Heuristics and Hunches

Topic	Replies	Views	Activity
About the Heuristics and Hunches category	0	319	February 18, 2021
"No One is Coming to Save Us," The "Need to Reestablish PMF," and Other Earnest Founder Commits for 2023 pmf , operating-principles , founders-self , constraints	0	516	January 31, 2023
SaaS Founders at Work '22 Edition: 42 Inspiring Heuristics and Hunches from 194 Years of Building bootstrapping , fundraising , pmf , operating-principles , founders-self	1	530	January 22, 2023
Finding (and Navigating) the Middle Ground Between a Hypergrowth Startup and a Lifestyle Business with Sudowrite’s Co-Founder, Amit Gupta bootstrapping , fundraising , pmf , operating-principles , founders-self	2	290	January 12, 2023
Things That Matter During Any Crisis, Developing a Combination of Muscle Memory and Scar Tissue, and Other Earnest Founder Missives to Probe the Current SaaS Moment operating-principles , founders-self	0	493	June 9, 2022
Growing Sustainably, a Realistic Take on the Current Moment in Tech, and Lessons from Grab with Momos’ Co-Founder, Andrew Liu fundraising , capital-efficiency , underserved-markets	1	414	December 12, 2022
Designing Thoughtful Workweeks, Decisions, and Feedback at an Async-First Workplace with Panther’s Co-Founder, Matt Redler culture , working-remotely , operating-principles , founders-self , async	2	448	December 1, 2022
The Mechanics of Commercializing and Scaling an AI-First, B2B Startup with Thematic’s Co-Founder, Alyona Medelyan pmf , ai , product , mvp , capital-efficiency	2	418	November 21, 2022
Validating and Selling a Technically-Difficult Idea, Serving 2 Personas, Fundraising in a Tough SaaS Setting, and Working In-Person with Merge’s Co-Founder, Shensi Ding fundraising , hiring , pmf , founders-self	2	748	November 12, 2022
Evolving the Many-Sided Levers of Positioning and Expansion with Slite’s Co-Founder, Christophe Pasquier positioning , product-led-growth , product , competitive-markets	2	389	November 7, 2022
Aiming for a "Won-and-Done" Category, Acquiring a Newsletter before Making the Product Public, and The Merits of Being Async-First with Loops’ Co-Founder, Chris Frantz crowded-markets , working-remotely , operating-principles , product , async	2	308	October 19, 2022
Founder-Led Customer Success, Bringing in a Senior First Hire, and Other Early-Stage CS Lessons with Claap’s Head of Customer Success, Angela Guedes customer-research , operators-series , customer-success	1	305	October 3, 2022
Why You Shouldn’t Build for an Obviously Large Market, and Other Notes on Creating a “Default Possible” Startup with Pulley’s Co-Founder, Yin Wu fundraising , hiring , product , gtm	1	248	September 23, 2022
The Why Behind 78 Pre-Product User Interviews, The Difference Between Pitching and Research, and Why MVPs Don’t Work Anymore with Cord’s Co-Founder, Nimrod Priell customer-research , product , mvp	2	818	September 11, 2022
“How Moving Away from Per-User Pricing Helped us 4X our Growth, Why We Were Moving Back, and Why We Won’t (For Now)” with Tability’s Co-Founder, Sten Pittet pricing , categories , product	10	637	August 28, 2022
Iterating Minimum Viable Funnels, Evolving Freemium for Reach and Focus, and Other Growth Lessons with Sendspark’s Co-Founder, Bethany Stachenfeld growth , operating-principles , freemium , experimentation	2	351	August 10, 2022
Bringing Early Adopters on to the Cap Table, Being COOs of Potential Users, and Other Community-First Ways of Building with Passionfroot’s Co-Founder, Jennifer Phan pmf , operating-principles , community	2	315	August 9, 2022
Ignoring MRR for the Self-Serve Switch, “Dogfood upon Dogfood upon Dogfood,” and other Lessons in Breaking out of Constraints with Lately AI’s Co-Founder, Kate Bradley Chernis customer-centricity , culture , product-led-growth , founders-self	2	998	July 26, 2022
Early stage startups and mental health founders-self	5	586	July 12, 2022
(Calmly) Competing Against HubSpot and Mailchimp as a One-Person Team with Bento’s Founder, Jesse Hanley bootstrapping , operating-principles , founders-self , product	4	957	June 27, 2022
“How We Deleted a 1/3rd of Our Product and Made it 10x Better” with Arrows’ co-founder, Daniel Zarick customer-centricity , operating-principles , product	4	1103	June 22, 2022
Adopting the Collaborative Operating System, Confronting a Common Leadership Error, and Fixing the “Untrained Muscle” of Alignment with Plum’s Co-Founder, Caitlin MacGregor culture , operating-principles , founders-self	2	1159	June 7, 2022
Why You Don’t Need to be “Enterprise-Ready” or “Scalable” as Yet and Other Notes on Crafting B2B Software with Contenda’s Founder, Lilly Chen culture , scaling , product , engineering , enterprise	3	18753	May 26, 2022
Pivoting Despite PMF, Why You Don’t Need Top Talent across Functions, and Other People-first Insights with Eduflow’s Co-Founder, David Kofoed Wind hiring , pivots , pmf , operating-principles	2	642	May 17, 2022
Taking on Zoom by Targeting a Beachhead Market, Pricing as a PMF Filter, and Other Lessons in Early Traction with Butter’s Co-Founder, Jakob Knutzen founder-market-fit , pricing , pmf , competitive-markets	1	650	May 6, 2022
Setting up Finance as an Impact Multiplier, Defining Your Own Metrics for Success, and Other Strategic Lessons from Knak’s Head of Finance, Christopher Chan operating-principles , operators-series , finance	0	563	April 28, 2022
Setting Up Engineering for Growth: The Workflows and Culture That Drove 1500% YoY Growth with Tara AI’s Co-Founder, Iba Masood growth , operating-principles , product , engineering	3	2161	April 27, 2022
Reexamining the Revered Superhuman Onboarding, and Other Product-First Lessons in Scaling SaaS with Sunsama’s Founder, Ashutosh Priyadarshy pricing , operating-principles , founders-self , product	2	1136	April 25, 2022
Choosing the Kano Model over the RICE Framework and Other Discoveries in “Building for User Love” with Scribe’s Co-Founder, Jennifer Smith customer-centricity , operating-principles , product	2	444	April 11, 2022
“Think of Bootstrapping as a Tool, Not as a Way of Life” and Other Perceptive Observations On Transitioning to the VC Path with MagicBell’s Co-Founder, Hana Mohan bootstrapping , fundraising , growth , founders-self , product	3	1461	April 7, 2022