In this column, Lerer Hippeau’s Naya Frazier dive into technologies and industries that are exciting, going deep into change drivers and stakeholders while exploring investment trends and opportunities through an early-stage lens.
Advice
Don’t Rush into Your Second Act
I just wrapped up my last startup and I’m totally ready to take on the next one! I just had this great idea 5 seconds ago and I’m running with it! If I just had a good outcome on my first run as a Founder, my second one should be even better, right?
Beware the Absentee Landlord of Equity
I’ve got a cofounder who is leaving the company and has a huge chunk of equity. Am I missing something or do they now get the same amount of value that I’ve got except they never have to work for it again while I slave away for the same benefit for the next decade?
7 Ways To Fail In Setting Up Your Board Of Directors
Board expert Nancy Falls outlines the most common mistakes with boards…
OKRs Unite Companies to Achieve Goals
Mastering OKRs is not hard but does take commitment from the top and an understanding that changes in how you plan and collaborate take time as you are acquiring new skills and embedding new behaviors. The destination and journey can be rewarding as they can unite your whole company around a common vision and set of goals.
7 Keys to Scaling Your Startup to be the Next Unicorn
Many entrepreneurs never get past their first-stage focus on their innovative product, scaling the business globally, organizing a structure to handle thousands of employees, and concentrating their focus “on the business” rather than working “in the business.” In my experience, here are some of the key elements of that “second-stage” of entrepreneurship.a
Startup Culture is a Reflection of its Founders
The culture of my startup is starting to head south. People are starting to get real toxic, everyone’s complaining that they are overworked, and the vibe is getting really bad. Where is all this coming from and how do I change course?
8 Ways the Stakes are Higher on Customer Expectations
It’s no longer possible to separate customer support from the overall customer experience. Both are part of the relationship that you build with your customers through a compendium of all the interactions you have with them. Any one of these can be the key to amazing advocacy, or the beginning of an aggressive visible campaign against you. The world today is small, and there is no room to hide. Be responsive, do more, and you will get more.
Dear President Joe Biden: Regulations Won’t Solve Tech Monopolies, But Decentralization Will
By a very wide margin, the most effective thing the federal government can do to address FAMGA’s impact is to provide a friendly regulatory environment for crypto and let capitalism do its thing.
6 Positive Steps for Taking Control of Your Work Life
How to deal with the constant demands and requests that every business founder faces with pragmatic advice for dealing with the three pains of the brain (social, status, and priorities) that erode your control and your satisfaction with work that you really love to do.
8 Unpublicized Strategies From Serious Entrepreneurs
The message I hear publicly from most entrepreneurs is that you have to think outside the box and take big risks to ever beat the odds and be among the less than ten percent that experience real success. But privately, as a mentor to many entrepreneurs, I see mindsets and attributes that may be equally critical to success but are not readily admitted, for fear of being too wacky.