Founder Weekly (Issue 609 - October 25 2023)

Founder Weekly - Issue 609

October 25, 2023

Founder Weekly

Welcome to issue 609 of Founder Weekly. Let's get straight to the links this week.

General

A study that shows that founder personality traits are a significant feature of a firm’s ultimate success. The study draws upon detailed data about the success of a large‐scale global sample of startups and finds that the Big Five personality traits of startup founders across 30 dimensions significantly differ from that of the population at large.

Dev Ittycheria is the president and CEO of MongoDB, his third public company as CEO. In this episode, Dev discusses his take on AI, the importance of hiring, how to build an A-plus culture, and many other leadership lessons from scaling MongoDB to $25B. Overall, a really fun conversation with one of the absolute best operators in tech.

In this essay, Paul Graham explores the concept of superlinear growth in startups and how factors like increasing returns and specialization can contribute to exponential success. He discusses how such growth can lead to a disproportionate impact on the market.

Some of the most enticing, important metrics are impossible to measure, even after the fact. Here’s now to identify and avoid this trap. 

Here’s a collection of blog posts, templates and resources which we’ve created specifically for founders of dev-first, seed-stage startups. Covers selling, improving adoption,  tools, and best practices to help you build products that developers love to use.

Marketing, Sales and PR

April Dunford, a renowned author and speaker, returns to the podcast to share insights from her latest book, "Sales Pitch: How to Craft a Story to Stand Out and Win." She discusses the art of effective pitching, drawing from her experience at companies like Google, IBM, Postman, and Epic Games, and covers topics such as pitch creation, real-life success stories, combating customer inaction, guiding prospects in their buying journey, the significance of differentiated value, marketing's role, avoiding FOMO in sales, and tips for objection handling.

Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah reveal how they helped invent modern marketing, and turned the ideas behind their hobby blog into a $20+ billion success.

As a founder who scaled a B2B startup to $100 million in ARR, Tracy Young shares her advice for founders who want to get great at B2B sales.

A tactical deep dive from Miro's Former Head of Growth Programs Olena Avramenko.

Money and Finance

In the current venture capital landscape, a phenomenon known as the "funding desert" is reshaping how investors and startups interact.

Michael and Ben are joined by Samir Kaji, CEO, President, and Co-Founder of  to discuss: what start-up prices look like today, if the free money era is gone forever, VC return dynamics and the power law, and much more!

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