Blog Posts, Q&A
5 Top SaaS Companies I Especially Admire
Q: What SaaS companies do you most admire? It’s best not to play favorites in SaaS. There are so many incredible SaaS companies these days. But I’ll make a short…
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Blog Posts, Q&A
Blog Posts, Fundraising, Q&A
How VCs Think About Departed Co-Founder Equity Stakes
Q: What is the highest % equity that a departed / non-working co-founder can own that VCs are comfortable with? Single digits. VCs will be worried about a founder that…
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Blog Posts, Early, Q&A
The Biggest Sales Mistake I Made. And I Made It Again and Again.
Q: What’s the biggest sales mistake you’ve ever made? I think the biggest sales mistake I’ve made at the CEO level is not being patient enough. As odd as that…
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Blog Posts, Early, Q&A
Top 5 Pieces of Advice for First-Time Founders (Or Anyone Starting Up, Really)
Q: What is your top advice for a first time young entrepreneur? My top advice, in order: Take your time to find a great co-founder. Some of us can do…
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Blog Posts, Customer Success, Q&A
As You Scale, Most Of Your New Revenue May Well Come from Existing Customers
Q: Can the majority of a SaaS company’s revenues come from existing customers? Yes, especially once you are at scale. In fact, as you get bigger, it gets pretty common…
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Blog Posts, Early, Q&A
When Does a Venture-Backed CEO Get Fired?
Most SaaS CEOs don’t truly get fired. As you can see here, the vast majority of public SaaS companies are in fact run by founder-CEOs. Boom! But as companies scale,…
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Blog Posts, Early, Fundraising, Q&A
3 Things That Make a Good VC Pitch Deck … Great
I try to avoid raw pitches at all at this point. Send me the deck ahead of time, with as much detail as possible. I promise to read it carefully,…
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Blog Posts, Early, Q&A
5 Things That Change Once You Are a Founder-CEO
CEOs often start off as normal people, but then the job after maybe 18 months … rewires your brain. What changes: Your mind thinks about work 24x7x365 — in some…
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Blog Posts, Growth, Marketing, Q&A, Sales, Sales
A Low Win Rate is Just a Huge Opportunity-in-the-Making
A very high close rate sounds great But really, it means you aren't doing any effective marketing — Jason ✨BeKind✨ Lemkin ⚫️ (@jasonlk) March 25, 2021 Few things will demotivate…
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Blog Posts, Early, Q&A
10 Things Maybe Not to Do In The Earlyish Days
A lot of rules are just that — guidelines. You can blaze your own path. 1 founder, 5 founders. Bootstrapped, overfunded. There are many ways to get there. But here’s…
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Blog Posts, Early, Hiring, Human Resources, Q&A
10 Tips To Getting Better at Hiring in the Earlier Days
Q: What are some top hiring tips for early-stage startups? My top list: Hire an internal recruiter as soon as you are making 1 new hire a month. It’s worth…
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Blog Posts, Customer Success, Early, Q&A
11 Basic Tips to Lower Your Churn Rate
You barely notice high churn on the way to $2m-$3m ARR. You are just growing so fast, and are so new. It starts to impact growth somewhere in the $5m+…
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Blog Posts, Growth, Marketing, Q&A, Scale
Why Getting Prince Harry to Join BetterUp Was Smart
Q: What are your thoughts about Prince Harry’s new job as Chief Impact officer at BetterUp (startup)? I think it’s smart: BetterUp seems to be the highest-valued, and likely the…
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Blog Posts, Early, Q&A
The 5 Best Pieces of Advice I Got From My Mentors
Q: What is the best advice you have received from a mentor? I’ll make a short list: When you don’t know what to do — go visit your customers. Yes,…
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Blog Posts, Early, Q&A
3 Things You Can Do … That the Bigger Competition Can’t
Q: How can a SaaS startup survive in a crowded market? Find a segment of the market to win in. Where you can build a 10x feature, and then a…
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