growth.eladgil.comHigh Growth Handbook – Essential CEO Strategies for Success

Primary Menu High Growth Handbook About the Author How to use this book Interviews Introduction Welcome to the High Growth Handbook An Interview with MARC ANDREESSEN Chapter 1: The Role of the CEO The role of the CEO: managing yourself Personal time management Delegate Audit your calendar weekly, then monthly Learn to say no Realize your old patterns of work can no longer apply Take vacationstime off Work on things you care about The role of the CEO: managing your reports An interview with CLAIRE HUGHES JOHNSON Insights: Working with Claire The changing cofounder dynamic Chapter 2: Managing the board Hiring” Your Board of Directors Choosing a VC Partner who is right for your board Choosing an Independent Board Member The chairman of the board Board diversity Ways to source diverse board candidates Board evolution over time Removing members from your board Removing VC Board members Removing independent board members Independent board seat structures An interview with REID HOFFMAN The role of the CEO: Managing your board of directors Board meeting structure Board meeting agenda Board observers and random people showing up to board meetings Other board interactions An interview with NAVAL RAVIKANT (part 1) Chapter 3: Recruiting, hiring, and managing talent Recruiting best practices Write a job description for every role Ask every candidate the same questions Assign focus areas to interviewers prior to the interview Work product interviews Candidate scoring Move fast Check candidates’ references Diverse candidates Scaling a recruiting organization Early days: your team as recruiters Initial scaling: the in-house recruiter High-growth: multiple recruiting org roles Executive hires: retained recruiter Employee onboarding Send out a welcome letter Buddy system Welcome package Make sure they have real ownership Set goals Old-timer syndromeearly employees Early employees that scale Old-timers that should move on An interview with SAM ALTMAN Chapter 4: Building the executive team Hiring executives Hire for the next 12–18 months Traits to look for in executives Define the rolemeet with people who do it well Know that you will screw it up once or twice An interview with KEITH RABOIS (Part 1) Do you need a COO? Why a COO? Why not a COO? How do you choose a COO? An interview with AARON LEVIE Executive titles and pragmatism Firing executives How to hire great business development people Great business development people Bad business development people How to screen for a great business development person A great deal person is not usually a great partner manager An interview with MARIAM NAFICY Chapter 5: Organizational structure and hypergrowth Organizational growth is all about pragmatism If you are growing fast, you have a different company every 6–12 months There is no right answer” Sometimes bandwidth matters more than perfect fit. Org structure is often about tie-breaking. Hire executives for the next 12–18 months, not eternity. Doing a re-organization Re-orgs at the company level and the functional level How to do a re-org An interview with RUCHI SANGHVI Company culture and its evolution Never, ever compromise: hiring for culture Bad culture leads to pain How to build a strong culture Hiring for culturevalues An interview with PATRICK COLLISON Diversity hiring An interview with JOELLE EMERSON Managing in a downturn Chapter 6: Marketing and PR Marketing, PR, communications, growth and your brand Growth marketing Product marketing Brand marketing PR and communications Hiring marketing and PR teams Marketing organization structure To PR or not PR An interview with SHANNON STUBO BRAYTON PR Basics Get media trained Iterate on the company pitch On background” versus off the record” versus on the record” Correcting factual errors Press agendas Hiring great PR people Press relationship building Engage PR early Press does not equal success PRcrisis management An interview with ERIN FORS Chapter 7: Product Management Product management overview What do product managers do? Do you have the right people? Characteristics of great product managers The four types of product managers Not a product manager: project managers. Associate product managers (APMs)/rotational product managers (RPMs) Interviewing PMs Reference-check all your product hires Product, design, an engineering: How they fit together Hiring a strong VP product Empowering the VP Product Product management processes Product management conversion and training Product to distribution mindset Chapter 8: Financing and valuation Money money money Late-stage financing: who should you be talking to? Types of late-stage investors How to evaluate late-stage funding sources Key terms One word of caution Don’t over-optimize your valuation Founder pressure Secondary stock sales $500 million tends to be a transition point Founder sales If you do not regulate secondary sales early, it may backfire on you Types of secondary sales Information sharing and secondary buyers How much stock should employees be able to sell? Investor sales: An opportunity to renegotiate Locking up future sales 409A and RSUs Moving to RSUs The secondary stock sale: The employee perspective IPOs: Taking a company public Benefits of going public Cons of going public Market cycles IPO process An interview with KEITH RABOIS (part 2) An interview with NAVAL RAVIKANT (part 2) Chapter 9: Mergersacquisitions MA: Buying other companies When should you start to buy other companies? Three types of acquisitions MA road map Managing internal stakeholders Dealing with objections MA interview processes MA: How to set a valuation for companies you buy Valuation factors to assess for all three types of MA Team buys or acqui-hires Product buys Strategic buys MA: Convincing someone (and their major investors) to sell Convincing people to sell: teamproduct buys Convincing founders to sell: strategic buys MA: Negotiate the acquisition Negotiate the sale: strategic asset An interview with HEMANT TANEJA Things to just say no to Extra Resources Buy Now High Growth Handbook By Elad Gil Twitter / Blog Every high-growth company eventually needs to tackle thet same set of challenges around organizational structure, late-stage funding and secondary stock sales, culture, internationalization, hiring executive for roles the founders don’t understand, buying other companies, and more. This is the handbook for navigating those challenges. Buy Now Elad Gil is a serial entrepreneur, operating exectuitive, and investor or advisor to private companies including AirBnB, Pinterest, Square, Stripe. He was previously the VP of Corporate Strategy at Twitter and is currently working on a new company, Color. Praise for High Growth Handbook Elad Gil is one of Silicon Valley’s seriously knowledgeable and battle-tested players. If you want the chance to turn your start-up into the next Google or Twitter, then read this trenchant guide from someone who played key roles in the growth of these companies.” - Reid Hoffman Co-founder of LinkedIn This book is packed with key frameworks for building your company, as well as inside knowledge gleaned from helping some of the most important new companies in tech. I have benefited from Elad’s advice at Instacart and this book codifies many of those learnings in book form.” - Apoorva Mehta Co-founder and CEO of Instacart Elad eschews trite management aphorisms in favor of pragmatic and straight-shooting insights on complex topics like managing a board of directors, executing functional re-organizations with as little trauma as possible, and everything in-between.” - Dick Costolo Former CEO of Twitter and serial entrepreneur Armed with observations gathered scaling some of the most successful and important companies of Silicon Valley, Elad has no-nonsense, highly applicable advice to any operator transitioning a company from the proverbial garage...