their series C and D at more than a $1B valuation. Mammoth is a startup story that Founders should be following because there is so much to learn from their path from the lab to unicorn status. At no other time in modern history has the need for science to lead our society toward a better future been more apparent and immense. We can meet this need by investing in the next generation of tech-bio companies like Mammoth. NFX led Mammoth’s Pre-Seed and Seed rounds, co-led the Series A, and has invested in every round including today’s Series D. We even helped them name the company. Mammoth is the poster child for the NFX strategy of using network effects to build bio platforms — this approach to building tech-bio businesses should allow them to get 10x the size of a normal bio company. It’s also a great example of how NFX Bio supports Scientist-Founders as they become great Founders and CEOs after they leave the lab. Listen in with Omri Drory, head of NFX Bio, and Partner James Currier as they take an inside look with Mammoth’s Co-Founder & CEO Trevor Martin at his journey from idea to unicorn — for the benefit of up-and-coming Scientist-Founders worldwide.

Choosing The Final Frontier: Launching a Rocket Company with Andy Lapsa of Stoke Space Aug 04, 2021

"We have all the technical and economic ingredients needed to build a massive economy in space. We’re not focused on Mars or the Moon, we’re singularly focused on building a space economy that makes life better on Earth.” Today NFX Partner Morgan Beller is joined by Andy Lapsa, Co-Founder & CEO of Stoke Space Technologies, a company building reusable second-stage rockets to seamlessly Earth and orbit. Founded in 2019 and based in Renton, Washington they have been focused on the reusability aspect of rocketry to make space access more available and frequent in our future lives. Lapsa was a former employee and award-winning rocket engineer at Bezos's Blue Origin, while the rest of their team come from SpaceX and other leading aerospace companies. As a lead investor, Morgan uncovers how they originally met, Andy's full Founder journey, why space is such an important industry to apply talented engineers to, and his overall decision to enter one of the most complex sectors in the world of tech. Visit their website - https://www.stoke-space.com/

The Founders' List: Status, Wealth, & Power: Network Effects Demand A New Social Contract Jul 30, 2021

This is The Founders’ List – audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Network effect businesses are reshaping the world. Network effects are still the best and most powerful force we know to create persistent value for billions of people. However, we think that too little has been said about how society should adapt to these new network effect behemoths we’re helping create. NFX Partner James Currier outlines how the network economy works, and how power, wealth, and status all flow on the network. He then looks at the implications of this and finally specific ideas for Founders about what these new social contracts could look like. Read the full NFX essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/network-economy/

NFX Mashup: The SPAC Masterclass Jul 29, 2021

This is an NFX Mashup, where we string thoughts from past episodes together under the same topic. Startups today have more options than ever before — much earlier in their life cycles — for entering the public markets. Founders are constantly looking for advice on how to think about traditional IPO vs. SPAC vs. direct listing — and how to even answer the question: Am I ready to be a public company? In this mashup, NFX Partner Pete Flint is joined by Eventbrite co-founder Kevin Hartz, Hippo founder Assaf Wand, and the IPO whisperer Lisa Buyer on their experience and advice around taking tech companies public.

Meet the Team Behind 'Stoner Cats' (NFT Animated Series from Mila Kunis & Friends) Jul 23, 2021

'Stoner Cats' is an adult animated series centered on five house cats who repeatedly save their beloved owner created by Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher, and friends, including the creative forces behind Toy Story 2, Spider-Verse, Happy Feet, and Cryptokitties. Users will be able to buy Stoner Cats NFTs and can use those tokens to access the comedy cartoon online. The show will be an estimated five minutes long per episode. The tokens purchased will go toward funding future episodes of the series. Today we have part of the Stoner Cats founding team including Morgan Beller (NFX Partner), Maaria Bajwa (Sound Ventures), Mack Flavelle (CryptoKitties), and Lisa Sterbakov (Orchard Farm Productions) to discuss the origin story of the show and the new future for content creation in Hollywood. Visit the site to learn more and buy an NFT - https://www.stonercats.com/

Ann Hiatt on Trillion Dollar Leadership (An Inside Look at Jeff Bezos & Eric Schmidt) Jul 22, 2021

What few people see is that Trillion-Dollar Leadership focuses relentlessly on the “who.” Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt both aligned their companies around this question: Who are we serving and who is going to get us there? Today, Ann Hiatt (former Chief of Staff / Executive Business Partner to Bezos and then Schmidt for 14+ years) shares with NFX Partner James Currier her insider stories, analysis, and patterns of Bezos' and Schmidt's leadership principles and mental models. She gives us intimate insight to: - What crazy, long-term vision looks like, even in its earliest days - 3-part framework for value-alignment in $Trillion teams - How to hire and motivate people who will invent the future - Tthe leadership mental models she learned from working directly with Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt, for the benefit of Founders everywhere. Read the NFX essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/trillion-dollar-leadership/

The Founders' List: Vitalik Buterin on Bitcoin Maximalism, Currency, and Platform Network Effects Jul 21, 2021

This is The Founders’ List – audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. In this article (published in 2014) Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin challenges the Bitcoin maximalist movement a few different ways. Bitcoin maximalists believe that all other digital currencies are inferior to Bitcoin. The idea that an environment of multiple competing cryptocurrencies is undesirable and that it is both righteous and inevitable that the Bitcoin currency comes to take a monopoly position in the cryptocurrency scene. Maximalists argue that a single road—or a single cryptocurrency—will have more value because more people will have to use it. Vitalik does a deep dive into the technicals of launching a protocol, the network effects that take place, and the incentive/psychological arguments that can be had against the maximalist movement. Read the essay here - https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/11/20/bitcoin-maximalism-currency-platform-network-effects/

Making Markets with Prof. Scott Duke Kominers (HBS) & James Currier Jul 19, 2021

Over the past twenty years, tech entrepreneurs have created and captured enormous value by launching new marketplaces to the world. Today NFX Partner James Currier talks with Professor Scott Duke Kominers, who has been teaching the course 'Making Markets' along with other classes at Harvard Business School. With over 80 academic papers published, he is in the MBA Class of 1960 Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit, as well as a Faculty Affiliate of the Harvard Department of Economics, the Harvard Center of Mathematical Sciences & Applications, and a Research Economist at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Scott's course helps students identify and capitalize on marketplace design opportunities. James and Scott discuss attributes that determine whether and how marketplaces create value in the world as well as common causes of marketplace failure. They then present frameworks for designing marketplaces in response and discusses tactics for building trust and liquidity when launching new marketplaces. This is the ultimate course on marketplaces. Read the NFX essay - https://www.nfx.com/post/scott-duke-kominers/

The Founders' List: How VCs See Your KPIs Jul 17, 2021

This is The Founders’ List – audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Everyone knows that KPIs are critical, but often Founders are not looking at KPIs from the right angle. As a General Partner at NFX, Gigi Levy-Weiss now asks three questions to every Founder he meets. Their responses speak volumes about their odds of success: - Do you diligently track KPIs? - What KPIs have you chosen to track? - Have you set appropriate goals based on your KPIs? Read the full NFX Essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/how-vcs-see-your-kpis/

The Founders' List: The New Generation of Labor Marketplaces and the Future of Work Jul 15, 2021

This is The Founders’ List – audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. When the economy eventually normalizes, demand for labor will recover, and work will recover, but the shifts in supply and demand will result in a new and sizable set of unmet market needs for job placement. Online marketplaces will be a critical tool in getting people back to work quickly, efficiently, and at scale. They will also enable new ways for people to build the skills they need to succeed, and for them to work in an increasingly remote and distributed fashion. Listen to Pete Flint's essay on the 4 trends in the next generation of online labor marketplaces, including greater complexity, improved experience, tech-enabled labor, and re-skilling and upskilling. Read the full NFX essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/labor-marketplaces/

Seeing Growth in a Downturn with Eran Ben-Shushan & Gigi Levy-Weiss Jul 12, 2021

In the face of a global pandemic and a financial meltdown, Founders are confronted with a new reality. If you are running a startup today, this will likely be one of the most challenging climates you’ll ever face. Launched in July 2012, Bizzabo is a SaaS All-in-One event success platform. They help organizers create successful events by empowering them to build amazing websites, sell tickets, grow communities, go mobile and maximize event experiences - using a beautiful, user-friendly platform. Despite Covid canceling all conferences and in-person events, Bizzabo was able to complete a funding round of $138 million. NFX Partner Gigi Levy-Weiss talks with Bizzabo Co-Founder & CEO Eran Ben-Shusham about their strategy during COVID including customer acquisition, fundraising, and overall growth during the downturn. Eran shares his mindset as a company leader and how he and his team navigated the crisis to come out the other side ahead in hypergrowth mode. Read the NFX article here - https://www.nfx.com/post/bizzabo

The Founders' List: 8 Skills Top Founders Master for Startup Fundraising (How VCs Negotiate) Jun 30, 2021

This is The Founders’ List – audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Fundraising is a learned skill – and VCs almost always have the upper hand because they deal with it all day, everyday. Over the years of founding, advising, and investing in companies, Gigi has learned that VCs are better at startup fundraising than entrepreneurs. In reality, knowing what to expect from VCs – the negotiation dynamics Founders are likely to encounter – is half the battle. Before you start communicating with VCs, take the time to learn how to detect and manage these 8 little-known fundraising dynamics. This is what we at NFX call “high leverage fundraising” – it gives you speed & clarity, while still helping cultivate strong, long-term relationships. Let’s dig in. Read the full NFX Essay - https://www.nfx.com/post/8-top-skills-founders-startup-fundraising/

The Founders' List: 7 Principles of Game Design from Design Gym Jun 29, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Life is, by some measures, an infinite game, where the rules constantly change and winners turn into losers, and vice versa. This article is titled, “7 Principles of Game Design” and was written by The Design Gym - an NYC-based agency that has worked with top companies like Instagram, Netflix, Etsy, and many more. Setting up games, with clear goals and constraints helps focus our energies and efforts and can improve and clarify outcomes and motivate us to move forward to the next clearly defined challenge and reward cycle. Read the essay here - https://www.thedesigngym.com/seven-principles-of-game-design-and-five-innovation-games-that-work/

How a Top Investor Sees the World with Saar Gur Jun 28, 2021

Saar Gur is one of the best investors in Silicon Valley and has a gift of identifying the next big consumer trends earlier than most. As a General Partner at CRV, he was recently highlighted as #34 in the Forbes Midas List of the World's Best Venture Capital Investors In 2021. Saar loves products that consumers and customers love and is passionate about helping his companies succeed. His early investment in the food delivery company DoorDash was in the 2013 seed round, which eventually resulted in the company going public last December. Gur made a similar early bet on smart home company Ring the same year; Amazon acquired that company for $1 billion in 2018. Gur is also an investor in multiple fast-growing tech startups like Patreon, which is now worth $3 billion, and Classpass, which is worth more than $700 million. Others include Niantic, Bird, and Dropbox. Today, longtime friend and NFX Partner James Currier talks with Saar to uncover these early investment stories and his pattern recognition in early-stage founders. James also uncovers who he is as a person, what he looks for in early-stage Founders, and how he sees the world as a whole.

NFXBio: Why C2i is the World’s First Platform for Cancer Intelligence Jun 25, 2021

The team at C2i Genomics is combining cutting-edge genomics and sophisticated AI to provide the world’s first whole-genome cancer intelligence platform, transforming the way cancer is monitored and treated. C2i uses a blood test that can detect and quantify tiny amounts of residual cancer to better monitor cancer treatment, progression, and recurrence. NFX was an early stage investor in C2i due to their long-term vision and world-changing technology. Listen to NFX Partner Omri Amirav-Drory talk with Asaf Zviran, Co-founder & CEO of C2i Genomics, about the future of their company, their latest technological breakthroughs, and where the industry is headed in the near future. Asaf and Omri's conversation begins at 11:15 Visit C2i to learn more - https://c2i-genomics.com/

Tony Fadell on Learning To See, Telling Stories, & Being A Troublemaker Jun 22, 2021

It’s not often you get to see through the eyes of someone who created a product that you and hundreds of millions of other people use, hundreds of times a day, every single day, and have for a decade or more. Tony Fadell is the legendary inventor of the iPod, co-inventor with Steve Jobs of the iPhone, and Founder of Nest. Now he is the Principal at Future Shape, an investment and advisory firm coaching over 200+ startups. There’s almost an infinity of things to learn from Tony, but what we most wanted to uncover are his product frameworks and first principles for design. How can Founders think about designing products that are both high-utility and beloved -- that achieve dent-in-the-universe levels of adoption? As Tony puts it: For truly great designs, 50% of the design is the design. 50% of the design is the story behind the design. And it all begins with re-learning how to see.

The Founders' List: Shishir Mehrotra with an Inside Look at How YouTube Scaled (Rituals for Hypergrowth) Jun 17, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. When Shishir Mehrotra left YouTube in 2014, a number of other company leaders wanted to understand how YouTube worked from the inside. He wrote this article summarizing their key rituals in a stage of hypergrowth. This article was originally published in 2015, but has since been expanded upon by Shishir. Read the full essay here - https://coda.io/@shishir/rituals-for-hypergrowth-an-inside-look-at-how-youtube-scaled

Super Founders with Ali Tamaseb & James Currier Jun 15, 2021

What started as a viral medium article from two years ago has now turned into 'Super Founders', a book on what data reveals about billion-dollar startups. Today on the NFX Podcast we have Ali Tamaseb (partner at DCVC) talking with James Currier about his data-driven approach to understanding what really differentiates billion-dollar startups from the rest. The book includes exclusive interviews with the founders/investors of Zoom, Instacart, PayPal, Nest, Github, Flatiron Health, Kite Pharma, Facebook, Stripe, Airbnb, YouTube, LinkedIn, Lyft, DoorDash, Coinbase, and Square, venture capital investors like Elad Gil, Peter Thiel, Alfred Lin, and Keith Rabois. Ali Tamaseb has spent thousands of hours manually amassing what may be the largest dataset ever collected on startups, comparing billion-dollar startups with those that failed to become one—30,000 data points on nearly every factor: number of competitors, market size, the founder’s age, his or her university’s ranking, quality of investors, fundraising time, and many, many more.

Major Opportunities for Young Founders with Jon Levin, Dean of Stanford GSB Jun 10, 2021

Stanford GSB Dean Jon Levin joins NFX Partner Pete Flint to discuss his perspective on new Founders entering the industry, how Stanford encourages its students to solve real-world problems with technology, macroeconomics, and the overall state of capitalism. Jon Levin started teaching at Stanford in 2000. Has been Dean of Stanford Graduate School of Business since Sept 2016 and is about to celebrate 5 years in that role. Levin received his BA and BS degrees from Stanford University in 1994, an MPhil in Economics from Oxford in 1996, and his PhD in Economics from MIT in 1999. Pete got to know Dean Levin from being on the GSB Management Board after graduating in 2005. He has also co-taught a number of cases at the GSB.

The Insider Story of Waze with Noam Bardin Jun 02, 2021

Underlying Waze's journey is a little-known approach to product thinking, super-powerful data network effects, and a guiding north star metric. This is Waze's insider story, as told by their former CEO, Noam Bardin. NFX Partner Gigi Levy-Weiss recently sat down with Noam, where they discussed the step-by-step story of the company's growth, starting from their early days in 2008 with just 2,000 monthly active users, through being acquired by Google for $1B in 2013, and hitting 140M monthly active users at the time Noam stepped down in Feb 2021. Early-stage Founders are wise to study as many successful growth stories as they can. While there is no single playbook of best practices, each case contains deeply valuable learning that we at NFX aim to pass along from Founder to Founder. Read the full NFX Essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/the-insider-story-of-waze

Heather Fernandez & Pete Flint on Startup Speed As A Public Good May 25, 2021

Speed is routinely acknowledged as a major advantage for startups. But startup speed is not sufficiently understood as an invaluable competency for society at large. Solv Health’s growth during the pandemic is a great example. Just 4 years old, the startup managed 5 million Covid tests in 2020, compared to 7 million tests by long-established CVS. Today NFX General Partner Pete Flint is joined by Heather Fernandez, Co-Founder and CEO of Solv Health and previously a leader with him at Trulia. They analyze mental models and hard tactics for using speed to convert chaos to growth — and good. Read the full NFX Essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/startup-speed-as-a-public-good

The Founders' List: The Great Online Game by Packy McCormick May 21, 2021

The Great Online Game is an infinite video game that plays out constantly across the internet. It uses many of the mechanics of a video game, but removes the boundaries. You’re no longer playing as an avatar in Fortnite or Roblox; you’re playing as yourself across Twitter, YouTube, Discords, work, projects, and investments. Packy McCormick is the founder of the Not Boring Club, a newsletter on business strategy and pop culture. This episode is narrated by Packy himself. We were referred to this post by Li Jin, our most recent guest on the NFX Podcast. Read the full essay here - https://www.notboring.co/p/the-great-online-game

Li Jin on The Passion Economy & Its Hidden Currency May 18, 2021

The "Passion Economy" as coined by Li Jin makes it easier for people to monetize their individuality through unique, creative work. This comes with a host of benefits, not the least of which is the emergence of new markets, a feeling of autonomy, and intrinsic satisfaction. To work through this and more, James Currier is joined by Li Jin herself -- former investment partner at A16Z, now Founder and Managing Partner at Atelier. They discuss how NFTs are changing the economics of the Creator Economy, what happens when everyone has to be a marketer, and how they look for ways to make platform participants into platform owners. Read the NFX Essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/li-jin-passion-attention-economy/

The Founders' List: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants from Marc Prensky May 14, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This is, ‘Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants’ written by Marc Prensky. Marc Prensky is an American writer and speaker on education. He is best known as the creator of the terms "Digital native" and "digital immigrant" which he will expand on in this famous essay. Read by NFX. Read the full essay here - https://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

The IPO Whisperer Lise Buyer Talks Going Public May 11, 2021

Lise Buyer, known as the IPO whisperer Pete Flint on the NFX Podcast to discuss all things taking a company public via traditional IPOs, Direct Listings, and SPACs. Lise consulted on Trulia’s IPO in back in 2012 when Pete was CEO and Co-Founder. Previously, Ms Buyer was the Director of Business Optimization for Google Inc. where she was one of the chief architects of the company’s innovative IPO. Lise shares her expert thoughts on: - What has changed in public markets - Why some companies should stay private - When to make the decision of going public as a company leader - What stays the same in a company after going public - Building the infrastructure to go public - & the differences between traditional IPO vs. Direct Listing vs. SPACs Read the full NFX Essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/new-world-of-going-public/

The Founders' List: The Maker Protocol Whitepaper - MakerDAO's Multi-Collateral Dai (MCD) System May 10, 2021

In December 2017, the white paper introducing Maker and the original decentralized Dai Stablecoin System was published. It describes the exact design and features of the Dai launch, as well as a roadmap for the future of Dai. The Dai Stablecoin is a collateral-backed cryptocurrency whose value is stable relative to the US Dollar. You can also listen to the Bitcoin and Ethereum white papers on The Founders’ List, at - founderslist.nfx.com Read here - https://makerdao.com/en/whitepaper/

Julia & Kevin Hartz On Taking Eventbrite Public May 05, 2021

Julia and Kevin Hartz co-founded Eventbrite, a website that allows users to create, share, and join events worldwide. In this episode of the NFX Podcast, the two join NFX Partner Pete Flint to discuss their founder journey, financing, fundraising, scaling, unicorn status, and a deep dive on the little-known details of taking a tech company public via SPAC. Launched in 2006 and headquartered in San Francisco, Eventbrite has navigated through the pandemic with a refocused strategy and a leaner cost base. In September of 2018, Julia took Eventbrite public, making her among the few women to lead the successful initial public offering of a technology start-up.

The Founders' List: Mind the Moat: Notes on 7 Powers (written by Hamilton Helmer) from Flo Crivello (Founder & CEO Teamflow) Apr 30, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. We’ve recently published a podcast and essay focused on Hamilton Helmer’s 7 Powers book, regarded as a core insight behind the success of companies like Spotify, Netflix, Stripe, and Twilio. For this episode of the Founders’ List, we’ll be sharing notes and personal thoughts on the book titled “Mind the Moat, a 7 Powers Review” by Flo Crivelo, Founder & CEO of TeamFlow. Read Flo's essay here - https://florentcrivello.com/index.php/2018/07/29/mind-the-moat-a-7-powers-review/

The 7 Powers with Hamilton Helmer & Jeff Lawson Apr 29, 2021

In this special NFX Podcast episode, Jeff Lawson (Co-Founder & CEO at Twilio) interviews Hamilton Helmer to analyze the 7 Powers, getting at the core question: What is it about certain businesses that keeps the force of competition away? Helmer’s framework reveals that you can intentionally craft the conditions for persistent & durable differential returns. 7 Powers is Hamilton’s cognitive guide to building an enduringly great business and breaks fresh ground by constructing a comprehensive strategy toolset that is easy for you to learn, communicate and quickly apply. Hamilton has led over 200 strategy projects with major clients such as Adobe Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Netflix, Raychem, and Spotify. Jeff Lawson is a Co-Founder and CEO at Twilio, a cloud communications platform that adds messaging, voice and video to web and mobile apps. He is a serial inventor with over 15 years of entrepreneurial and product experience. Read the full NFX Essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/seven-powers/

The Founders' List: Nir Eyal (Author, Professor, & Investor) on "Hooks: An Intro on How to Manufacture Desire" Apr 28, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. "We’re on the precipice of a new era of the web. As infinite distractions compete for our attention, companies are learning to master new tactics to stay relevant in users’ minds and lives. The Hook Model is a way of describing a user’s interactions with a product as they pass through four phases: a trigger to begin using the product, an action to satisfy the trigger, a variable reward for the action, and some type of investment that, ultimately, makes the product more valuable to the user. As the user goes through these phases, he builds habits in the process." This essay was written and published by Nir Eyal, best-selling author & professor. Read the full article on Nir's blog here: Read the essay here - https://www.nirandfar.com/how-to-manufacture-desire/

Hippo: From Idea to SPAC with CEO Assaf Wand & Pete Flint Apr 27, 2021

Insurtech is also a space that has become increasingly crowded and more high-profile in recent years. Hippo Insurance uses technology to help homeowners maintain their properties, creating a new standard of care and protection for homeowners. Hippo announced its intention to go public via SPAC in early March of this year that will now give Hippo a valuation of $5B, making it one of the largest insurtechs in the US. Co-Founder & CEO Assaf Wand sits down with NFX Partner Pete Flint to share his Founder story, product mindset, strategy behind the SPAC, and personal frameworks for taking Hippo from idea to IPO.

Austen Allred (Co-Founder of Lambda School) & James Currier (NFX) on The New American Dream Apr 22, 2021

The new American dream is underway. The current US educational industrial complex is not serving young people anymore, and entrepreneurs outside the system are creating new alternatives. Austen Allred, Co-Founder/CEO of Lambda School earned this perspective by dropping out of college, setting his own path, and now building a successful company and movement to change education in our country. Austen sees our educational past, present, and future in ways few others do. In this conversation, James Currier (NFX) and Austen break down traditional and contrarian thinking on how we are educated, challenging what has gone unquestioned for decades: - The Psychology of Traditional College: Why “Normal is a hell of a drug” - Faulty Mechanics: The problem with America’s “Single Model” education system - The New American Dream: How “permissionless learning” unlocks opportunity - & 2 Trends to Watch Read the NFX Essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/the-new-american-dream/

The Founders' List: 2020 Letter to Amazon Shareholders Apr 21, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. In his final letter to shareholders, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Thursday laid out a broad vision for the future of the company, committing to extend Amazon’s famous obsession over its customers to the same level of care for its employees. Bezos also took steps to ease shareholders’ fears about what a reimagined focus for the company might mean for Amazon’s future. He reiterated that it “remains Day 1” and highlighted continued growth at Amazon. Read the letter here - https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/2020-letter-to-shareholders

The CEO That Jeff Bezos Called “His Teacher” with Jeff Wilke & James Currier Apr 20, 2021

Jeff Wilke (former CEO, Amazon's Worldwide Consumer Business) sheds light on a counter-intuitive driver behind unusual success: Focus on the inputs, not the outputs. Jeff shares the 3 drivers underlying the rise of Amazon, Prime, Alexa, and AWS, including: 1. "Mechanisms": Amazon's definition, two failure modes, and why they're harder to implement than it first appears 2. A Single-Page Culture: How Amazon's set of principles proved to be an inoculation against a drifting culture 3. Single-Threaded Invention In practice, operational excellence is the key driver to executing consistently for the long term. It is the secret for harnessing creativity that compounds value over time.

The Founders' List: 1997 Letter to Amazon Shareholders Apr 20, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Amazon's approach to building sustainable long-term value should be a lesson to all companies - not just Internet companies. When Jeff Bezos took Amazon public 24 years ago, he sent this letter to all Shareholders and is still considered a playbook for building a great company - read by NFX. "1997 was indeed an incredible year. We at Amazon.com are grateful to our customers for their business and trust, to each other for our hard work, and to our shareholders for their support and encouragement."

The Founders' List: Gigi Levy-Weiss on "How VCs Think: The Psychology That Drives Investing Decisions" Apr 15, 2021

This is The Founders’ List – audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. "For a startup, understanding VCs’ mindsets is often as important as understanding the mindsets of your customers. With no capital most Founders will not win, so you’d better learn the language." VCs speak a different language, one that Founders must learn to be able to raise capital. Understand the psychological drivers and use them to evaluate your counterpart’s state of mind. And repeat the core narratives: we are low risk; we will be huge; others are interested and moving forward. Read the original NFX Essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/how-vcs-think-investing-decisions/

A Proposal to Jack & Zuck: Chris Anderson (ex-WIRED) & James Currier on Regulating Social Media Apr 12, 2021

The usual Silicon Valley response to regulation is to offer self-regulation instead — but only tech companies have the skills and speed to fix what they broke, unable to manage the influence over the public sphere they attained almost by accident. Unless the few who know how to actually build these tech networks speak out, it won’t just be technology that suffers - it will be the entire world. Having built, funded, and analyzed “unicorn” social networks for 25 years and former Editor-in-Chief of Wired magazine, Chris Anderson and NFX Partner James Currier formulate a solution that resurrects a concept from the golden age of newspapers - the ombudsman. The ombudsman is another important node in the network that has proven itself in the past and is still missing. Listen as Chris and James outline together why these network problems require network solutions, here on the NFX Podcast.

The Founders' List: Valve's New Employee Handbook Apr 08, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This is Valve’s new employee handbook, delivered to every new person working at the iconic gaming company. It is an abbreviated encapsulation of Valve's guiding principles. As Valve continues to grow, they hope that these principles will serve each new person joining the ranks as an employee. Read the full handbook here - https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/apps/valve/Valve_NewEmployeeHandbook.pdf

The Founders' List: Iman Abuzeid on Frameworks for Using Diversity to Win (Hiring Series) Mar 30, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. The data is clear – diverse teams win. Companies with more diverse management teams have 19% higher revenues due to innovation, and 9% higher EBIT margins. Iman Abuzeid MD (CEO & Cofounder of Incredible Health) has gone through the full diligence process of the best of the best Series A funds in Silicon Valley and shares her findings in this essay. "We are coming to terms with what we have or have not done right in tech in relation to diversity. Data is one way Silicon Valley has won this far, and it’s the way we can keep winning. The data is clear – diverse teams win." Read the essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/frameworks-using-diversity-to-win/

The Founders' List: The Interview Process at Stripe, Answered on Quora by Greg Brockman (Hiring Series) Mar 30, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Pulled from a Quora post in 2015, Greg Brockman (former CTO at Stripe, now co-founder + CTO at Open AI) answers the question, "What is the engineering interview process like at Stripe?" Greg goes into detail around the frameworks and thinking behind the Stripe technical interviewing process and why they use this formula to build a world-class team at Stripe. Read the Quora post here - https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-engineering-interview-process-like-at-Stripe

The Founders' List: Internal Letter on Culture from Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb (Hiring Series) Mar 30, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. "On Monday, October 21, 2013, I sent this letter to our entire team at Airbnb. I have decided to publish this in the event it is helpful to entrepreneurs building their cultures." In this famous memo from the early days of Aribnb, CEO Brian Chesky stresses the importance of having a succinct company outlook on culture. "Why is culture so important to a business? Here is a simple way to frame it. The stronger the culture, the less corporate process a company needs. When the culture is strong, you can trust everyone to do the right thing. People can be independent and autonomous." Read the full letter here - https://medium.com/@bchesky/dont-fuck-up-the-culture-597cde9ee9d4

The Founders' List: Elad Gil on the 5 People Who Can Destroy Your Culture (Hiring Series) Mar 30, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. The old saying "one bad apple spoils the bunch" holds especially true for company culture. Keeping around any employee who is a bad culture fit can destroy your team's working environment. Below are some of the typical types of people who can hurt your culture: 1. The Jerk 2. The Whiner 3. Credit Taker 4. Charming Do Nothing 5. Loyalty Monger With culture fit, you should never compromise. This bar should be the highest for the most visible and most productive of your team. Read the essay here - http://blog.eladgil.com/2014/01/5-people-who-destroy-your-culture.html

The Founders' List: Amazon's 14 Leadership Principles Mar 25, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Amazon has and operates by its own set of leadership principles--a set of principles referred to during company decision-making, problem-solving, simple brainstorming, and even hiring. Here are the 14 leadership principles Amazon workers refer to on a daily basis: - Customer Obsession - Ownership - Invent and Simplify - Are Right, A Lot - Learn and Be Curious - Hire and Develop the Best - Insist on the Highest Standards - Think Big - Bias for Action - Frugality - Earn Trust - Dive Deep - Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit - Deliver Results Read them here - https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles

The Founders' List: Nokia's CEO 'Burning Platform' Memo Mar 18, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. In 2007, Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop (a former Microsoft executive) was planning radical action to revive the company's fortunes on what they will do to stem the loss of market share, notably in the smartphone market, where despite being the biggest player it has been unable to compete with incomers, notably Google's Android and Apple's iOS. "The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don't have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable."

Gaming Superpowers for Non-Game Founders with Gabi Shalel (Plarium) & Gigi Levy-Weiss Mar 17, 2021

Gabi Shalel is an amazing games founder - he understands the type of innovation, fast iteration, and quality required to create a successful games company. These things are also very valuable for every founder, every startup. So today, NFX General Partner Gigi Levy-Weiss talks to Gabi about the lessons he's learned from starting, growing, and selling Plarium for $500M that other founders can take and apply to their own startups, including: - Psychology of ultra-fast iterations - People and Hiring - Pivoting - Social in your product - Conversion tactics - much more Read the NFX essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/gaming-superpowers-plarium

The Founders' List: The Ethereum Whitepaper Mar 11, 2021

This introductory paper was originally published in 2013 by Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, before the project's launch in 2015. It's worth noting that Ethereum, like many community-driven, open-source software projects, has evolved since its initial inception. While several years old, they maintain this paper because it continues to serve as a useful reference and an accurate representation of Ethereum and its vision. From humble beginnings, Ethereum has grown into a well-known and widely used platform. The platform has also been responsible for launching hundreds of other cryptocurrencies and decentralized projects in recent years through a new fundraising mechanism called an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). Read the full paper here - https://ethereum.org/en/whitepaper/

The Founders' List: Letter to Amazon Employees from Jeff Bezos Mar 09, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Amazon's Jeff Bezos announced in February that he was stepping down as CEO of the e-commerce giant later this year. Bezos said he would transition to the executive chair of the company's board of directors and will focus on "new products and early initiatives. This is the letter he sent to all employees at Amazon. “Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep responsibility, and it’s consuming,” Bezos wrote in a letter to employees announcing his role change. “When you have a responsibility like that, it’s hard to put attention on anything else.”

The Founders' List: Berkshire Hathaway 2020 Annual Report from Warren Buffett Mar 09, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.A, BRK.B) held its 2020 annual meeting of shareholders as a livestream-only event originating from its headquarters city of Omaha, Nebraska on May 2. This is the report from 2020 sent to all shareholders. This is the letter he sent to all shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. “The company’s sitting on about $150 billion in cash right now and it has $25 billion of earnings power, and Buffett has not found a lot to do with Berkshire’s earnings the last couple years in terms of buying businesses or stock market investments.”

The Founders' List: Pete Flint on "How to Manage Hypercompetitive Markets" Mar 04, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Inside the war rooms of companies locked in the battle for market leadership is an atmosphere of voracious competition. The stakes are high because whoever emerges on top can shape the future of an entire industry. It takes this competitive spirit to drive true innovation at scale, and the reality is that it’s often very cutthroat. Pete Flint (General Partner at NFX) shares 7 key strategies he has identified to help Founders manage a hypercompetitive market and get ahead, including: - Becoming an expert on pricing - Finding and dominating the most profitable market segments - Everything that can be copied, will be copied - Taking the high road with competitors - Using capital as a competitive weapon - Focusing on being uniquely better, not just on being different - Managing your psychology is key Hypercompetitive markets are tricky to navigate, but understanding the dynamics and having the right approach can make a big difference in outcome. Read the full NFX Essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/hypercompetitive-markets/

BJ Fogg on Tiny Habits for Startup Founders with James Currier Mar 01, 2021

BJ Fogg is an American behavior scientist who is currently an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University and a New York Times best-selling author. He is the founder and director of the Behavior Design Lab. BJ Fogg and James Currier talk to uncover how startup Founders can create better systems, both within themselves and within their companies and communities, so they can level up what we’re doing and put more good into the world. They cover topics like behavior design in tech and tech companies, mindset for Founders, examples of companies doing these things well, and tiny habits for Founders to focus on. Pick up BJ Fogg's popular book here - https://www.amazon.com/Tiny-Habits-Changes-Change-Everything/dp/0358003326 Follow BJ on Twitter - https://twitter.com/bjfogg

The Founders' List: The DoorDash Investment Memo from 2014 Feb 25, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. In the Summer of 2013, DoorDash had a dream of building a real-time local delivery network for local commerce. This episode is the reading of an internal memo by Sequoia Capital Partner Alfred Lin in 2014 focused on the market and business of DoorDash before their Series A partnership. DoorDash launched in Palo Alto, California in 2013. As of January 2020, it had the largest food delivery market share in the United States. DoorDash held its initial public offering on December 9, 2020.

Good vs. Great Leaders with Carole Robin & James Currier Feb 22, 2021

Carole has been in the business of helping leaders grow for over 35 years. Before she co-founded and became the Head of Programs of Leaders in Tech, she taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) for 17 years, where she served as the Faculty Director of the Interpersonal Dynamics for High Performance Executives Program and Director of the Arbuckle Leadership Fellows program. Carole is well known for teaching the Interpersonal Dynamics course that most call the "Touchy Feely Class" (the most popular elective course at the GSB for over 45 years). Today NFX General Partner James Currier and Carole sit down and discuss a range of topics centered around startup Founders, relationships, her time teaching at Stanford, and her new book called 'Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends and Colleagues' with David Bradford. In Connect, they show readers how to take their relationships from shallow to exceptional by cultivating authenticity, vulnerability, and honesty, while being willing to ask for and offer help, share a commitment to growth, and deal productively with conflict. "That's why so many founders in the Valley are so exhausted because they're carrying everything. And somehow they've got this idea that unless they come to somebody and say, "Hey, I could use some help here," they're going to appear weak. That's just broken."

Vitalik Buterin on Space, Longevity, Mars & More ("The B- Side" with Morgan Beller) Feb 18, 2021

Today we’re releasing the B-Side of our conversation with Vitalik Buterin, highlighting what may look strangely different in the coming decades. Here’s what great Founders know that others do not: What seems weird today may actually be signal of an outsized opportunity ahead. Last week, Vitalik and I took a synchronous-but-separate walk together for 3 hours. I was in San Francisco at 4 pm and Vitalik was in Singapore at 8 am the next day, living in the future in more ways than one. Read the full NFX Essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/vitalik-buterin-the-b-sides/ Read the full NFX essay - https://www.nfx.com/post/vitalik-buterin-the-b-sides/

Vitalik Buterin on The Revolt of the Public ("The A-Side" with Morgan Beller) Feb 16, 2021

Today we’re releasing the “A-Side” of a conversation with Vitalik Buterin, known as the creator of Ethereum and is a force behind much of the crypto movement. Vitalik shares his unique points of view on politics, crypto, Americanism, GameStop, and Wall Street Bets, Tesla, China, privacy, The Revolt of the Public, the decentralization of finance and so much more. But Vitalik is much more than just crypto. He is a close friend with a rare ability to see the present and future in a way few others do. With technology now at the forefront of society, the world is transforming faster than ever — and it’s incumbent on all of us to understand where we are, and where we’re going. Coming soon: The “B-Side” of our talk — the outtakes. The weird stuff. The good stuff you don’t get to hear when someone is on stage, on script, or in the media. Read the full NFX essay - https://www.nfx.com/post/vitalik-buterin-the-a-sides/

The Founders' List: Ashley Mayer on "It’s Okay That Your Startup Doesn’t Have a Communications Strategy" Feb 11, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Ashley Mayer is the Senior Director of Communications at the beauty company, Glossier. She is also an active startup investor (angel and scout). Ashley previously ran all things Marketing at Social Capital from 2015-2018, where she worked with founders spanning healthcare, aerospace, climate, fintech, enterprise and education. In this audio essay, Ashley demystifies what goes into building communications strategies from the bottom-up, and why tactics are your friends. "Don’t trust that others will take the time to understand the gravity of your news. Figure out how to signal its importance and timeliness, and let that effort take you in new and exciting directions." Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ashleymayer Follow her on Medium: https://medium.com/@ashleymayer

Adam Grant on Anti-Patterns of 10x Thinking with Pete Flint Feb 04, 2021

"Doubt what you know, be curious about what you don't, and update your views based on new data." NFX partner Pete Flint recently got together with organizational psychologist and bestselling author Adam Grant to discuss his new book, Think Again, about the counterintuitive and competitive advantages of rethinking. Adam and Pete share the frameworks for: - Rethinking vs. Contrarian Thinking - Techniques from the World’s Best Superforecasters - Jeff Bezos’s 2×2 Decision Framework - The Top Killers of Co-founder Relationships - Why Confident Humility Is A Founder Superpower - & more Read the NFX Essay - https://www.nfx.com/post/anti-patterns-of-10x-thinking/

Launching NFX Bio and The Rise of the Scientist Founder Feb 02, 2021

Today we're announcing NFX Bio, a new fund initiative led by some of biotech's most successful Founder/CEOs. Our mission is to back seed-stage companies building bio-platforms that solve the biggest challenges facing humanity. NFX Bio is led by Omri Amirav Drory, Ph.D., Founder/CEO of Genome Compiler (acquired by Twist Bioscience). Joining him on the Investment Committee is Emily LeProust, Ph.D., Co-Founder & CEO of Twist Bioscience (TWST - NASDAQ), as well as NFX GP's James Currier and Gigi Levy-Weiss. By combining software/data tech with biology, and by architecting businesses with a platform approach, a whole new future of possibilities is unlocked. Information technology has dominated human progress for forty years. And the next phase is going to be led by Scientist-Founders who build info-tech powered bio companies. The rise of the Scientist-Founder is now. In this closed-door conversation, Omri, Emily, and James break down what they’re looking for, and what Scientists need to master in order to be CEOs. Read the full NFX Essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/launching-nfx-bio/

The Founders' List: James Currier (General Partner at NFX) on "The Psychology of Startup Growth" Jan 28, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published by James Currier, General Partner at NFX. Read the full article here: https://www.nfx.com/post/psychology-startup-growth/

The Founders' List: Sean Ellis on "How to Determine the Optimal Price for Your Web Service" (Pricing Series) Jan 26, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Alongside our latest NFX Essay "The Hidden World of Pricing: Uber, Trulia, Etsy, Superhuman & More with Madhavan Ramanujam", we decided to release supplemental pricing articles on The Founders' List. Sean Ellis is an entrepreneur, angel investor, and startup advisor. He is the CEO of GrowthHackers and was previously founder and CEO of Qualaroo, an automated user research tool. He attended the University of California, Davis and graduated in 1994. "An optimal price allows the startup to grow at the fastest possible rate by maximizing profitable investments in customer acquisition programs and/or offering a free version to drive broad user adoption." Sean's featured article in this episode: - How to Determine the Optimal Price for Your Web Service Read the full NFX pricing essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/the-hidden-world-of-pricing/

The Founders' List: Tomasz Tunguz on "Ten Years Worth of Learnings About Pricing" & "There are Only 3 Pricing Strategies for Your Startup" (Pricing Series) Jan 26, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Alongside our latest NFX Essay "The Hidden World of Pricing: Uber, Trulia, Etsy, Superhuman & More with Madhavan Ramanujam", we decided to release multiple supplemental pricing articles on The Founders' List. This is a two-part episode including two essays from Tomasz Tunguz (Venture Capitalist at Redpoint). He is also a board member of Looker, ERPLY, Electric imp, inc., AxialMarket, Quantifind, Expensify, and more. Prior to joining Redpoint, Tomasz was the product manager for Google's social media monetization team, including the Google-MySpace partnership. Tomasz's featured articles in this episode: - Ten Years Worth of Learnings About Pricing - There are Only 3 Pricing Strategies for Your Startup Read the full NFX pricing essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/the-hidden-world-of-pricing/

The Founders' List: David Skok on "Scalable Pricing A Key Tool For SaaS Success" (Pricing Series) Jan 26, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Alongside our latest NFX Essay "The Hidden World of Pricing: Uber, Trulia, Etsy, Superhuman & More with Madhavan Ramanujam", we decided to release multiple supplemental pricing articles on The Founders' List. David Skok joined Matrix Partners as a General Partner in May 2001. He has a wealth of experience running companies. David started his first company in 1977 at age 22. Since then David has founded a total of four separate companies and performed one turn-around. Three of these companies went public. This post looks at how to create scalable pricing using multiple pricing axes, and discusses the different types of axes that can be used. David's featured article in this episode: - Scalable Pricing: A Key Tool For SaaS Success Read the full NFX pricing essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/the-hidden-world-of-pricing/

The Founders' List: Ash Maurya on "My Experiments in Lean Pricing" (Pricing Series) Jan 26, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Alongside our latest NFX Essay "The Hidden World of Pricing: Uber, Trulia, Etsy, Superhuman & More with Madhavan Ramanujam", we decided to release supplemental pricing articles on The Founders' List. Ash Maurya is the author of Running Lean and the creator of the one-page business modelling tool Lean Canvas. His posts and advice have been featured in Inc., Forbes, and Fortune. He regularly hosts sold out workshops around the world and serves as a mentor to several accelerators including TechStars, MaRS, and Capital Factory. He serves on the advisory board of a number of startups and has consulted to new and established companies. Author, creator of Lean Canvas, and founder of LEANSTACK. Ash's featured article in this episode: - My Experiments in Lean Pricing Read the full NFX pricing essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/the-hidden-world-of-pricing/

The Pricing Masterclass with Madhavan Ramanujam & Pete Flint Jan 25, 2021

Madhavan Ramanujam is a legendary “pricing whisperer” among tech unicorns including Trulia, Etsy, Uber, Amazon, Evernote, and more. He is the author of 'Monetizing Innovation' and a partner at Simon-Kucher. Today, Madhavan and Pete (General Partner at NFX) are sharing the frameworks, tactics, and hidden truths Founders need to know about pricing - and how, when done correctly, it can dramatically lever-up growth. Madhavan and Pete discuss topics in the pricing world like how: - Pricing is a blindspot for startups. - How to Test Willingness-to-Pay - Acceptable, Expensive, or Prohibitively Expensive? - How To Think About Pricing During Extreme Swings - What to do when customer demand is spiking - What to do when you are losing demand - Think creatively about value and market share in a downturn - How You Charge > How Much You Charge - Five Monetization Models That Work, Time And Time Again - Subscription - Dynamic Pricing - Market-Based Pricing - Freemium - Why 72% of Attempts to Monetize Innovation Fail - The 4 Ways Your Monetization Fails - Feature Shock - Minivation - Hidden Gems - Undead - Frameworks for Avoiding Monetizing Innovation Failures - P.S. Pricing Principles Applied to Life Madhavan also walks us through some never before heard pricing case studies on companies he's worked with like: - Etsy - Uber - Amazon - Evernote

The Founders’ List: The Bitcoin White Paper by Satoshi Nakamoto Jan 21, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Originally written under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s original white paper titled 'Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System' was released over 12 years ago. Considered the most seminal piece of work in the cryptocurrency movement, the Bitcoin White Paper outlines blockchain technology and the entire decentralized revolution. The content of this 9-page document incited what can only be described as a revolution in the world of fintech. More relevantly, Bitcoin’s white paper laid out an inspiring new definition of money at a time when faith in the traditional financial system was still being salvaged. Satoshi launched the first Bitcoin client in early 2009 and then handed the project off to the community in 2010, where it has since thrived as the open-source of study, work, and fascination for millions across the globe. Today we bring this infamous memo to The Founders' List so you have a chance to listen to his original outline of such a world-changing idea. Examining the white paper origins is a great exercise in understanding why Bitcoin has the influence it has in today's world. Satoshi Nakamoto’s blueprint is the official “birth certificate” of Bitcoin. Read the white paper here - https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

The Founders’ List: ‘The HP Way’ Speech by Dave Packard to Management (1960) Jan 14, 2021

This is The Founders’ List – audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. In 1960, David Packard gave an informal speech to the managers at HP that wasn’t intended for the public to hear. The speech resurfaced during the merger talks between Hewlett-Packard and Compaq. Packard addressed the overarching question of 'why HP exists' and shares insights on how to manage effectively, financial responsibility, and much more for someone to absorb and have a successful career. You can find his speech in the book, 'The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company'.

Jeff Lawson on Ask Your Developer, with Pete Flint Jan 12, 2021

Jeff Lawson, software developer turned CEO of Twilio, creates a new playbook for unleashing the full potential of software developers in any organization, showing how to help management utilize this coveted and valuable workforce to enable growth, solve a wide range of business problems, and drive digital transformation. General Partner at NFX Pete Flint talks with Jeff about his new book, his Twilio Founder Journey, running a public company through a recession, decision frameworks, and much more. Jeff's new book is released on Tuesday, January 12th and discusses how to use the creativity of code to solve business problems. Developers are the creative workforce who can solve major business problems and create hit products for customers — not just grind through rote tasks. The landscape has shifted from the classic build vs. buy question to one of build vs. die. Companies have to get this right to survive. But how do they make this transition? Read more about Jeff's book here - https://www.askyourdeveloper.com/ Follow Jeff on Twitter here - https://twitter.com/jeffiel

The Great Unbundling Of Housing & Jobs, with Jed Kolko and Pete Flint Jan 11, 2021

Few people can see what Jed sees about the relationship between real estate and labor markets and the downstream effects of their recent untethering. And, ultimately, what this means for startup life after the pandemic. Now, and in the years to come, Founders will need to design their startup teams in all-new ways. Today is the beginning of building a new playbook for startup life. NFX General Partner Pete Flint talks with Jed to uncover this unbundling, covering key shifts like: - Unemployment Kickstarting Dislocation - The Continued Unbundling Of Where You Live And Where You Work - Commercial Real Estate, Reimagined - The Transportation Spiral - Cities Changing From Centers of Production to Destinations of Consumption - & New Considerations For Where To Live Jed is currently the Chief Economist at Indeed, the world’s largest online jobs site. Previously he was Chief Economist and VP of Analytics at Trulia, the online real estate site. Follow Jed on Twitter here - https://twitter.com/JedKolko

The Founders’ List: Email Exchange on Instagram Acquisition by Facebook (Kevin Systrom & Mark Zuckerberg) Jan 08, 2021

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. The following is a reenactment of an email conversation between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom about Facebook's acquisition of Instagram between the dates of March 20th and April 9th of 2012. They discuss concerns, how their pathways cross, and how the potential acquisition will benefit both companies in the long-run. Mark Zuckerberg - "I'm glad we got a chance to talk yesterday. I appreciate the open style you have for working through these issues. It makes me want to work with you even more. I was thinking about our conversation some more and wanted to share a few more thoughts..."

How To Compete with Big Tech and Win with Zeev Farbman & Gigi Levy-Weiss Jan 04, 2021

Founded in January 2013, Lightricks is a company that develops video and image editing mobile apps, known particularly for its selfie-editing app, Facetune. Headquartered in Jerusalem, the firm has over 250 employees. As of 2019, its apps have been downloaded over 180 million times and have over 3 million paying subscribers. Zeev Farbman co-founded Lightricks along with Nir Pochter, Yaron Inger, Amit Goldstein and Itai Tsiddon. In July of 2019, Lightricks announced that it has raised $135 million in Series C financing round at a $1 billion valuation bringing Lightricks’ total funding to $205 million to date. Farbman received his PhD from Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Computer Science. In his spare time, he practices Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Today NFX General Partner Gigi Levy-Weiss talks with Zeev about growing a Billion Dollar Company as a ”top layer” on other platforms, company leadership & navigation, and product strategy. They also discuss the future of content, what's trending now, and the possibilities in the near future.

Erik Torenberg & James Currier on being Citizens of the Internet Dec 21, 2020

Erik Torenberg is an entrepreneur, investor, and most importantly a community builder. NFX General Partner James Currier connects with Erik on the intricacies of building online & offline communities, behavioral psychology of users, and useful tactics/frameworks for early-stage Founders to consider when building their company. Erik is originally from New Jersey and studied economics at the University of Michigan. investments His portfolio includes Rappi, Scale, Nurx, Lattice, Omni, Long-Term Stock Exchange, Winnie, Carrot, Kite, Cover, and ~80 more. He is a son of Israeli and Colombian immigrants and has worked to invest in those ecosystems as well. He was on the founding team of Product Hunt and hosts his podcast show, 'Venture Stories'. His latest venture outside of being Co-Founder & Partner at Village Global is called The On Deck Fellowship (ODF). The ODF is a 10-week virtual program where you'll have access to a network of 200+ talented founders from all over the world who are all in the early stages of working on their next company. Erik's love for community building and connecting humans is world-class and beneficial for Founders everywhere.

The Decision Frameworks Behind Fiverr's Success with Micha Kaufman and Gigi Levy-Weiss Dec 17, 2020

Founders rarely get to hear the inside story of building a massive marketplace business from idea to IPO. Today we analyze the core startup decisions you need to make in the early days about your market, product, pricing and customers — and how those early decisions define your roadmap for the next 10 years or more. Today NFX General Partner Gigi Levy-Weiss sits down and has a conversation with Micha Kaufman, the Founder and CEO of Fiverr (FVRR). Fiverr’s stock price has soared since their 2019 IPO — posting an impressive 797% growth since last year — but this conversation makes evident that their DNA for success was set from day one. Micha gives us access to the early days at Fiverr and what startup lessons he learned while leading one of the world’s biggest marketplaces, including: When You’re Told The Idea Is Too Crazy To Work A 3-Part Framework For Finding The Right Market Fiverr’s Epiphany: Productizing Services Reverse Your Storytelling In Order To Build The Best v1 Supply Generates Demand: The Fiverr Law of Business Doing The Opposite Of What You’re Told For A Go-To-Market Strategy Keeping “Startup Speed” Even As A Public Company & more This is a tremendous resource for early-stage Founders everywhere as they make key decisions that will set their startups into motion. Read the essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/fiverr-road-to-growth/

The Founders’ List: 10 Pieces of Manufacturing Advice from Tesla CEO, Elon Musk Dec 16, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. From the outside, it's hard to understand what's going on at Tesla. Here are 10 quick examples of advice centered around the Model 3 production bottleneck pulled from real internal emails sent by Tesla CEO, Elon Musk. Topics include: - Always Start With The Good - Challenge, Demand, But Always Offer Help - Production only Moves as Fast as the Least Lucky - Don’t Be 10% Better, Be 10x Better, Seriously - Encourage Customers to Bring Out the Measuring Tape - If Molehills Turn to Mountains, Follow the Money Train - If You Can’t Explain it to A Five Year Old, You Don’t Understand it Well Enough - It Must Be Ok For People To Talk Directly And Just Make The Right Thing Happen - It Is Not Rude To Leave, It Is Rude To Make Someone Stay And Waste Their Time - Hold Contractors to the Same Standards of Your Employees "Also get rid of frequent meetings, unless you are dealing with an extremely urgent matter. Meeting frequency should drop rapidly once the urgent matter is resolved. Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.”

"Don't Just Be the Best, Be the Only" with Kevin Kelly & James Currier Dec 15, 2020

In this candid conversation with iconic tech thinker Kevin Kelly (founding Editor of Wired), we discuss inspirational and transformative advice for early-stage Founders reflecting on the work they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and how it all adds up in the long term. Kevin and NFX General Partner James Currier talk about: “You want to work on something that nobody has a name for.” You don’t just want to be the best -- you want to be the only. This applies to the companies you start, the projects you tackle, as well as to how you live your life. “It’s fine to focus on scaling a wall, but you need to make sure your ladder is leaning against the right wall.” Transforming from short-term founder to long-term steward is a mental shift that many Founders need to start making. “If you operate on a longer term perspective you have an advantage because everyone else is completely short sighted.” Why Wired? What was the reason for it to exist? We need to listen to the technology to see how people actually use it vs. how it was invented. Kevin Kelly is Senior Maverick at Wired magazine. He co-founded Wired in 1993, and served as its Executive Editor for its first seven years. His most recent book is called The Inevitable, and is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. He is also founding editor of the popular Cool Tools website, which has been reviewing tools daily since 2003. Every Sunday, he and the Cool Tools team mail out Recomendo, a free one-page list of 6 very brief recommendations of cool stuff.

The Founders’ List: "How To Make The Most Out Of Your Time And Your Life" by Nir Eyal (Author + Former Stanford Professor) Dec 10, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. "Becoming indistractable requires an understanding of why you lose focus and learning the skills to do as you say. This guide is for people who want to harness the power of focus, but don’t have a lot of time. The more we respond to external triggers, the more we train our brain in a neverending stimulus-response loop." This is the audio version of Nir Eyal's focus guide, 'How To Make The Most Out Of Your Time And Your Life'. By reimagining a task, you can make anything more enjoyable and intrinsically rewarding because in our digital age, it's very difficult to “muster enough energy” to stay focused. Nir is a former instructor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and author of the bestseller, “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.” 2013 His latest book, “Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life,” 2019 is out now. Check out his website and content at - https://www.nirandfar.com/

The Founders' List: Steve Job's Famous 'Thoughts on Flash' (Famous Memos) Dec 03, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. 'Thoughts on Flash' is an open letter published by Steve Jobs, Co-Founder and then-CEO of Apple Inc. on April 29, 2010. The letter criticized Adobe Systems' Flash platform and outlined reasons why the technology would not be allowed on the company's iOS hardware products, specifically iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Now it's available to listen to on The Founders' List. Read the full memo here - https://www.nfx.com/post/founders-list-steve-jobs

The Irrational Truths Behind User Behavior, with Dan Ariely & Gigi Levy-Weiss Nov 30, 2020

We all think we know how our users behave. It turns out, we don’t. Founders over-index on rational assumptions, but users most often behave irrationally. Behavioral economics, by contrast, is the practice of truly seeing your users' emotions, beliefs, and habits. This kind of vision is critically missing from product design at most startups. In this episode, NFX General Partner Gigi talks with Dan Ariely -- the world’s top expert in behavioral economics and a renowned professor at Duke -- as he breaks down the most common types of irrational user behavior and shares frameworks for predicting how your users will actually behave.

The Unusual Signs of a Billion Dollar Company with Elad Gil & James Currier Nov 23, 2020

Can your company be a Billion-dollar business? When we look inside the early days of companies like Stripe, Airbnb, Coinbase, Instacart & Square, what are the patterns that may shed light on how great Founders beat incredible odds? In this episode of the NFX podcast, Elad Gil — one of the world's top angel investors in an astonishing number of Billion-dollar companies (Airbnb, Airtable, Anduril, Brex, Checkr, Coinbase, Flexport, Gitlab, Gusto, Instacart, Opendoor, PagerDuty, Pinterest, Samsara, Square, Stripe, & Wish) and cofounder of ColorGenomics— joins NFX partner James Currier to unearth what makes certain Founders and teams exponentially better. Together they examine the counterintuitive -- and often contrarian -- patterns that he has observed in many of the world’s best known Billion-dollar companies and their decision frameworks along the way. NFX Essay - https://www.nfx.com/post/unusual-signs-billion-dollar-companies Elad's Twitter - https://twitter.com/eladgil

The Founders' List: Steve Yegge's Famous Rant on 'Google vs Amazon' (Famous Memos) Nov 20, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Longtime Googler Steve Yegge posted an insightful rant on his Google+ page about how Google is failing to make platforms for its products. He also shares some interesting little tidbits about his six-year stint at Amazon working for the 'Dread Pirate Bezos'. The rant was intended to be shared only with his Google coworkers, but was accidentally made public. Read the full memo here - https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611

The New Growth Mindset with Sean Ellis & James Currier Nov 16, 2020

In order to drive growth, you need to be data-driven and relentlessly creative. The difficult part of implementing growth in your company is finding someone who is good at both. Growth expert and thought leader Sean Ellis (Dropbox, Eventbrite, GrowthHackers, LogMeIn) sits down with NFX General Partner James Currier to share his thoughts and insights around: - The current stage of growth hacking - The digital growth evolution - The balance of data and creativity - Understanding the physics of growth - Importance of word of mouth Be sure to check out Sean’s latest project GoPractice! as well as his famous book ‘Hacking Growth’.

The Founders’ List: "Why Figma Wins" by Kevin Kwok (Former Investor at Greylock) Nov 12, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. "Design is all of the conversations between designers and PMs about what to build. Building for this entire process doesn’t take away the importance of designers—it gives them a seat at the table for the core decisions a company makes. Companies that are successful in the long term are the ones that can repeatedly find the next loop." This is the audio version of Kevin Kwok's essay, 'Why Figma Wins'. His analysis of the trajectory of Figma reflects the incremental product thinking & execution required to build this type of bottoms-up giant. Kevin was formerly worked at Greylock Partners investing in marketplaces, autonomous vehicles, bottoms up productivity tools, and more. He is particularly interested in understanding the underlying structures that shape industries and the core loops that drive companies and writes on his popular site www.kwokchain.com. Read the full article here - https://kwokchain.com/2020/06/19/why-figma-wins/

Status Games with Eugene Wei (Product Lead at Amazon, Hulu, Erly, Flipboard, Oculus) and James Currier Nov 10, 2020

Status can be a volatile, powerful driver of engagement. Status and one of its underlying mechanisms, scarcity must be considered by product designers in every category, as early on as possible. But it can also be a double-edged sword, as managing a network and the status dynamics within it is constantly recirculating, always shifting. For this reason, status that is more entertainment-based than utility-based can over time become precarious, as well as too restrictive for continued user growth. NFX partner James Currier sits down with Eugene Wei (Product Lead at Amazon, Hulu, Erly, Flipboard, Oculus) to draw from his original Status-as-a-Service article and expand to discuss status in entertainment, frameworks for emotional product design, video games as world leaders in defining scarcity, the future of virtual goods, and the underlying status games that drive us all -- in technology and in life.

The Future of Digital Advertising with Mikael Cho & Luke Chesser (Co-Founders of Unsplash) Nov 09, 2020

"What's happening in general on the internet is an evolution to visual storytelling. The image is more powerful than ever, but it's also much harder to be seen than ever due to saturation. What's happening is the exchange is in social capital - the exchange is in being seen." NFX partner James Currier sits down and chats with Mikael Cho (CEO & Co-founder) and Luke Chesser (Head of Product & Co-founder) about their Founder journey to creating Unsplash, solving the chicken and egg problem within their marketplace, the psychology of their users, and what the future of digital advertising will look like.

The Founders’ List: Bill Gates' internal Microsoft Memo "The Internet Tidal Wave" (Famous Memos) Nov 05, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Surfaced during the prolonged Justice Department antitrust action against Microsoft from 1998 to 2001, Bill Gates outlines a strategy internally for Microsoft to not only enter the internet, but to dominate it in his famous ‘Internet Tidal Wave’ memo. Read the full memo here - https://sriramk.com/memos/billgates-tidalwave.pdf

The Founders’ List: "The 3 Types of Platform Companies" by Elad Gil (Color Genomics & Twitter) Oct 29, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. "Conflating what makes a platform work versus e.g. an infrastructure product can backfire and cause a team to have the wrong strategy for building a product or getting customers. These startups tend to fail." This is the audio version of Elad Gil's popular essay on The 3 Types of Platforms. Elad was the former Co-Founder/CEO of Color Genomics, Entrepreneur, Operating Executive at Twitter, and investor/advisor to companies like Airbnb, Stripe, Square, and Pinterest. Read the full article here - http://blog.eladgil.com/2015/01/the-3-types-of-platform-companies.html

The Competition For Your Attention with Sarah Frier (Bloomberg) & James Currier Oct 26, 2020

"I think that everybody is getting attuned to strategic communication in a way that was not happening before social media. NFX partner James Currier talks with Sarah Frier, who reports on social media companies for Bloomberg News from San Francisco. Her stories have earned her a reputation as an expert on how Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter make business decisions that affect their future and our society as well as being the author of 'NO FILTER: The Inside Story of Instagram.' Sarah and James touch on a variety of subjects including the role and effect social media has on society and how to think about navigating your potential influence as an early-stage Founder.

The Founders’ List: “Don't Believe Your Own B.S.” by Pete Flint (General Partner at NFX) Oct 22, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. "Superpowers cut both ways. They may spur meteoric growth, but without enough self-awareness, they can just as easily lead to a startup’s undoing." As a founder, it's important to be your startup’s biggest advocate, but it’s also important to create strong self-awareness and rise above your own ego. Listen as Pete Flint explains how to detect your own B.S. and allow your company to succeed. Pete is a general partner at NFX. Read the full article here - https://www.nfx.com/post/reality-distortion-field/

Focus Superpowers with Nir Eyal & James Currier Oct 19, 2020

All early-stage companies are in search of traction. It’s notable that the opposite of traction is distraction and top Founders have an inverse response to distraction. As the world around them gets more distracting, what they see is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to break out from their competitors and win. NFX partner James Currier talks with Nir Eyal, former instructor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and author of the bestseller, “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.” 2013 His latest book, “Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life,” 2019 is out now. Nir walks us through his frameworks for product building, focus, traction, and building a culture centered around speed and growth. We’ve organized some of Nir’s insights from our podcast conversation for the benefit of focused Founders everywhere. Visit nirandfar.com for more.

The Golden Age of Simulation with Chris Anderson & James Currier Oct 14, 2020

On this episode of the NFX Podcast we have one of the most generative people in Silicon Valley, Chris Anderson. He was famously Editor in Chief at Wired for over a decade during an insanely influential time in tech. He also is an author of The Long Tail, Free, and Makers. Chris has since founded 3DR, an American company headquartered in Berkeley, California that makes enterprise drone software for construction, engineering, and mining firms, along with government agencies. In this episode, we cover: - How regulations need to catch up with technology - What is Simulation - Why it’s the Golden Age of AI/Simulation - Virtual Reality for Robots - We’re transitioning to an abundance of data, are we using it right? - & different use cases for simulation

The Founders’ List: “Social Capital in Silicon Valley” by Alex Danco (Shopify & Social Capital) Oct 12, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. "The 20s will see San Francisco face down some really big problems, and we’ll see if the city makes it out better or worse. But the wealth of social capital they’ve compounded will remain an undeniable asset to the tech community for a long time. " This is the audio version of Alex Danco's popular essay on Social Capital in Silicon Valley. Alex is currently head of Shopify Money and was a previous associate at Social Capital. Read the full article here - https://alexdanco.com/2020/01/23/social-capital-in-silicon-valley/

The Founders' List: Slack's Internal Memo 'We Don't Sell Saddles Here' (Famous Memos) Oct 08, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. The memo below was sent to the team at Tiny Speck, the makers of Slack, on July 31st, 2013. It had been a little under seven months since development began and was two weeks before the launch of Slack’s ‘Preview Release’. "When you want something really bad, you will put up with a lot of flaws. But if you do not yet know you want something, your tolerance will be much lower." Read the full memo here - https://medium.com/@stewart/we-dont-sell-saddles-here-4c59524d650d

The Founders’ List: “The Guide to Unbundling Reddit” by Greg Isenberg (Late Checkout, Indicator Fund, TikTok Advisor, Previously WeWork/Islands/5by) Sep 30, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. "The broad networks are everything to everyone, the niche ones are something special to a certain group." This is the audio version of Greg Isenberg's popular essay on The Unbundling of Reddit. Greg is a co-founder of Late Checkout, venture partner at Indicator Fund, and Growth advisor at TikTok. Previously he was the head of product strategy at WeWork and Founder of Islands & 5by. Read the full article here - https://latecheckout.substack.com/p/the-guide-to-unbundling-reddit

The Founders’ List: “Status as a Service (StaaS)” by Eugene Wei (Former Product Leader at Amazon, Hulu, Flipboard, Oculus) Sep 24, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. A Must Listen for all Founders - audio version of Eugene Wei’s hugely popular essay on the role of status in product development. Eugene was a product leader at Amazon, Hulu, Flipboard, and Oculus. Read the full article here - https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service

Good vs. Great Companies: The Unseen Truths of Breakout Success with James Currier & Selina Tobaccowala Sep 21, 2020

NFX partner James Currier talks with Selina Tobaccowala - co-founder of Evite, CTO and President of SurveyMonkey, and cofounder of the fitness app Gixo. It’s rare to get a candid view into what happens behind the scenes of companies that break out from the pack - and the hard decisions that lead to their success. In this episode, James and Selina talk about: - Knowing when and how to sell your company - The difference between selling Evite vs. selling Gixo - Why to build strategic relationships as early as possible - How to upfront the hard conversations - How to build and measure product virality - & more great advice for early-stage Founders Read the full essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/good-vs-great-companies/

The Founders' List: James Currier (Managing Partner at NFX) on "The Psychology of Founders Who Win in Downturns" Sep 17, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published by James Currier, General Partner at NFX. Read the full article here: https://www.nfx.com/post/psychology-winning-founders-downturns/

Prof. Tom Eisenmann (HBS) on Hidden Patterns of Startup Failure Sep 14, 2020

NFX partner James Currier talks with professor Tom Eisenmann about why, exactly, over 75% of startups fail. Tom has been teaching entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School for more than a decade and has uncovered patterns of startup failure that we want every Founder to hear -- so you can avoid making these same mistakes yourself.

The Founders' List: Company Culture at Netflix (Famous Memos) Sep 10, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Netflix’s memo on company culture on their employee website is geared toward those looking to join the company. Netflix's leadership outlines its values, company structure, communication style, and overall mission as a company and is widely regarded as a center of excellence with a strong culture in the tech industry. Read the full memo here - https://jobs.netflix.com/culture

Cyan Banister on the Future of AR/VR Sep 08, 2020

Cyan Banister is an early stage investor in Uber, Niantic, SpaceX, many others. She’s a partner at Long Journey Ventures and spends most of her time dreaming about what the future could look like. In this NFX conversation with James Currier, they talk about the opportunities of AR, VR and the future of human connection. Highlights from the conversation: - Allow yourself to become obsessed with something. Really obsess about the product and dream about what it can become. - Invest in things that will become part of your life. - Futurism is more than being intellectual, it’s more about daydreaming, it’s about how you feel and how you live. - Silicon Valley is getting too serious. Where did the hacker mentality go? AR, and crypto are real frontier categories where there is still bright eyedness of “we don’t know what’s going to happen.” - Endless curiosity helps identify people who are solving problems that are actually real problems. - Be curious about how systems work. Analyze businesses and what makes them special. Try to figure out the economics of everything, anything. - Sometimes it makes sense to paint inside the lines, but sometimes you really have to paint outside the lines. Regarding the future of VR: There's no reason why you and I, if we want to hang out, that we have maybe 8 options… go to dinner, have a phone call, see a movie, maybe go for a walk… but why aren't there thousands of options? There should be so many, that's why Founders need to think bigger.

The Founders' List: Margaret Gould Stewart (VP of Product Design at Facebook) on "How a Single Conversation with my Boss Changed my View on Delegation and Failure" Sep 03, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published on Aug 5, 2016 by Margaret Gould Stewart, VP of Product Design at Facebook. Read the full article on Medium here: https://medium.com/newco/how-a-single-conversation-with-my-boss-changed-my-view-on-delegation-and-failure-ae5376451c8d

Nir Erez from Moovit on Mobility as a Service (MaaS) Aug 31, 2020

"Mobility as a service" is the idea of packaging together one person's entire portfolio of transportation options. Even if it’s a different mode of transportation for the first mile, the bulk of the journey, and for the last mile. Car, ferry, ride share, bike, scooter, whatever - all serviceable in the same app. This is the future that Nir Erz, CEO at Moovit, can see clearly, and why Intel bought Moovit for $900M. NFX partner Gigi Levy-Weiss sits down in Israel with Nir to discuss how Moovit beat Google Maps in data, why KPIs are pure gold, how to think globally when launching locally, and what the future of transportation looks like. Highlights from the conversation: 1. Building data and data network effects How to leverage your user base to build a volunteer workforce of data (the Wikipedia volunteer model) >> pseudo-automatic data capture Two tricks for launching in new markets: acknowledge to users that the app is not complete, and directly ask them for their help Why data is central to Moovit's product value (an important factor discussed in our essay on data network effects) How to build a verticalized data moat (public transit data) that allows you to compete and beat a big horizontal incumbent (aka Google Maps) 2. The Importance of KPIs - "KPIs are gold" Knowing what the right industry benchmarks are can be extremely valuable for your company. The right KPIs can save you from wasting time and effort. Why Founders should set clear success metrics for their company or quit "Guys, those are my best years and I'm not gonna waste my best years on a company that is not going to take off. So my only request to you is -- let's set measurable goals for every stage of the company. If we’re not going to hit those goals, I’m not going to stick around." 3. The future of transport and mobility The future of transport is multimodal Cities, in particular, will be multimodal, with different transportation for the first mile, the bulk of the journey, and the last mile. People will want one seamless solution that allows them to pay for various modes of transport. "Mobility as a service" is the idea of packaging one person's entire portfolio of transport options at one access point / platform

The Founders' List: Max Mullen (Co-Founder of Instacart) on "How to Run a Product Brainstorm" Aug 24, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published on Oct 6, 2017 by Max Mullen, Co-Founder of Instacart. Read the full article on Medium here: https://medium.com/the-product-co-op/how-to-run-a-product-brainstorm-666a90a0986d

The Founders' List: Julie Zhuo (Former VP Product Design at Facebook & Co-Founder of Inspirit) on "How to be Strategic" Aug 24, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published on Oct 2, 2018 by Julie Zhuo, Former VP Product Design at Facebook & Co-Founder of Inspirit. Read the full article on Medium here: https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass/how-to-be-strategic-f6630a44f86b

The Founders' List: Joel Spolsky (Co-Founder of Trello & Stack Overflow) on "Strategy Letter I: Ben and Jerry’s vs. Amazon" Aug 24, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published on May 12, 2000 by Joel Spolsky, Co-Founder of Trello & Stack Overflow. Read the full article here: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/05/12/strategy-letter-i-ben-and-jerrys-vs-amazon/

The Founders' List: Dharmesh Shah (Co-Founder & CTO of HubSpot) on "Aligning Vectors: How To Optimize To Maximize Impact" Aug 24, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published on Oct 16, 2017 by Dharmesh Shah, Co-Founder & CTO of HubSpot. Read the full article on Medium here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/aligning-vectors-how-optimize-impact-dharmesh-shah/?trackingId=AyxTmFVyQ7iCFm6409fYeA%3D%3D

The Founders' List: Elizabeth Yin (Co-Founder & General Partner at Hustle Fund) on "15 Annoying Things that VCs say or ask" Aug 24, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published by Elizabeth Yin, Co-Founder & General Partner at Hustle Fund. Read the full article here: https://elizabethyin.com/2019/05/17/15-annoying-things-that-vcs-say-or-ask-and-how-to-think-about-them/

The Founders' List: Scott Belsky (Founder of Behance) on "Creativity is The New Productivity" Aug 24, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published on Sep 9, 2019 by Scott Belsky, Founder of Behance. Read the full article on Medium here: https://marker.medium.com/creativity-is-the-new-productivity-d287d6ad7533

The Founders' List: Sean Ellis (Founder & CEO of GrowthHackers) on "The Growth Pyramid Revisited" Aug 24, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published on Mar 15, 2018 by Sean Ellis, Founder & CEO of GrowthHackers. Read the full article here: seanellis.me

The Founders' List: 2004 Founder's IPO Letter from Google (Famous Memos) Aug 24, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one. It’s been more than 10 years since Google Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wrote a long and personal “owner’s manual” for shareholders detailing their hopes and worries about taking Google public in 2004, and sharing the company’s ethos. Read the full memo here - https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/2004-ipo-letter/

The Founders' List: Yahoo Memo: The 'Peanut Butter Manifesto' (Famous Memos) Aug 24, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. In October 2006, Yahoo Senior Vice President Brad Garlinghouse wrote an internal memo, urging the company to narrow its focus and clarify its vision. The memo, now famously called the "Peanut Butter Manifesto," pointed out Yahoo's lack of focus, using peanut butter as a metaphor for spreading its resources too thinly. Read the full memo here - https://sriramk.com/memos/garlinghouse-peanut-butter.pdf

The Founders' List: James Currier (Managing Partner at NFX) on "Building Strong Companies with The No Politics Rule" Aug 24, 2020

This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published by James Currier, General Partner at NFX. Read the full article here: https://www.nfx.com/post/building-strong-companies-the-no-politics-rule/

The Founders' List: Pete Flint (Managing Partner at NFX) on "Why Startup Timing is Everything" Aug 24, 2020

Craig Newmark on Building Craigslist, Teamwork, & The Golden Rule Aug 13, 2020

At NFX, we dig into network effects companies and their founding stories, so we emailed Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist. Craigslist is the purest example of a 2-sided network effect and has remained stronger than ever for the past 20+ years. NFX partner James Currier had a chance to sit down with Craig to talk and catch up. Craig handed over the operations of Craigslist in 2000 and is now more focused on his philanthropy, but when we catch up, we get to discuss his mental models for business and for life. Just like the product he built, his secret to success is simple - treat others the way you want to be treated and put service above all else.

Steve Blank on "Don't Waste A Good Crisis" Aug 05, 2020

Speed is often the secret weapon, especially when adjusting to and tackling a crisis. Credited with launching the Lean Startup movement, eight-time entrepreneur-turned-educator Steve Blank joins NFX partner James Currier and shares counterintuitive advice for how startups should be thinking right now. Steve says "don't waste a good crisis" and discusses how to find opportunity in disruption. He's changed how startups are built, how entrepreneurship is taught, how science is commercialized, and how companies and the government innovate. Startups specifically need to speed up and put the pedal to the metal. It’s tough love time - if anyone at your organization is still operating under the old normal, consider one of the two P’s - pivot or part ways! Listen to how Steve breaks down how Founders can navigate an extended crisis and why now is the time to innovate. Read more at - www.nfx.com

George Dyson on Why Your Work Matters: Darwin, Machines, & The Future We're Building Aug 04, 2020

As a Founder, having a strong sense of direction, purpose, and context for what you are doing every day gives you an advantage. Finding the deeper meaning gives you speed and power. Your work matters. But to see how it does clearly requires us to step outside of the caves of our day-to-day lives of running startups to understand how we all got here, and where we're going. There is a rich history you are building upon, and your work - whether a corner or floor of the cathedral - is a foundation that others will build on as we collectively build the future. Dyson is an exceptional mind. His perspective brings light to our greater purpose in building new technology. Read the full essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/why-your-work-matters/

Garrett Smallwood & James Currier on the Founder Journey and Navigating Uncertainty Jul 31, 2020

Garrett Smallwood (CEO of Wag!) joins NFX partner James Currier to share his thoughts on profitable and efficient management of companies, thoughtfully operating before and after COVID-19, and shifting your mental models to adapt to your current situation. Garrett has earned all the badges — having sold his company to Wag!, operating as VP of Product, Partnerships, and Corp Dev, before building the roadmap to CEO. Garrett's current roadmap at Wag! is centered around operational excellence, strategic advantages through services and density, how to navigate through uncertainties, and the importance of thinking deeply about the way you build your company.

April Underwood shares the Product Thinking That Built Slack & Twitter Jul 13, 2020

Twitter and Slack are two of technology’s most talked-about companies. They are both category-defining products marked by hypergrowth, each amassing a large base of deeply loyal users and a valuation of more than $20B. But Founders rarely get access to the product decisions being made behind the scenes, or the strategy and frameworks that guided them. April Underwood was instrumental at both companies, first as Director of Product at Twitter and then as Chief Product Officer at Slack. She is a powerhouse product leader with an unusual depth of experience in growing both B2C and B2B products from 0 to 1 to ubiquity, and building world-class product teams along the way. April joins the NFX podcast to offer inside stories and lessons learned from leading product at Twitter and Slack. Founders and product leaders everywhere will benefit from the 3-part framework she developed at Slack for hiring great PMs, her insights about leveraging early adopters, and how product CEOs can stay close to their product teams without slowing them down. Read the full essay - www.nfx.com/post/product-thinking-slack-twitter-april-underwood/

Keith Rabois on how Contrarians Think: The Early Days of Square, Yelp, & PayPal Jun 30, 2020

In this episode of the NFX Podcast, Keith Rabois and James Currier examine the rule deviation behind some of technology's greatest startup feats — PayPal, Square, Yelp, and even Apple, Tesla, and SpaceX. They discuss: - The 5 People You Spend the Most Time With: It's easy to be a contrarian. It's hard to be right. What are the environmental and psychological factors needed to really think for yourself? - The Extreme 1% of the Bell Curve: A framework for rule deviation that leads to invention, not replication. - Being a Founder is Like Chewing Glass: The 3 biggest factors Keith cites that made the early PayPal team so strong, going on to create YouTube, Tesla, SpaceX, LinkedIn, Yammer, & more. - Counterintuitive KPIs that Transformed Yelp, PayPal, & Square: The non-obvious (even ridiculous-at-first) KPIs that changed their trajectory. - & much more Read the essay - www.nfx.com/essays

Rahul Vohra shares the Frameworks Behind Superhuman (NFX Keynote Episode) Jun 18, 2020

Rahul is the founder and CEO of Superhuman where he and his team are building the fastest email experience in the world. Before Superhuman, Rahul founded Rapportive, which was acquired by LinkedIn in 2014. We’re bringing you an NFX Keynote podcast that gives you a deep dive into Rahul Vohra’s mind. His strategic thinking on product-market fit is verging on legendary, and in this episode, Rahul shares his biggest learnings about customer onboarding, why products should be designed like games, and the frameworks he wants every founder to know about pricing and positioning. www.superhuman.com

The Google of Biology: Meet the Company that is Reading & Writing the Code of Life Jun 08, 2020

Biology is the new frontier. At NFX, we’ve been investing in this space. And in this episode of the NFX podcast, we talk to Trevor Martin, the CEO and Co-Founder of Mammoth Biosciences, an NFX company, that is now the largest repository of CRISPR IP in the world. They are developing the Google of biology where they will help anyone find what they are looking for in the genome. They are also working on a rapid COVID-19 test that uses CRISPR. Today we will talk about the cutting edge of what’s happening and why the future will be defined by biology. Read more at - www.nfx.com/essays

The Insider Story of Houseparty with Ben Rubin & James Currier May 18, 2020

This is the insider story of Houseparty. In the last two months, the video app has grown 1600% to become the #1 social app in 82 countries, including the U.S., with hundreds of millions of users. Its success, however, has been many years and trials in the making. In this episode, early investor & advisor James Currier joins Ben Rubin, the Founder of Houseparty to share the insider story of how the product went from zero-to-one to ubiquity. It’s the real story that most founders never get to hear. This episode is about the ups and downs of building Meerkat & Houseparty, and about his new work communications network, /Talk (Slash Talk). This is a masterclass in product, pivots and perseverance that every Founder will benefit from.

Josh Elman & James Currier on the Arrival of the Next Social Era May 04, 2020

Today Josh Elman & James Currier discuss the history of social media, where it is today, and the next wave of social companies that may be a result of the current lockdown situation. Due to the massive behavioral changes over the last few months, Founders may have room to build and the 'Golden Age' of social media might see a resurfacing. Josh Elman has run product for top-tier companies like Robinhood, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and was a partner at Greylock. In this episode, we discuss: - A brief history of social media - The behavioral changes from COVID-19 - The 'New Wave' of social media platforms - The opportunity for founders to build companies - How social products reshape the human connection Be on the lookout for new episodes on The NFX Podcast and read more NFX content at - www.nfx.com/essays

The Founders' List: Your Life is Driven by Network Effects by James Currier Apr 30, 2020

Working with network effects in our 100+ portfolio companies makes it impossible not to notice how the same mechanisms and math that create near-destiny for companies also create near-destiny for us as individuals. It’s mind-blowing once you see it. We will get to how the network force should guide your decision making in the 7 crossroads of your life, including: What Family You’re Born Into, your High School Network, your College Network, your First Job, Marriage/Choosing a Life Partner, Where You Live, and Reassessments. We all think we make these choices ourselves. It certainly feels like we’re in full control. But it turns out that our choices — both in our startups and in our lives — are more constrained than we think. Our networks are our most valuable resource. They are the way our lives express themselves. Those networks are made up of all the people you care about, the people you, inspire, move, and help to live their best lives.

How Reid Hoffman & James Currier See the Path Ahead for Founders during The Great Reset Apr 16, 2020

Today Reid Hoffman & James Currier discuss the path ahead for Founders in a post-COVID world. What you need to learn and unlearn to get your company through a crisis, frameworks for the tough decisions Founders are facing today and the way they see the world changing forever - opening new opportunities for savvy founders. Reid is the co-Founder and was the executive chairman of LinkedIn, and is now a partner at Greylock. In this episode, we discuss: - How to be human first - The VC landscape post-COVID - How to make decisions around risk - The mental patterns Founders should unlearn - Founders & frugality - Silicon Valley's involvement in COVID-19 - Zero-sum thinking Be on the lookout for new episodes on The NFX Podcast and read more NFX content at - www.nfx.com/essays

David Sacks shares how PayPal & Trulia Navigated Downturns Apr 07, 2020

Today we’re talking with David Sacks & Pete Flint about how to lead a company through an unforeseen downturn, and what it takes to adapt and survive in an unpredictable economy. David is a general partner at Craft Ventures and previously a Co-Founder of PayPal & Yammer. Both David and Pete founded iconic companies and led them through unstable markets to emerge with high growth and success. In this episode, we discuss: - The Founder mindset during a downturn - The Investor mindset during a downturn - Tactics/frameworks for founders - Happy Talk vs Hard Talk - Silicon Valley during COVID-19 Be on the lookout for new episodes on The NFX Podcast and read more NFX content at - www.nfx.com/essays

Stacy Brown-Philpot on Leading Startups Through Uncertainty Mar 18, 2020

TaskRabbit invented the gig-economy in 2008 with a marketplace that matches freelance labor with local demand for everyday tasks. Stacy Brown-Philpot became CEO of TaskRabbit in 2016 and led the company through its acquisition by IKEA in 2017. In this episode, we discuss: - Leadership changes - Growth vs. profitability - Competition - Exits - Expanding - Regulation Be on the lookout for more Iconic Marketplace episodes on the NFX podcast in the near future and read more NFX content at - www.nfx.com/essays

How Iman Abuzeid (CEO of Incredible Health) Raised Venture Capital Jan 29, 2020

After raising venture capital from NFX, Andreessen Horowitz, Obvious Ventures, and Precursor Ventures, CEO & Co-Founder Iman Abudzaid made her fundraising learnings, methodology, and frameworks public for the benefit of Founders everywhere.

Topics discussed with Iman include:

When to fundraise
Fundraising amount & goals
Personal insights & learnings
Personal fundraising process
Traction & metrics
Evolution of the pitch deck
And much more

Incredible Health - https://www.incrediblehealth.com/
TechCrunch article - https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/12/incredible-healths-hiring-platform-for-nurses-gets-15m-led-by-andreessen-horowitz/

Signal - https://signal.nfx.com/login
The Brief - https://thecompanybrief.com/

To read more essays and content on fundraising, network effects, growth, and frameworks visit - www.nfx.com

How Marco Zappacosta (Founder & CEO of Thumbtack) Built a Billion Dollar Marketplace Nov 11, 2019

Marco Zappacosta (Co-founder & CEO of Thumbtack) talks with Pete Flint (NFX & founder of Trulia) about what it takes to build a billion-dollar marketplace and the lessons he's uncovered along the journey.

They discuss how they solved the chicken & egg problem, what he would have done differently as an early-stage marketplace, fundraising lessons, and how short-term metrics can actually hinder long-term retention.

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