Resources
for
Founders

Go-To-Market Frameworks

Launch Strategy

By Pratik Mehta.
How do you maximize your launch success & bring order in the chaos? Launching a product requires collaboration & coordination with multiple stakeholders at all times

GTM Template 

By the Product Folks.
Early-stage startups often experiment with many marketing methods then find that a few are most productive for them. What is your hypothesis about the three marketing methods that will prove most productive, once you achieve product-market fit?

Marketing Plan by Michael Taylor

By Michael Taylor 
We’re going deep on tracking and analytics setup, SEO, paid advertising, CRM, landing page optimization, virality and even branding. This is what you should expect your marketing lead to deliver.

Guide to GTM metrics 2.0

By Kyle Polar. 

Say goodbye to MQLs, say hello to unified GTM metrics. There might have been a time when marketing generated pipeline and sales closed it. But that’s not the world we live in now.

Product Vision Board

By Roman Pichler.
Creating and managing a successful product requires a lot of time and energy. In order to be fully committed, you have to be convinced that what you are doing is right and have a clear vision of where to take your product. 

How Google Builds Vision

By Google.  

Vision is everything about what drives our work. Core values, purpose, mission and strategy are all part of our vision.

Don’t reinvent the wheel

Startup 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴
1. Startup Pitch Deck GPT, https://lnkd.in/dMiV5BKw - JME
2. Data Room template, https://lnkd.in/dvYqaR6b - Creandum
3. Story Branding, https://lnkd.in/dSq7S7_w - Donald Miller
4. The Idea Maze, https://lnkd.in/dq4Jhiem - Balajis Srinivasan
5. Fundraising guides by Y Combinator, https://lnkd.in/d3DR69E9
6. Fundraising wisdom by Firstround, https://lnkd.in/dffZY_it
7. Deck Template by Creandum, https://lnkd.in/ddXTr-iM
8. Business Plan by Sequoia, https://lnkd.in/d9heZXPf
9. Front Series A Deck, https://lnkd.in/demVpb97
10. SaaS Fundraising Playbook by IVP, https://lnkd.in/d-2GEaT5

Startup 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘀
1. Operational efficiency metrics Iconiq, https://lnkd.in/dHj5M2VX
2. B2B benchmark metrics - a16z, https://lnkd.in/dycet96d
3. What is good retention, https://lnkd.in/dqKnANu2 - Lenny Rachitsky
4. Top 5 SaaS metrics VCs look at, https://lnkd.in/d6SyugQ4 - Jon Ma
5. Cohort analysis template SaaS, https://lnkd.in/dSkNGWqH - Point9

Startup 𝗘𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘁𝘆 & 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
1. Equity grants per round - Balderton, https://lnkd.in/dFT4GiFX
2. Founder’s compensation, https://lnkd.in/dX99tED4 - Creandum
3. Option Plan Tool - Index, https://lnkd.in/dzKRG5Zw

Startup Governance / 𝗕𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁
1. Lessons from Keith Rabois, https://lnkd.in/dRXqGj63
2. The Art of Board Membership, https://lnkd.in/daFw3BEp
3. How to run a board - Samuel Gil, https://lnkd.in/d762Wr_d

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanlandabaso/

Founder Mental Health Statistics

The numbers of mental health for entrepreneurs.

1. 72% of founders struggle with mental health.
2. 37% suffer from anxiety.
3. 36% experience burnout.
4. 10% have panic attacks.
5. 54% of founders are very stressed about their businesses, with fear of failure being the main stressor.
6. 81% of founders hide their stress, fears and challenges from others, and more than half hide their stress from their co-founders.
7. 77% of founders refuse to seek professional help. Younger founders hold greater stigma seeking help. Male founders hold 2x stigma for seeking help female.
8. More than 50% of founders lose sleep since founding their companies, and that number skyrockets in step with the amount of money raised.
9. 47% of founders exercise less (when they need it most for mental health) than they did before founding their companies.
10. Founders spend 60% less time with spouses, 58% less time with kids, and 73% less time with friends/family, and the avg. level of loneliness is 7.6 /10.
11. 93% of founders would do it all again, even in light of so many forms of suffering.

According to a study by Michael Freeman, entrepreneurs are 50 percent more likely to report having a mental health condition, with some specific conditions being incredibly prevalent amongst founders.  Founders are:
·        2X more likely to suffer from depression
·        6X more likely to suffer from ADHD
·        3X more likely to suffer from substance abuse
·        10X more likely to suffer from bi-polar disorder
·        2X more likely to have psychiatric hospitalization
·        2X more likely to have suicidal thoughts
Addressing the ongoing mental health catastrophe in entrepreneurship is a moral imperative, and for wise investors, it should be a function of doing business. Venture capitalists make their living off the blood, sweat and tears of founders. It is through their passion and efforts that we succeed or fail. We can either choose to see founders purely as a means to an end (generating returns) or we can see them as the whole people they are.“

TechCrunch– a must-read article.

Startup Hiring Guide: for rapid growth from 5 - 50

A startup hiring guide is invaluable for rapid growth. It provides a roadmap for attracting top talent, creating effective job descriptions, developing a robust hiring process, and building a strong employer brand. It's a strategic tool that can significantly enhance a startup's ability to scale and succeed.

“I meet too many founders who’ve read 27 blog posts on landing page optimization but make it up as they go along in interviews. Startup literature urgently needs more guides to headhunting and fewer how-to’s on the email etiquette of VC introductions.”
— Nikos Moraitakis, Workable CEO

The hardest thing you’ve not been told

The Series A crunch may be tough but the talent crunch is brutal. We talk to high-growth startups every day and we keep hearing versions of “compared to recruiting, fundraising was easy”. Just like fundraising, it’s very competitive. It takes time, preparation and selling, and getting it wrong can slow down or kill your startup. It’s the hardest thing to get right. It doesn’t get the attention it deserves.

You need to be a hiring obsessive

Whether it’s two founders talking to an angel investor, a team of 10 making something from nothing, or a high-growth company with 50 staff, team quality is the single best predictor of success. If you can get great people then everything else becomes so much easier.

Growth hacks versus talent hacks

Silicon Valley has figured out how to build great products and turn them into successful business models. Methodologies have emerged like Lean Startup, agile product development and growth hacking. They function as roadmaps for the non-experts and inspire conversation and innovation in those fields. In comparison hiring practices have remained in the dark ages.

Getting from 5 to 50 and beyond

Your first five hires pretty much picked themselves but in getting from 5 to 50 you will need the best tools and analytics, and you will need to be systematic. It’s about more than ping pong tables and bicycle racks. We’ve spent the time to curate the best thinking on everything from employer branding and headhunting to every step in the interview process, whether you’re building a distributed team or you’ve got an office. We’ve thrown in ideas, tricks, talent hacks and real life examples from great companies. The result is this startup hiring guide that offers some structure when hiring for rapid growth from 5 to 50. It’s a starting point. And my aim is to get all of us to talk about hiring.

READ MORE >> https://resources.workable.com/tutorial/the-startup-hiring-guide-your-playbook-for-rapid-growth

Referrals for Founders & Small Business Owners

BUSINESS Credit Card: Capital One

CONTRACTOR Insurance: Gig Easy

BANKING, INVOICES, ACCOUNTING: Mercury Bank

Public Relations for Startups:

My Tech Stack:

  • Accounting /Invoicing - Xero

  • Website - Squarespace

  • CRM/ Marketing - Hubspot

GENERAL Ops: Of All Trades

Wealth Advisor: Willow Grove Advisors

MARKETING: The Marketing Dad
STORYTELLING:
Norah Goldman

Investor News: Visible

Business Insurance: Vouch

TAX Strategy: Kempton Accounting

Product Advisors: Holder Advisor & Associates

LIST OF LISTS OF VENTURE CAPITALISTS & ANGEL INVESTORS

𝗩𝗖𝘀 𝗯𝘆 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲:
⬪ Pre-Seed: https://lnkd.in/gnxYgFF8
⬪ Seed: https://lnkd.in/g7rntFQa
⬪ Seed & Series A: https://lnkd.in/gU_PZwra
⬪ Below 200 Million: https://lnkd.in/g4QhNsjV

𝗩𝗖𝘀 𝗯𝘆 𝗟𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻:
⬪ US VCs: https://lnkd.in/gDcKfxwD
⬪ NYC VCs: https://lnkd.in/gMKTstBz
⬪ European VCs: https://lnkd.in/gZC4qqxW
⬪ UK VCs: https://lnkd.in/gkPYUKH3
⬪ French VCs: https://lnkd.in/g2bHpUYd
⬪ Spanish VCs: https://lnkd.in/gBD_7rRY
⬪ Baltic VCs: https://lnkd.in/gx2iHdDS
⬪ Australian VCs: https://lnkd.in/gbFnpmRX
⬪ Indian VCs: https://lnkd.in/durcuiUw
⬪ Singapore VCs: https://mapofthemoney.com/

𝗩𝗖𝘀 𝗯𝘆 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆:
⬪ Climate VCs: https://lnkd.in/d__3NqRC
⬪ Deep Tech VCs: https://lnkd.in/gqTqjKJu
⬪ HealthTech VCs: https://lnkd.in/gMWDprYC
⬪ Consumer VCs: https://lnkd.in/ganPEBgV
⬪ FinTech VCs: https://lnkd.in/gWFADRuP

𝗔𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗹𝘀:
⬪ US Founders Investing: https://lnkd.in/gHtZZY2y
⬪ SaaS Angels: https://lnkd.in/g3z9sBAE
⬪ US Women: https://lnkd.in/gd4JefpG
⬪ Global Women: https://lnkd.in/gYAW3avh
⬪ Australia: https://lnkd.in/gxYmwaTb
⬪ Africa: https://lnkd.in/g3z-cx6z
⬪ Middle East: https://lnkd.in/ghZ5PeQF

𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀:
⬪ Every Accelerator: https://lnkd.in/dncseAmE

This is Duke. He believes you can do hard things.

Duke is a rescue pup of several mystery breeds. He is extroverted and will do all his tricks for treats. He says hello to every human & dog on walks and give you a good lean in hug or lick on the eyeball. Nothing makes him happier than a beach frolic and a nap. More Duke here.  Duke is a big fan of Sequoia Humane Society.