Over the past ten years, we have invested in and worked with close to 100 startups. Along the way, we have seen teams, ideas, and practices work spectacularly well. And, we’ve seen others that didn’t work out as expected.
We decided to take the experiences and insights learned over the past decade and compile them in a short handbook on best practices for startups. Yes, we know…there are already many, many great books on the subject of startups.
We’re not trying to add more digital clutter. Instead, our handbook is focused on a particular stage of the startup lifecycle—post-Seed to pre-Series B. Since we primarily invest in seed stage companies with follow-ons to Series B, we are sharing some of the advice that we give our founding teams.
This handbook is broken into three sections: 1) Building your team; 2) Building your organization; and 3) Building your investor base.
You can download the handbook PDF here or check out the ePub version.
Our previous books – The Guide to Marketplaces and Understanding Social Platforms – have been well received, so we hope you’ll find this new book useful for your own startup journey.
Please keep in mind that this handbook is:
- Built around best practices and real world experiences, but it doesn’t mean that everything will fit your specific startup and situation. You may want to add your own twist to some practices or ignore some advice altogether. As you’re building your business, never forget that you’re in charge. It’s up to you to decide the best way to run it.
- Intended to be a living document and will be regularly updated by our team, with help from our wise community. There’s nothing more valuable than the insight that comes from real-world experiences, so we welcome you to share any thoughts, lessons, and experiences. Feel free to leave any feedback or questions in the comments section (or reach out to us in another way). We know that we are only scratching the surface here and want this to be a comprehensive resource over time, with your help.
Finally, we wish to thank Andrew Sider, Sam Pillar and Alex Kern for their invaluable feedback during the creation of this book.
Happy reading! And happy (US) Thanksgiving!