Alexander Small’s Post

From branding to remote work, discover how a $18B founder navigates growth, culture, and operations for sustained success 👇 Logan Bartlett (Managing Director at Redpoint) interviews Vlad Tenev (Co-Founder at Robinhood) to provide valuable insights on branding, culture, operations, and maintaining a long-term perspective in “Ep 105: Vlad Tenev (CEO, Robinhood): The Meme Stock Crisis, The Future of Crypto, and AI Opportunities in Finance”. Check out the key insights in the attached presentation 👇 ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

Founders, are you playing to win or just making a plan? Discover how your strategic approach could define your startup's future 👇 Actionable insights from: ➡ Dave Kellogg (Executive In Residence at Balderton Capital) ✏ “Playing to Win vs. Playing to Make Plan: The Two Very Different Worlds of Silicon Valley” ⭐ 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗕𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗻 "𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗪𝗶𝗻" 𝗮𝗻𝗱 "𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻" 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗪𝗶𝗻: "The strategy of dominating a new market at all costs. For "playing to win" CEOs, focus on executing aggressive tactics to crush the competition and become the market leader, even at the cost of short-term chaos." 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻: "The strategy of achieving more modest, but reliable growth and profitability targets. For "playing to make plan" CEOs, focus on ensuring achievable growth and profitability targets, managing costs, and positioning the company for an eventual acquisition." ⭐ 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗖𝗘𝗢𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗘𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗪𝗶𝗻: "When I meet a CEO in the playing-to-win world, I say things like… If you don’t win this market one of your competitors will. A first-place valuation can be 10x second which in turn can be 10x third. You must win. Second prize really is a set of steak knives. For the next several years, you will need to get in touch with your inner barbarian. When the smoke clears at the conclusion of the hypergrowth phase, you must emerge the winner. After you’ve won, you can do fancy interviews about the difficulty of maintaining your values during hypergrowth. But win first. Hire a VP of Sales who makes you uncomfortable. They should be so aggressive you get worried." 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻: "When I meet a CEO in the playing-to-make-plan world, I say things like… Is the total available market (TAM) big enough to support our 20-25% growth targets over the next few years? If not, how can we expand into adjacent markets and/or offer new products that will help ensure we can grow? Is the operating plan achievable?  Have we inspected all the key levers to ensure that we have a very good chance of achieving it? To the extent we’re assuming changes to productivity metrics, what plans have we put in places to achieve them? Or are they simply wishes? Against whom are we competing, and do we have a playbook such that we know we can win our fair share of deals?" ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

Transform setbacks into comebacks by fostering grit in your startup team through continuous challenge and feedback 👇 Admired Leadership (Professional Training and Coaching) provides valuable insights on how to cultivate grit, a crucial trait for navigating the challenges and setbacks inherent in building a successful startup in “Teaching Grit”. Check out the key insights in the attached presentation 👇 ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

How does Notion measure the real impact of its blog? Discover their multi-channel approach to tracking content value beyond mere traffic 👇 Actionable insights from: ➡ Daniel Bean (Content Lead at Mixpanel) ✏ “Beyond metrics: How Notion measures the value of its ‘helpful’ content” ⭐ 𝗗𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗼𝗮𝗹 𝗼𝗳 𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻'𝘀 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗴 "The goal of Notion's blog is to be a resource for genuinely helpful content. It's a chance to share our points of view on a lot of topics: how we build with AI, the history (and future) of work and productivity, and deep dives on craft. Of course, we want to drive interest in Notion and get more people to sign up and try it out, but our central goal is to provide inspiration and tips to help our readers be more productive." ⭐ 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗴 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘀 "There are a few different ways we measure value from blog posts. We do measure traffic on the website. But there's more to it than that because a blog post can live on other channels too. For example, when we see one of our branded pieces really take off on social, that's usually a good sign that it's a topic people care about. Or if someone reads something on our blog that helps them significantly improve their workflows—they might not sign up right away, but they might browse, tell a friend, and/or come back later. And the more they come back, the more they're going to see our product and learn about it. [...] There are so many channels and so many places where people live online and consume content. So, yes, content does touch pipeline and revenue, but it can also be immensely valuable to how people perceive your brand, point of view, and values." ⭐ 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗧𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗨𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲 "We're definitely measuring conversions from the blog when we're writing about new features or how to do things in Notion. When we write blog posts that include templates, we can go a step further and even track how many people are actually duplicating the templates that are embedded in those blog posts." ⭐ 𝗔𝗰𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗛𝗲𝗹𝗽𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 "At the end of the day, content can just be hard to measure. People often try to attribute a single metric to a single type of content, but that's not always possible and there are nuances you have to consider. When you're creating content with the goal of being helpful, you have to be okay with that being enough of a business case. In many ways, content is a brand game, and the metrics you're measuring don't have to just be direct conversions for it to be valuable." ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

From testing tactics to targeting obsessive users, learn the key strategies for creating a winning consumer app 👇 Nikita Bier (Founder at Gas) provides actionable, battle-tested insights from an experienced founder on building successful consumer products in “How to Build Consumer Apps”. Check out the key insights in the attached presentation 👇 ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

Slash costs, not creativity! Discover tactics to keep your startup alive when venture capital tightens up 👇 George Deeb (Managing Partner at Red Rocket Ventures) offers critical survival tactics for founders navigating a challenging funding environment in “Lesson #360: How to Survive a Difficult VC Funding Environment”. Check out the key insights in the attached presentation 👇 ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

Unlock the full potential of all-hands meetings: Transform them into a tool for alignment, culture reinforcement, and transparent communication 👇 Actionable insights from: ➡ Amelia Ibarra (General Manager and Senior Vice President at SaaStr) & Rick Nucci (Founder at Guru) ✏ “How to Run All Hands Meetings the Right Way with Guru Founder and CEO Rick Nucci” 𝟭. 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗹𝗹-𝗛𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗠𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 ⭐ 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: "Reinforcement is a huge part of alignment; town halls are one technique to achieve that." ⭐ 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲: "One of the core ways a culture manifests in a company is by writing down and defining those core values that will become the personality or behavior of your organization. What are the characteristics and traits you want in all employees? This only works by finding systemic rituals that reinforce and celebrate those core values."  ⭐ 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆: "Talking about good and bad news, changes, and strategy should all be rooted in context and transparency. People should go on the roller coaster with you instead of wondering what's happening. If you don't give your team a narrative, they'll write their own." 𝟮. 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗚𝘂𝗿𝘂'𝘀 𝗔𝗹𝗹-𝗛𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗠𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 💡 Monthly, 90-minute meetings (usually under 45 minutes) 💡 Combination of recurring and one-time segments 💡 CEO hosts, but brings in other speakers 💡 Allows for live employee questions, including anonymous ones 𝟯. 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗟𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱 1️⃣ Set the mood and energy through music and virtual format 2️⃣ Establish context at the beginning to ground people 3️⃣ Highlight "values in action" by recognizing employees living the company's core values 4️⃣ Share "voice of the customer" by playing real customer conversation clips 5️⃣ Avoid heavy focus on financials, provide context instead 6️⃣ Allow for anonymous questions to surface the hard issues 7️⃣ Don't sugarcoat the reality, practice radical candor ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

Dive into the 4 levels of marketing sophistication and discover how to transform your marketing from a cost center to a market capitalization powerhouse 👇 Category Pirates, the newsletter authority on category design/category creation, provides a practical framework for founders to assess their company's marketing sophistication and align marketing strategies to drive growth, pricing power, innovation, and market capitalization in “The 4 Levels Of Marketing Sophistication”. Check out the key insights in the attached presentation 👇 ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

Unlock the secrets to building a powerhouse SDR/BDR team! From hiring full-stack talents to nurturing them into future AEs, learn the strategies that work 👇 Brian Feinstein (Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners), Caty Rea (Vice President at Bessemer Venture Partners), and Ross Matican (Content Manager at Bessemer Venture Partners) offer valuable insights on hiring, training, and managing an effective SDR/BDR team in “How to build an SDR / BDR function”. Check out the key insights in the attached presentation 👇 ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

AI app founders, take note! While B2C AI apps grab users fast, they struggle to keep them. Discover tactics to enhance retention and keep that 'leaky bucket' sealed 👇 Janelle Teng (Vice President at Bessemer Venture Partners) and Sameer Dholakia (Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners) offer valuable strategies for B2B AI app companies to improve user retention and engagement in “Seven product strategies to prevent churn for B2B AI app leaders”. Check out the key insights in the attached presentation 👇 ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors