The Hierarchy of Engagement, Expanded

Sarah Tavel of Greylock Partners thinks of user engagement as the fuel powering products. The best products take that fuel and propel the product (and with it, the company) forward. In this post, Sarah shares an updated deck that synthesizes her thinking on how to build a product that endures.

From the Investors

Patrick Riley of GAN looks at the numbers for startups who “graduated from” accelerators over the past five years to to understand if the accelerator model really helps startups in “What the Startup Numbers Say about the Impact of Accelerators”

Veronica Osinski of Trifecta Capital provides a framework for thinking about innovation in eCommerce that can lead to disrupting incumbents in “Part 3: Make Amazon Tremble”

Ed Sim of Boldstart Ventures notes that as the war for SaaS adoption continues, the other battle will be adding an intelligent layer, helping companies actually get work done in “Enterprise Collaboration Wars”

From the Operators

Jessica Chen of TransferWise shares growth-driven company challenges that arise and the importance of taking the time to be deliberate about culture in “Scaling Startup Culture”

Josh Pigford of Baremetrics brings some realness to our collective bubble and encourages startup people to stop surrounding themselves with people and things that are just like them in “The Startup Echo Chamber is Making You Deaf”

Brian Armstrong of Coinbase offers his thoughts on how to think about the different types of CEOs and the three basic jobs of any CEO in “What CEOs Do”

Nir Eyal, author of Hooked describes how to use scapegoating to tackle hard goals and overcome adversity in “How to Achieve Your Goals By Creating an Enemy”

Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist

As required reading for Mattermark employees, I recommend you check out the new third edition of Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson of Foundry Group. It provides entrepreneurs and startup owners with a definitive reference for understanding venture capital funding.