How to keep founders around after an acquisition
Facebook, Google, Salesforce, Twitter…all the top players in Silicon Valley want to get their hands on the best talent around. That’s why we’ve seen example after example of “acqui-hires” in the past few years as well as some very large acquisitions where a big driver was the talent behind a start-up (e.g. Nest, Beats). However, only a […]
3 lessons from a customer-obsessed company
Last week, I attended a fascinating talk about Customer Obsession given by Kim Rachmeler at version one’s portfolio company, Frontdesk. Kim spent 10 years at Amazon.com, where she served as VP of Worldwide Customer Service, CIO International, among several other critical roles. While it’s no secret that Amazon.com is a customer-centric company, Kim shared a […]
How to stay nimble as you scale
I recently spoke with a founder and CEO of a start-up that had just crossed the 200-employee milestone. Like so many others lucky enough to reach that level, he was complaining about how progress was coming to a halt as the organization grew and became more complex. I myself experienced this as COO at AbeBooks. […]
It’s not easy to sell into an industry being disrupted
Looking to sell into an industry that’s currently undergoing disruption? At first glance, it sounds like a great idea. After all, companies getting disrupted are experiencing some very real challenges and pain points; they need to adapt quickly and could be looking for that silver bullet to save them. During my time at AbeBooks, I […]
Talent, hard work and luck
“Hard work plus luck is what gets you a jet instead of just a BMW.” (Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan) Start-up success typically boils down to three elements: hard work, talent, and luck. Yet when we dissect the successes and failures of other start-ups, we tend to focus on the hard work and talent of […]