3/ Identify market leaders
When joining a company, ask yourself:
"Can this company become the #1 player in its segment?"
The brand halo and talent network that you get from market leaders (and future market leaders) is unrivaled.
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4/ Find a company that's best in class
A company can achieve greatness in different ways:
Google: Technical
Doordash: Operations
Before you join, ask yourself:
1. What's the company best in class in?
2. How is the product 10x better than competitors in the areas that matter?
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5/ How to hire great leaders
1. Identify best in class companies for the target function and customer (e.g., Square for SMB marketing)
2. Reach out to people who report to the company's leaders (e.g., report to Square's head of marketing)
More here:
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0. Startup CEOs: if you want to hire the leader for a particular function, follow this playbook.
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6/ How much time to spend hiring
Always be hiring.
If you're a founder or leader at an early stage company:
1. Come up with the right hiring process
2. Spend about 2 hours a day hiring:
a) One hour reaching out to people
b) One hour doing calls
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7/ How to hire your first PM
The right time to hire your first PM is when your company has 8-10 engineers.
In fact, it's better to transition someone internally to be the first PM - ideally someone that the founders and engineers already trust.
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8/ How to know if your PM is doing well
1. Ask the engineers - they're usually blunt
2. Can you give the PM an ambiguous problem and have them figure it out? (e.g., improve user acquisition vs. do X)
3. Do the features actually change customer behavior after being shipped?
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9/ Don't give out senior titles
Be careful giving out senior titles (director, VP) too early.
"Lead" and "head of" titles are OK because it describes what people actually do.
More here:
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Founders: please don’t give a VP title to anyone before you get to 100 people. I’ve lost count of how many founders I counsel on how to “deal with” VPs that they hired too early. medium.com/@gokulrajaram/
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10/ For angel investing, invest in founders first vs. the market
Great founders are people who can:
1. Pivot or create new markets
2. Live and breathe the problem space vs. only looking to chase the latest trend
3. Hire talent even without a brand
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11/ How to get into angel investing
Bottom line, you need to answer:
"What's the unique value that you can add to these companies?"
To get deal flow, you can:
1. Build your personal brand
2. Talk to your colleagues and other angel investors
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12/ One last piece of advice from :
You have to transcend the companies that you work for.
If your identity is worker drone at company X, that's not enough.
Your career opens up when you're a known expert in a domain or function, even if it's something niche.
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Great minds. I did a similar thread but with far less engagement!
If you ever want to contribute to the Podup community with 🔥 roundups like this, then let me know
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I’ve found my new man crush
Before this episode, I’d never heard of @gokulr. Apparently, he’s a big deal
He’s on the board of @coinbase and @Pinterest and is on the Executive team at @DoorDash
Here are my two favourite insights from Gokul’s time on Lenny’s Pod 
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