Three tools Netflix used to build a world-class brand

Building Products That Stick

Recently, we did a deep dive analysis of product manager job postings. One of the most interesting findings: The word "retention" was absent from 100% of job descriptions. This surprised us; retention should be a key part of a product manager's job. If you want to create a product team that focuses on retention, you have to make the switch to customer-first thinking, which means putting customer needs before business needs and customer benefits over features. I recommend these three steps if you want to grow the user base of "regulars" that will engage with and promote your product. 

How Early American Inventors Funded Their Ventures

Ever wonder how early American inventors funded their ventures? This article describes how people like Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, and Nikola Tesla got the funding they needed to support their investments. Not dissimilar to today's world of startups, projects seemed to be either self-funded or supported by individual investors, kind of like angels. One difference? Unlike the present, there didn't seem to be much structure in "early-stage" investing back in the day. How do you think you would've secured funding if you were building something back then?

How to Completely Transform Your Career

I like this tweetstorm from Sean Johnson, who is a Partner at Digital Intent and Professor at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Business. He says that one of the best ways to transform your career is to spend 30 minutes a day reading, highlighting what sticks out to you, and adding them to a note-taking system. Here are his specific guidelines for how best to design and utilize that system. If you review your notes once a week for an hour, you'll eventually reach a critical mass and the ideas you've collected will start to connect in ways that make you invaluable in business.  

What Science Teaches Us About Creating and Disrupting Growth Models

Many of tech's "innovations" are actually related to problems scientists have been wrestling with for many generations. This is a thoughtful read about how we can study the work of great scientists to expedite technological progress. One of the parallels I appreciate is the idea that the product-market fit journey is simply the process of applying the scientific method to a company's key metrics. Applying scientific frameworks to our technology work allows for a refreshing perspective shift—and one I think will ultimately help us run experiments and grow startups more effectively. 

Thoughts on Non-Linear Growth in B2B Startups

I love articles like this that challenge common assumptions about startup growth. Author Nakul Mandan starts with a thoughtful question: Once a company has product-market fit, how can it grow from $1M to $100M in one year instead of 5-10 years? He whittles down the operational constraints to four things. Here's a description of each, along with thoughts on how to reduce or eliminate each of them. This article will push you to think about your self-imposed growth limitations differently—and perhaps help you achieve astounding non-linear business growth in the process. 

The Ultimate Manager's Handbook

The Clearbit team put together a handbook featuring their collective knowledge on management. This guide serves as the foundation of their internal training program, and will undoubtedly be a useful resource to anyone in the position to manage or hire managers. It covers everything—how to manage yourself, becoming a world-class recruiter, becoming a great coach, and helping a team create and achieve goals. Download the comprehensive management handbook here. 

How to Manage an Executive Staff as a First-Time CEO

If you've gone through the gauntlet of early-stage startup growth and garnered enough momentum to have $15M+ in the bank, you're likely at a place where you need to hire a talented executive team. How do you recruit, manage, and inspire a team of high-level executives to do their best work? Unusual Ventures Partner Andy Johns shares a simple tool to help you build and execute on a management strategy that will set you up for success for years to come.