Business: The High Growth Handbook

The High Growth Handbook
Global technology executive, serial entrepreneur, and angel investor Elad Gil has worked with high-growth, tech companies like Airbnb, Twitter, Google, Stripe, and Square as they've grown from small companies to global enterprises.
Across all of these breakout companies, a set of common patterns has evolved into a repeatable playbook that Gil has now codified in High Growth Handbook. In this definitive guide, Gil covers key topics, including:
* the role of the CEO
* managing a board
* recruiting and managing an executive team
* mergers and acquisitions
* initial public offerings
* late-stage funding
Interspersed with and informed by interviews with some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley including Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Marc Andreessen (Andreessen Horowitz), and Aaron Levie (Box), High Growth Handbook presents crystal-clear guidance for navigating the most complex challenges that confront leaders and operators in high-growth startups.
Takeaways
Avoid the three things that kill early-stage companies
Failing to find Product/Market Fit. PMF is much rarer than most people imagine. The best signal is the ability to raise prices repeatedly without losing customers.
Co-founder conflicts. Problems arise when there is a lack of clarity on decision making, product vision, and overlapping founder roles. A startup's main advantage is speed: conflict eliminates the advantage. If you can't work together, one of you should leave.
Running out of cash. Every business will make errors as it develops; cash on hand provides a margin of safety.
Shift from product focus to distribution focus
As companies grow, individual products become less important, and focus has to shift towards the distribution of multiple products. The most successful companies have powerful distribution engines.
About the author
Elad Gil, an entrepreneur, operating executive, and investor or advisor to private companies such as Airbnb, Coinbase, Checkr, Gusto, Instacart, OpenDoor, Pinterest, Square, Stripe, Wish. He is cofounder and chairman at Color Genomics.
Elad was the VP of Corporate Strategy at Twitter, where he also ran product (Geo, Search) and operational teams (M&A and Corporate Development). Elad joined Twitter via the acquisition of MixerLabs, where he was co-founder and CEO.
Elad spent many years at Google, where he started the mobile team-involved in all aspects of getting it up and running. He was involved with three acquisitions (including the Android team) and was the original product manager for Google Mobile Maps. Prior to Google, Elad had product management and market-seeding roles at a number of Silicon Valley companies.
Host rating for 'The High Growth Handbook'
Nico
Rating: 4/10
Sam
Rating: 7/10
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The High Growth Handbook
Global technology executive, serial entrepreneur, and angel investor Elad Gil has worked with high-growth, tech companies like Airbnb, Twitter, Google, Stripe, and Square as they've grown from small companies to global enterprises.
Across all of these breakout companies, a set of common patterns has evolved into a repeatable playbook that Gil has now codified in High Growth Handbook. In this definitive guide, Gil covers key topics, including:
* the role of the CEO
* managing a board
* recruiting and managing an executive team
* mergers and acquisitions
* initial public offerings
* late-stage funding
Interspersed with and informed by interviews with some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley including Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Marc Andreessen (Andreessen Horowitz), and Aaron Levie (Box), High Growth Handbook presents crystal-clear guidance for navigating the most complex challenges that confront leaders and operators in high-growth startups.
Takeaways
Avoid the three things that kill early-stage companies
Failing to find Product/Market Fit. PMF is much rarer than most people imagine. The best signal is the ability to raise prices repeatedly without losing customers.
Co-founder conflicts. Problems arise when there is a lack of clarity on decision making, product vision, and overlapping founder roles. A startup's main advantage is speed: conflict eliminates the advantage. If you can't work together, one of you should leave.
Running out of cash. Every business will make errors as it develops; cash on hand provides a margin of safety.
Shift from product focus to distribution focus
As companies grow, individual products become less important, and focus has to shift towards the distribution of multiple products. The most successful companies have powerful distribution engines.
About the author
Elad Gil, an entrepreneur, operating executive, and investor or advisor to private companies such as Airbnb, Coinbase, Checkr, Gusto, Instacart, OpenDoor, Pinterest, Square, Stripe, Wish. He is cofounder and chairman at Color Genomics.
Elad was the VP of Corporate Strategy at Twitter, where he also ran product (Geo, Search) and operational teams (M&A and Corporate Development). Elad joined Twitter via the acquisition of MixerLabs, where he was co-founder and CEO.
Elad spent many years at Google, where he started the mobile team-involved in all aspects of getting it up and running. He was involved with three acquisitions (including the Android team) and was the original product manager for Google Mobile Maps. Prior to Google, Elad had product management and market-seeding roles at a number of Silicon Valley companies.
Host rating for 'The High Growth Handbook'
Nico
Rating: 4/10
Sam
Rating: 7/10
Subscribe!
If you enjoyed the podcast please subscribe and rate it. And of course, share with your friends!

See reason.fm/privacy-policy for privacy and opt-out information.

See reason.fm/privacy-policy for privacy and opt-out information.