In Depth
Welcome to In Depth, a podcast from The First Round Review that’s dedicated to surfacing the tactical advice founders and startup leaders need to grow their teams, their companies and themselves. Hosted by Brett Berson, a partner at First Round, In Depth will cover a lot of ground and a wide range of topics, from hiring executives and becoming a better manager, to the importance of storytelling inside of your organization. But every interview will hit the level of tactical depth where the very best advice is found. We hope you’ll join us. Subscribe to “In Depth” now and learn more at firstround.com
76
How to pull off the ‘zoom-in pivot,’ and other ...
Kesava Kirupa Dinakaran is the co-founder and CEO of Luminai, an early-stage software startup that automates workflows by taking any multi-click process and making it one click. Formerly a world-renowned Rubik’s Cube champion and a back-to-back corporate Hackathon winner, Dinakaran shares nuggets of wisdom from his personal journey to tech and Luminai’s path to finding product-market fit for other founders.
57 min
77
The go-to-market guide for open-source compani...
Douglas Hanna, Chief Operating Officer at Grafana Labs, explores the nuances of building and scaling revenue at an open-source company.
63 min
78
What this 3-time founding team did differently ...
Jessica McKellar is the co-founder and CTO of Pilot, the largest accounting firm for startups. She’s also a three-time founder, all working with the same group of co-founders. McKellar shares the most valuable lessons the founding team has learned about smoothing your path to product-market fit by choosing the right market.
54 min
79
How to measure product-market fit with the REV ...
Artem Kroupenev, VP of Strategy at Augury, shares by-the-book frameworks for how his company measures product-market fit in the complex field of industrial equipment.
53 min
80
The early user research playbook for founders —...
User research expert Jeanette Mellinger shares her three-step process to high-quality user research, with tailored advice for founders in the early days of validating a startup idea.
71 min
81
Claire Hughes Johnson on being a “learning orga...
Claire Hughes Johnson spent seven years as the COO of Stripe, overseeing rapid growth as the company scaled from under 200 employees to over 7,000. She takes us behind the scenes at some of the most pivotal moments in her own life and career that catapulted her into the deeply curious leader she is today.
74 min
82
Notion’s Head of Marketing on building a growth...
Rachel Hepworth, Head of Marketing at Notion and formerly Slack’s first growth marketing hire, shares her high-level frameworks for bringing marketing process and analytical structure to PLG companies.
52 min
83
What makes someone a truly remarkable talent ev...
Nadia Singer, Chief People Officer at Figma, shares why she believes anyone can become a skilled talent evaluator, her best interview questions and how Figma leverages transparency across the org.
48 min
84
How Vanta’s founder bet big on startup security...
Christina Cacioppo is the co-founder and CEO of Vanta. She pulls back the curtain on some of the security company’s more unconventional moves on the path to product-market fit, like waiting until they acquired hundreds of customers before building a website and operating at cash flow break-even for years before raising its Series A.
46 min
85
Lessons from Notion on building a thriving dece...
Ben Lang, Head of Community at Notion, shares his playbook for how to tap into your product evangelists and build a powerful community that grows from dozens to millions.
43 min
86
From a narrow ICP to a wide-open market – Lesso...
Bryant Chou is the co-founder of Webflow. He goes back to the early days of ideating on and building Webflow, walking us through how the co-founders formed their hypothesis around Webflow’s ICP, its viral launch on Hacker News, keeping a startup afloat with dwindling capital and the lessons in customer empathy that stick with him.
55 min
87
How to lead with transparency amidst adversity ...
Before taking over the helm of CrossFit as its new CEO, Don Faul’s leadership experience included an 8-year stint as a U.S. Marine Corps platoon commander and executive roles at Pinterest, Meta and Google. Here, he unpacks the leadership principles that have carried him through vastly different operating environments.
68 min
88
From kickoffs to retros and Slack channels — St...
Former Stripe and Figma leader and founder of The Kool-Aid Factory Brie Wolfson takes us behind the scenes at how company cultures evolve over time, from operating principles to documentation and rituals.
52 min
89
Why comms deserves its own spot on the exec tea...
Former Square exec Aaron Zamost on why comms belongs on the leadership team, why you shouldn’t hire a PR agency, and how to handle internal comms.
64 min
90
What founders need to know about acquisitions: ...
Daniel Debow, VP of Product for Demand at Shopify and a three-time founder. He shares his playbook for how founders should navigate an acquisition.
62 min
91
How to build your culture like a product — Less...
Anna Binder is the Head of People at Asana, joining the company back in 2016 as its first HR executive. She shares her advice from helping weave the culture at Asana, from getting comfortable with feedback to maintaining a healthy exec team.
63 min
92
How to scale your career alongside your startup...
Mike Boufford wrote Greenhouse’s first line of code in 2012 and he’s still CTO today. His advice for growing and getting more strategic as a leader.
60 min
93
Founders: Here’s how to get your sales pitch in...
Peter Kazanjy is the co-founder of Atrium and the author of “Founding Sales: The Early Stage Go-To-Market Handbook.” He shares advice for getting in front of customers and nailing your pitch in the early days.
58 min
94
Deepak Rao on how X1 pivoted, launched, built a...
Deepak Rao shares the dramatic story of how X1 pivoted during the pandemic and found product-market fit with a bold launch strategy.
56 min
95
How to lower barriers to change when building a...
Wharton professor and author Jonah Berger on overcoming barriers to change when building breakthrough products, convincing customers or leading teams.
56 min
96
How Retool reached $2M in ARR before launch by ...
David Hsu is the founder and CEO of Retool, a low-code platform for developers building custom internal tools. He goes back to the early days of ideating on and building Retool, from going against the grain with his product idea, finding language/market fit, and signing on early customers in the Fortune 500.
55 min
97
How to approach GTM with an engineering lens — ...
Rich Rao is the VP, Small Business Group at Meta and former GM at Google. He uses his technical background to explain how leaders can apply an engineer’s playbook to their go-to-market strategy.
58 min
98
What startups can learn from enterprise corpora...
Sara Varni is the CMO of Attentive. She shares her biggest lessons from her marketing leadership career at Salesforce and Twilio, and what startups should know about crafting a corporate message that resonates.
49 min
99
Finding product-market fit twice — Alma’s Harry...
Founder Harry Ritter dives into Alma’s journey to product-market fit, with advice on rallying through tough pivots and building as a solo founder.
47 min
100
Why everything we’ve been taught about quitting...
Annie Duke is First Round’s Special Partner of Decision Science. On the heels of releasing her new book, “Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away,” she dives into all of our misconceptions about quitting and makes the case that getting better at this skill lays the groundwork for greater success.
72 min