# Recruiting, Market Strategy, Customer Engagement, Product, Pricing, Scaling, Boards, Crowdfunding, Weekend Review#16 October 27 2013 By [William Mougayar's Blog](https://wamougayar.xyz) · 2013-10-28 --- Startup Management is a manual selection from the hundreds of weekly articles being curated. Previous [issues are available here.](http://startupmanagement.org/category/wr/) There are 17 article links in this edition. **Recruiting** -------------- Albert Wenger has an excellent video on the [ABC of Recruiting](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/10/video-of-the-week-albert-wenger-on-startup-recruiting.html) (_Always Be Collecting candidates!_), where he lays out how your recruiting methods change as you progress from 0-10, 10-20, 20-50, and 50+ employees. Highly recommended. Rand Fishkin shares lessons learned along the growth way, in [Pitfalls of Startup Team Building.](http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/pitfalls-of-startup-team-building) One of them: “_paying a big referral fee might attract some wrong type of employees_”, and “_build a recruiting brand beyond your product brand_.” **Market Strategy** ------------------- In [Why Big Opportunities Crush Small Companies](http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131025150300-658789-why-big-opportunities-crush-small-companies), Dharmesh Shah offers a warning: “_One of the most frequent mistakes that entrepreneurs make is to automatically think that a large potential market is better_”, and reiterates that “_self-funded entrepreneurs should pursue smaller, addressable markets_.” Jeff Jordan says “_when we consider an e-commerce investment at a16z, we always strive to carefully evaluate the risk of competition from Amazon_”. That’s why he wrote [So You Want to Compete Against Amazon?](http://jeff.a16z.com/2013/10/25/so-you-want-to-compete-against-amazon/) highlighting how  **Lean Analytics** ------------------ Here’s an interview with Alistair Croll, co-author of Lean Analytics: [Lean Analytics: The Best Numbers of Non-Tech Companies](http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2013/10/lean-analytics-best-numbers-for-non.html), where he reviews key concepts from the book. **Sales** --------- Jason Lemkin explains [How My VP, Sales Doubled Our Sales in 90 Days. And No, It Wasn’t Magic](http://saastr.com/2013/10/23/how-my-vp-sales-doubled-our-sales-in-90-days-no-it-wasnt-magic/). Two of these non-magical tricks include upgrading the team with proven closers, and ending pipeline as a metric. **Y Combinator Startup School Videos** -------------------------------------- Most of them have been posted on [Y Combinator’s YouTube channel](http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcefcZRL2oaA_uBNeo5UOWg/videos). **Customer Retention** ---------------------- Christoph Janz offers a spreadsheet you can [Use for Churn, MRR, and Cohort Analysis](http://andrewchen.co/2013/10/24/the-easiest-spreadsheet-for-churn-mrr-and-cohort-analysis-guest-post/), including a step-by-step guide for using it. Setting it up is not something you do everyday, but once it’s done, you’ll be happy. **Customer Engagement** ----------------------- Des Traynor offers a methodology: Simplify, Nudge, or Persuade for getting customers to do something, in [How to Educate & Persuade Customers](http://insideintercom.io/how-to-educate-persuade-customers/). **Product Management** ---------------------- Are you [Thinking About Product Planning](http://startupmanagement.org/2013/10/23/thinking-about-product-planning/)? How much planning is required for a startup? Whether it’s for product requirements, market requirements, or business planning, I’m saying “_use planning to answer questions, rather than to produce a document_”. **Pricing** ----------- Alex Turnbull explains [The Pricing Model That Increased Our Free Trial Signups by 358% (and Revenue by 25%)](http://www.groovehq.com/blog/pricing-that-worked). The conversion rates were 4X higher with super-simple pricing model vs. the flexible/freemium or pay-as-you-go pricing models. **Mentoring** ------------- Anthony Hughes reveals [The 5 Best Types of Mentors](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-hughes/the-5-best-types-of-mentors_b_4149657.html): the challenger, the cheerleader, the educator, the ideator, and the connector. Not surprisingly, “_a truly great mentor often embodies more than one of these personality profiles._” **Infrastructure Scaling** -------------------------- Hailo’s architect Dave Gardner reveals [The Secrets behind Tech City’s startup’s global success](http://www.itproportal.com/2013/10/25/hailo-the-secrets-behind-the-tech-city-startups-global-success/), for the team of 60-70 developers. They rely on Cassandra as a distributed database, with processing clusters in Europe, the US and Asia. **Scaling Internationally** --------------------------- [App Annie CEO Bertrand Schmitt on starting up in China, scaling, and new funding](http://www.techinasia.com/app-annie-ceo-bertrand-schmitt-interview/), is an informative interview on having a global mindset, customers and infrastructure from Day 1. **Boards** ---------- Bryan Schreier of Sequoia offer a structure for [Preparing a Board Deck](http://www.sequoiacap.com/grove/posts/p5ae/preparing-a-board-deck). It includes 21 short sections. It’s a quick read. “_Treat board-meeting prep as an opportunity to pull yourself out of the day to day and take a look at your company as if you were sitting on the moon viewing the earth._” **New World of Crowdfunding** ----------------------------- Joe Wallin advises startups and founders to become familiar with the reporting exemptions, when granting stock options, and that includes Rule 506 of Regulation D (part of the JOBS Act) implications, in [Securities Law 101](http://www.startuplawblog.com/2013/10/26/securities-law-101/). **Venture Capital** ------------------- Hunter Walk says it’s better to [Be a Partnership, Not a Collection of Partners](http://hunterwalk.com/2013/10/26/vcs-be-a-partnership-not-a-collection-of-partners/), and offers a list of ways that founders can use to notice the difference. That SUMs it up! Don’t forget to [share on Twitter](http://clicktotweet.com/arWbe),  [add us to your Feedly](http://cloud.feedly.com/#subscription%2Ffeed%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2FStartupManagement), forward to a friend, [follow on Twitter](https://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=StartupManage), [read in Flipboard](https://flipboard.com/section/startup-management-boMSor), or just [visit the website](http://startupmanagement.org) often and daily. _William Mougayar_ Founder & Chief Curator [_Startup Management_](http://startupmanagement.org)\]\]> --- *Originally published on [William Mougayar's Blog](https://wamougayar.xyz/recruiting,-market-strategy,-customer-engagement,-product,-pricing,-scaling,-boards,-crowdfunding,-weekend-review16-october-27-2013)*