Topic / business

The CUA Factor

Andy Grove's 'modes of control'.

Coordination Headwinds

Venkat Rao on the inevitability of coordination costs.

Big Firms Need to Be Sluggish

Arnold Kling on the reasons big companies move slowly.

Management Consultants as Soviet Apparatchiks

The backward incentives of incompetent BigCos and their parasitic management consultants.

How to Think About Your Competitors

A framework for thinking about your company's competitive landscape.

On Markets, TAMs, and Agency

The benefits of market sizing analysis, how they're overrated, and the remembering the power of agency.

Maxis 1996 Annual Report

A look back in time at Maxis, pioneers of the simulation game genre.

Economies of Scale in Construction

Brian Potter starts a series to analyze the seeming lack of economies of scale in construction.

Product-led Growth Isn't Incompatible with Sales

Product-led and sales-driven growth strategies form a positive-sum combo.

Visa: The Original Protocols Business

The Business Breakdowns podcast looks at the history of Visa.

Stripe's Content Strategy

Looking at Stripe Press and how it spins Stripe's business flywheels.

Neumann on Schumpeter on Strategy

What motivates entrepreneurship and how those motivations drive business strategy.

Patrick McKenzie on Working at Stripe

Patrick McKenzie dives into his experiences at Stripe over the past 4 years.

Weekend Reading: Collaborative Enterprise, Algorithms, and Fifth-Gen Management

Elad Gil on collaboration in enterprise, Eugene Wei on TikTok, and Venkat Rao on a new management paradigm.

2020 Bundles

Ben Thompson's updated state of bundling across the big tech players.

The Network Effects Manual

An in-depth guide to network effects.

Fourth-Wave Consulting

Venkatesh Rao compares the evolutions of the coffee and consulting markets.

Strategy for Startups

Thinking about strategic planning in the uncertain environment of a startup.

Weekend Reading: Timeful Texts, Sumo Startups, and Canva Backlinks

Matuschak and Nielsen on spaced repetition, Byrne Hobart's 'sumo startups', and Canva's backlink empire.

Slack and the Intercompany Communication Layer

On Slack making a move against Microsoft Teams.

A Blog that Changes Your Life

Interesting and transparent post from Nat Eliason on how he built his web presence.

Will COVID Kill the Office?

Strategy Writing

Sriram Krishnan's collection of strategy writing.

Why Figma Wins

An analysis of Figma's business dynamics from Kevin Kwok.

Advantage Flywheels

Examples of different business model flywheels.

Weekend Reading: Invading Markets, Sleep Deprivation, and the Observer Effect

Commandos, infantry, or police for markets, why sleep deprivation kills, and how Marc Andreessen works.

Lower the Degree of Difficulty

Keep things simple and execute.

Weekend Reading: COVID Edition

Building in World 2.0

Daniel Gross discusses things that change in a post-covid world.

Things That Will Change

What will be different after the COVID crisis?

Innovator's Dilemma in Video

Clayton Christensen in video format.

Laws of Tech: Commoditize Your Complements

Gwern's analysis of Spolsky's 'commoditizing your complements' essay.

Tech in 2020: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Underutilized Fixed Assets

Weekend Reading: Internet of Beefs, Company Culture, and Secular Cycles

Venkatesh Rao's theory of internet beef, the impacts of company culture, and Turchin's Secular Cycles.

How to Lose a Monopoly

Benedict Evans on the differences between influence, dominance, and monopoly.

How To Build a Service-Based Business

Tips on building service businesses.

Weekend Reading: Tradeoffs, the Margins, and PR FAQs

Ubiquity of tradeoffs, outsiders vs. insiders, and FAQs as a tool for goal setting.

On Atlassian's Unique Sales Model

A unique bottom-up business model from a company now worth billions.

Weekend Reading: Neutrinos and Math, Waymo Progress, and Freemium in SaaS

Neutrino research leads to discoveries in linear algebra, Waymo makes progress, and Christoph Janz's rules for freemium.

Continuous Discovery

Discovery on product isn't something limited to time between sprints, we should do it continuously.

Getting Paid to Change Your Mind

Rory Sutherland on changing your mind as a virtue in business.

Why Hasn’t Open Source Software Disrupted Esri?

Great post from Joe Morrison on how the open source software movement has been unable to unseat Esri in most markets.

Memos

Second-Order Revenue

The value of customer success in driving new customer adoption and revenue.

Weekend Reading: Attention, Hill Climbing, and Enforcing Culture

Brain filters, hill climbing strategy, and what executives do.

A Taxonomy of Moats

An analysis of competitive advantages.

The Full Reset

On the power of starting with no baggage, sunk costs, or past poor decisions.

What is a Tech Company?

Ben Thompson on the defining characteristics of modern tech companies.

The Magic of Recurring Revenue

Thoughts on recurring revenue, SaaS, and the power of incentives.

Why Complexity Sells

On the Tumblr Sale

Thoughts on Verizon's sale of Tumblr to Automattic.

The Arc of Collaboration

Kevin Kwok's thoughts on the state of team collaboration and productivity.

Growth, Sales, and a New Era of B2B

Martin Casado on growth B2B go-to-market strategy.

Managerial Leverage

A review of Andy Grove's 'High Output Management', the most useful business book.

On Retention

Thoughts on the importance of customer retention and net negative churn in the SaaS business.

Weekend Reading: Term Sheets, Customer Loyalty, and Epictetus

“The Discourses of Epictetus, Atlassian opens its term sheet, and why customer-first companies always win.”

Andy Grove on Meetings

Andy Grove's timeless thoughts on the meeting as a medium for managerial work.

Reaching the Early Majority

An overview of Geoffrey Moore's tech industry standard, Crossing the Chasm.

Weekend Reading: Rays on a Run, Apple's Pivot, and Mapping Grids

The Rays are on a tear through 2 months, Apple's Services business, and using Observable for mapping Voronoi polygons.

Weekend Reading: Product Market Fit, Stripe's 5th Hub, and Downlink

Superhuman's methodology for measuring product-market fit, Stripe going remote, and Downlink for satellite imagery feeds.

New Things In New Ways, or Same Old Things In Old Ways?

A framework for thinking about product development, what's being built, and how it's built.

Clippy: The Unauthorized Biography

Steven Sinofsky gives the history of Clippy, Microsoft's original assistant

Weekend Reading: Gene Wolfe, Zoom, and Inside Spatial Networks

A tribute to Gene Wolfe, Zoom's Eric Yuan, and a Q+A with Tony on SNI.

Disney and the Future of TV

Ben Thompson on the Disney+ service and how it fits into the TV marketplace.

Weekend Reading: Running Maps, Thinking, and Remote Work

Planning runs, Vannevar Bush on the future of thinking, and best practices for remote work.

Process Not Products

On 'Loonshots' and how phase transitions apply to companies.

The End of Friction

The impacts of the internet's removal of friction.

Invisible Asymptotes

An insightful piece from Eugene Wei on invisible barriers to continued growth in companies.

Writing Docs at Amazon

On writing memos for meetings at Amazon.

Pre-Announcing as a Strategy

Steven Sinofsky on the various merits and downsides of pre-announcing products and features.

Counterintuitive Competitive Advantages

Morgan Housel with some examples of things that appear to be competitive advantages that can quickly turn into disadvantages.

Modes of Control

On the concept of 'modes of control' from Andy Grove's 'High Output Management'.

Status as a Service

Eugene Wei dives deep on the concept of 'social capital' as the currency of social networks.

Weekend Reading: Calculator, SaaS Metrics, and System Shock

Microsoft open sources Calculator, David Skok on metrics, and System Shock cross-platform.

How Google Sets Goals

Video workshop put on by GV's Rick Klau on how Google implements OKRs.

How Investors Think About Ideas

A good overview from YC’s Kevin Hale on how to break down startup ideas.

Weekend Reading: Build or Buy, OKRs, and Employee Onboarding

Build vs buy in IT, OKR guidebook, and tips on employee onboarding.

HQ2: Understanding What Happened

Barry Ritholtz breaks down the story behind Amazon's HQ2 reversal.

SaaS Valuations Look Good

A quick analysis on the state of SaaS performance in 2019.

Getting to 1,000

A short story on how we reached our 1,000th user milestone with Fulcrum.

Keith Rabois on This Week in Startups

An interesting interview with VC and founder Keith Rabois on This Week in Startups.

Weekend Reading: Business Applications, Rays Prospects, and the Florida Panhandle

“Okta's business apps report, Rays upcoming prospect, and the damage from Hurricane Michael.”

16 Mini Lessons for Startup Founders

Video lessons from Peter Levine on various aspects of doing sales in a SaaS startup.

Previewing SaaStr Annual 2019

A preview of sessions at this year's SaaStr Annual conference.

Starting in Product Management

The first part in a series on my experience starting and working in product management.

Weekend Reading: Shanghai, Basecamp, and DocuSaurus

Hi-res photo of Shanghai, Basecamp's product process, and Docusaurus for software project documentation.

Everything Breaks

An excellent piece from Michael Lopp with advice for growing pains.

The End of the Beginning

Benedict Evans's latest talk from the a16z Summit on the state of tech.

Weekend Reading: CAC, Alexander Hamilton, and Flow

“Intercom on CAC, Hamilton's Legacy, and Microsoft's Flow service.”

Weekend Reading: AV-Human Interaction, iPad Pro, and Buying Out Investors

“Ford's self-driving car efforts, Buffer buying out investors, and thoughts on the new iPad Pro.”

Right-sizing and Product Scoping

Thoughts on the process of right-sizing product features and defining scope.

Fireflies and Algorithms

OpenCorporates analysis on the creation of companies and how automation will impact corporate landscapes.

All Hands 2018

“Our second All Hands meeting of the year, now with our staff of over 50 people together.”

Weekend Reading: Geocomputation, Customers, and Linear Growth

“Geocomputation with R, listening to customers, and the value of linear growth.”

The Electricity Metaphor

“Jeff Bezos makes a prescient comparison between the early Internet and the early years of electrification.”

The Missing Communication Link

Reconsidering the value of Slack and live chat communication tools.

Breakthrough and Follow-through

The importance of follow-through innovation.

The Power of the SaaS Business Model

Some thoughts on SaaS business model advantages, aligning incentives, and predictable revenue.

Subscription Pricing Models

Recent Links: Glue, Org Charts, and Patreon’s Growth

Weekly Links: Ambient Computers, Drones, and Focus

Weekly Links: Cartography's Future, Interactive Maps, and Building Moats

Weekly Links: AI, APFS, and MBA Mondays

The Box That Built the Modern World

Great piece about the modularization of shipping and how it powered global trade.

A Quick Guide for New Developers

Young people interested in learning how to code could learn a lot by starting with the smaller steps. Instead of diving immediately into learning node.js, or beginning with “Build Your Own Rails App in 15 Minutes” blog posts, focus your energy on some foundations that will be 100% useful in building your skills as an engineer.

Software Pricing and SaaS

A fantastic talk from Twilio's Jeff Lawson on SaaS and pricing.