Job Titles That Can Sink Your Startup
I had coffee with an ex student earlier in the week that reminded me yet again why startups burn through so many early VP’s. And after 30 years of Venture investing we still have a hard time …
Startups from 2010: Acquired, Pivoted or Still Going?
Editor's Note: This is one of the longest posts I've made - in length and duration. It's said that one year in the life of a startup is the equivalent of dog years when compared to more established co
SaaS Pricing: Lessons from Changes
We launched Canny almost a year ago. During that time, we reached ramen profitability. We also changed our pricing four times. Here's a deep dive into each pricing change and the lessons we learned.
How to Become a Must-Have
Most real startups don’t grow like this: Instead, most successful startups grow like this: Those initial loops are unsuccessful attempts to create a product people want to use. The problem is those…
We launched an app with $500k annual revenue, and then Apple copied it
Discover the story of launching an app. with $500,000 annual run rate—and then Apple killed it and launched a similar feature
Stop claiming you’re profitable
You're not profitable if you couldn't afford someone else to do your job. $1000/mo isn't profitable. Fix your definition of "profitable," and build a truly profitable business.
Why I Sold My Startup to Google
Shortly after the sale closed, John Cook interviewed me about the experience. He did a great job of transcribing all of my verbal gems, like “Maybe that is an economic way of looking at it, or something that I am unfamiliar with.” I’m not even sure what that means. It was the best I could muster in the middle of a…
Learnings of a CEO: Wade Foster, Zapier
Today, Zapier automates work by connecting with over 5,000 apps. The company has been profitable since 2014 and is valued at $5B – with 700 employees working remotely. Wade, Zapier CEO, shared his learnings growing into the role of a growth-stage CEO.
Buffer raises $3.5M
We’re excited to make this the most transparent fundraise done to date. This post is an overview of why we're raising $3.5m in funding.
You Negotiate Commodities, But You Seize Opportunities
It took losing something important to understand the difference between a commodity and an opportunity. Along the way I also learned yet another way entrepreneurs see the world differently from the…
My startup story: from big idea to thriving business in 8 short years
In the summer of 2003 while still working for my first startup I’ve got a “big idea”: social news reader. Imagine something like Google Reader with Priority Inbox and social recommendations. I was thinking about it day and night. I couldn’t sleep and was working through it in my head while lying awake in bed. I’ve got…
Reddit reveals their traffic numbers, compares to Alexa/Compete etc
Get the latest product news, company announcements, and user insights from the official Reddit blog.
Tips for selling your side project
All I did was put together a trivial web app to scratch my own itch, and it keeps scratching it, while I drink my free beer.
Time tracking app Mite reveals numbers for first 20 months
37signals , poster child of our industry, claims to serve more than 3 million users. What they don’t tell is, how many of those people pay for the premium version of their web apps (Basecamp, Highrise et al). All of them are served in the freemium business model , which is: use a basic version of the product for free…
How Notion pulled itself back from the brink of failure (2019)
The story of its last-minute pivot and epic comeback.