Lessons from the inventor of Amazon Prime

Prioritize the Highest Order Bit

This is one of the most resonant things I've read in a while: "The advice to 'focus on the highest order bit' is easy to say, but the natural implication of putting it into practice, especially in a resource-constrained environment, is that you often have to let other things blow up." One of the most important skills a leader needs to have is the ability to prioritize at a high level. Often, it's the difference between your business sinking or swimming. It means you have to be okay with other things exploding or imploding. Putting the most important thing first often isn't easy, but in the end, it's always worth it. 

How Four Women Made Miami More Equitable for Startups

Over the past year, a lively tech hub has emerged in the midst of the pandemic: Miami. I've been curious about how exactly this happened—what is causing so many people in tech to flee to Florida? This is a fascinating look at one of the big reasons—and it involves four women who are on a mission to make the city more equitable for women and people of color. I'm excited to see how the rapid emergence of Miami as a tech hub will lead the way for other cities around the U.S.—and the world. 

Basecamp and the Forces Behind So Many Public Implosions

The Internet reacted swiftly when Basecamp published its new work policies a few weeks ago. It brought a much deeper question to the surface: How do (and should) companies address issues of systemic discrimination and inequity? There are no perfectly neat, one-size-fits-all solutions, but it's clear the answer isn't to try and stifle hard conversations in the workplace. Here are a few thoughts on where organizations and their leaders can go from here. 

Set Your Figma Up for Easy Collaboration With Non-Designers

It's important to get design feedback cross-functionally, but collaboration gets tricky when different teams within a company aren't using the same set of tools. This is a helpful guide about how to use Figma to get design feedback from non-designers with greater ease. Setting things up this way will save you a ton of time and many headaches down the road. 

What Is Legacy Code—And How Do You Avoid It?

What makes for legacy code is a bit subjective. I think it comes down to code that still works, but no longer optimally. Every company that endures beyond a few years will grapple with legacy code at some point. Here's a list of ways you can fix it—and avoid having more of it to manage down the road. 

The Startup-Scaleup Marketing Playbook

What is the best way to approach marketing as your company scales? In this podcast episode, Freshworks' Chief Growth Officer Arun Pattabhiraman shares some thought-provoking wisdom about scaling marketing efforts at both B2B and B2C companies. If you listen to just one startup podcast this week, let it be this.

How We Acquired 100k Users by Updating Old Content

Web-based video editing tool Kapwing was founded in 2018 with an acquisition strategy centered around SEO. The company has since written hundreds of blog posts, most of which are tutorials for creators using search for guidance on common editing tasks. The Kapwing team recently updated their old content and ultimately acquired 100k users. Here are the experiments they ran, along with a breakdown of what worked and what didn't. 

SaaS Churn Rate: What Does Good Look Like?

Measuring your company's churn rate is straightforward enough, but it can be hard to judge what constitutes a "healthy" churn rate. The first step is to pick the right churn metric. From there, you can use industry, growth stage, and company age benchmarks to get a feel for how your churn rate stacks up. This is a helpful way to measure and analyze churn as your company grows. 

• When you have a business idea, take action before it dies
• Pick a company for a great boss
• Set goals that are under your personal control