One of the core beliefs that animates everything we do at 99U is: "Learning is a lifelong project." To that end, we're launching an incredible new event next month: The first 99U Pop-Up School, which will take place this September 18-20th here in New York.
I finally picked up the Isaacson book on Steve Jobs. Figured enough time has passed to give the proper amount of perspective. It must be a big book because I've spent the past two weekends on it and I am only 50% through according to the Kindle app.
This article is a good reminder of how to set metrics at startups. The choice of metric will vary depending on the business but this piece of advice is universal: My number one tip is to start simple, by developing high level success metrics that, based on your best assumptions, are the key drivers of your business.
This has been a theme of mine since Roelof Botha put it in my head a few years ago. He said that entrepreneurs should approach building a company with the same passion that they have for building a product. I've been thinking about scaling the team a lot this week.
This morning everyone has been retweeting Slava Akhmechet's 57 Startup Lessons. It's a great list (although there are a couple of lessons I don't agree with), but if you don't have time to read through 57 lessons you can find my top eight here.
There's been a lot of innovation in the startup fundraising world in the last couple of years--Angellist, Second Market, accelerators, etc. One thing you can't innovate around, however, is building a human relationship. That's why I really liked two posts on the topic of investor/founder relations that I read this weekend.
This is the 4th installment in the Startup Lessons series I have been writing in the wake of my experience with Get Satisfaction. We are getting into the topics that are much more specific to Get Satisfaction, therefore I have an obligation to redact certain details that are confidential however in the spirit of shared learnings I will cover as much as I feel is appropriate.
This is the 5th installment in the Startup Lessons series I have been writing in the wake of my experience with Get Satisfaction. This one will certainly inspire a lot of head shaking around the table as anyone who has been involved with a startup can relate to this.
I've done a lot of video interviews. This is one of my favorite if not my favorite outright. It's only 12 minutes long and if you're a first-time entrepreneur (or second time, frankly) I encourage you to watch it if for nothing else than to get a sense that your struggles are universal.
A well instrumented business will have literally hundreds of metrics that they track to understand the key parts of their business. Each group within an organization likely has a key metrics dashboard that guides their department functioning and informs their decision making.
