#startups

Startups must work smart and hard

To win, startups need to lean into their advantages because they’re a decade away from the kinds of moats enjoyed by established corporations. This means they need to work smart (i.e., mostly do the right things) and work hard (i.e., execute at a pace and with intense risk tolerance).

· Startup advice  #advice #startups #strategy
Information compression

Conveying complex ideas through language often results in loss of nuance, leading to misunderstandings and flawed approaches to problem-solving.

· Link post  #startups
The JOLT Effect by Matthew Dixon & Ted McKenna

## Background

· Book  #startups
Hire salespeople in pairs

Startups should try to hire salespeople in pairs. This is particularly important when spinning up a new channel (e.g., launching in a new market, opening up a partner channel, or kicking off outbound sales).

· Startup advice  #advice #startups #sales
Australia's new superannuation tax will reduce tech investments and therefore innovation

The introduction of a new tax on superannuation earnings over $3 million, including unrealised capital gains, is raising concerns about negative impacts on self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs).

· Link post  #startups
Why founders should "go direct"

Founders historically relied on media and publicists to share their narratives, but with the ubiquity of social media and email, they no longer need these traditional gatekeepers.

· Link post  #startups
Australia to reject tech acquisitions

Under proposed changes in Australia, acquisitions exceeding certain financial and market share thresholds must be reported to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), with initial reviews taking 15 or 30 days.

· Link post  #startups
Jason Lemkin on building a world-class sales org

Direct customer engagement by founders is highly valued in early stages.

· Link post  #startups
NYT techno-cynicism was an intentional editorial decision

A few years ago, the New York Times chose to apply an investigative and critical approach to technology reporting, focusing more on scrutiny than on business or consumer interests.

· Link post  #history #startups
Hyrum's Law

Hyrum’s Law states that with enough users, all behaviours of an API will be relied upon, regardless of the intended contract.

· Link post  #startups
Understanding tacit knowledge

As great as it would be to solve all problems with clearly defined processes and documented knowledge, the reality is that most organisational knowledge tends to be tacit. So, companies should factor this into their ways of working.

· Startup advice  #advice #startups #operations
The impact of tacit knowledge management performance

The research investigates whether organizations have strategies for managing tacit knowledge, which may affect their performance both materially and non-materially.

· Link post  #startups
Retaining tacit knowledge

Organisations must improve retention of tacit knowledge to increase staff productivity and improve managerial decision-making, as traditional methods like explicit knowledge and old training courses are inadequate.

· Link post  #startups
Allocating deals to your best salespeople

Adding new sales representatives reduces productivity as they may have lower closing rates than experienced reps due to unfamiliarity with the product or industry.

· Link post  #startups
Teams that disagree perform better

The study examines the effect of disagreement on team performance in a game that simulates positive production externalities.

· Link post  #startups
Labor to overhaul ‘sophisticated investor’ criteria in Australia

The Australian Labor Party aims to increase the criteria for investors to be classified as “sophisticated investors” to limit their exposure to riskier investments.

· Link post  #startups
Australia to quash angel investing

The Australian Government is about to make it nearly impossible for successful startup workers to reinvest their earnings into new startups. Let’s explore the upcoming changes and how they will affect startups, workers, and the Australian economy.

· Startup advice  #advice #startups #society
IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

In 2023, the IT sector saw a significant reduction in job growth with only 700 new jobs compared to 267,000 in 2022.

· Link post  #startups
Don't copy current-state of established companies — look at what they did to get to where they are

When designing a new app, people often reference current popular apps, overlooking that these incumbents have established user habits and reduced aggressive growth tactics due to criticism.

· Link post  #startups
US tax code will offshore IP and development teams

US software businesses were hit by high tax bills in 2023 due to a tax change effective July 2022, which many were unaware of. Changes to S174 mean software engineer labor costs must be amortized over multiple years, altering the calculation of taxable profits.

· Link post  #startups
Tom Tunguz’s 2024 predictions

The IPO market remains shut for the first half of 2024 before reopening with major listings like Stripe & Databricks, while mergers and acquisitions see a surge above $60 billion, fuelled by AI-related deals and lower debt costs for private equity buyers.

· Link post  #startups
Microservice or monolith?

Tailor software architecture to the team’s cognitive load capacity, opting for a monolithic structure for single teams and microservices for multiple teams to enable independent work.

· Link post  #startups
Software liability in Europe

The EU is working on rules to make software creators and licensors accountable for harm caused by their software, akin to how manufacturers are liable for faulty products like cars.

· Link post  #startups
38% of VCs disappeared from dealmaking in 2023

Active investors in US venture capital (VC) dropped by 38% in the first three quarters of 2023 compared to the previous year, representing a reduction of 2,725 firms.

· Link post  #startups
Stepping on toes

How much should competent people, confidently managing their responsibilities, meddle in the affairs of other teams they perceive to be dropping the ball?

· Startup advice  #advice #startups #operations