Six for January 30

Welcome to Six for Startups: six reads every week that help startup leaders build great products, great teams, and great companies.

Design Matters

The team at WP Engine did a complete website overhaul and found none of their key metrics changed. Still, Jason Cohen argues that design is important for business outcomes. His point: your level of design polish must align with your overall startup’s identity; your brand. Nobody wants to go to the barber with a bad haircut, but who cares if your house painter has unkempt locks?

The Customizer is Always Right

Anyone who has built B2B software products will at some point encounter the customization trap. Some large client needs a little something extra to make the product work in their environment, and their subscription fees more than justify the expense of building it. But beware the creation of this customization debt, as Rich Mironov calls it. With every feature you ship, you are reducing your team’s capacity to work on new things - they’re now on the hook for maintenance as well.

Nothing Ventured…

It’s always nice when the data supports what you’re feeling in your heart (and in your valuation). AngelList’s State of Venture 2024 data shows all those inflated valuations of the past few years are coming home to roost in the form of startups delaying their next round or even raising down rounds. What’s actionable here: when the market is going wild and someone offers you a giant valuation, make sure you’re thinking ahead to the next round and what your team will need to achieve to raise it.

Department of Decisions

“Just as it’s hard to eat healthily if your kitchen is full of junk food, it’s hard to make good decisions when you’re too busy to think.” Founders have a golden opportunity to build intentional work environments from the ground up; places where people have the space to think and make quality decisions. Shane Parrish gives practical guidance for both you and your team to build environments more conducive to producing the outcomes you need.

Internal Affairs

One of the greatest challenges for startup leaders is balancing optimism and realism. Our aspirations must be visionary and big, but our decisions should be rooted in a sober, probabilistic footing. Three time founder Bob Moore discusses his journey to finding this balance and becoming more intellectually honest with himself and as a leader.

Step by Step

Getting to product-market fit is hard. Most advice on how to do it comes down to trite phrases like “iterate and learn” and “fail fast.” Josh Feuerstein put together a refreshingly simple and powerful staged process you can use to more methodically get to product-market fit.

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Six for Startups is compiled each week by me, Isaac Krasny. I’m a veteran startup product leader, founder, & CPO. I’m currently the product advisor for the GrowthCraft Startup Community and a coach and consultant helping guide founders to product-market fit.