High Growth Handbook – by Elad Gil
Date read: 3/21/20. Recommendation: 9/10.
There are tons of resources out there for starting a company, but this book is a resource for scaling one. Gil focuses on tactical advice for scaling a company from ten employees to thousands. He emphasizes that the advice is meant to be painfully tactical in order to avoid the platitudes from investors who have never run or scaled their own company. This book is most valuable for founders, executives, and employees who are facing hypergrowth and scaling for the first time. Gil covers everything from the role of the CEO and managing the board to recruiting, organizational structure, product management, financing, and valuation. An incredible resource filled with dozens of relevant interviews with leaders who have real experience scaling great teams and products.
See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.
My Notes:
Focuses on tactical advice for scaling a company from 10-20 employees to thousands. Tons of resources on starting a company, this is a book that serves as a resource for scaling one.
Most valuable for founders, CEOs, and employees who are facing hypergrowth and scaling for the first time.
Skin in the game: “The advice presented here is meant to be painfully tactical and to avoid the platitudes you will get from investors who have never run or scaled a company.” EG
Distribution matters:
It’s a myth that most successful tech companies are product-centric. In fact, most are distribution-centric. Startups with better products get beaten by companies with better distribution channels.
“Since focusing on product is what caused initial success, founders of breakout companies often think product development is their primary competency and asset. In reality, the distribution channel and customer base derived from their first product is now one of the biggest go-forward advantages and differentiators the company has.” EG
Viability:
Tactics to stay viable = product iteration, distribution, mergers and acquisitions, moats (defensibility).
Moats + Pricing:
“The definition of a moat is the ability to charge more.” Marc Andreessen
“Charging more is a key lever to be able to grow. And the companies that charge more therefore tend to grow faster.” Marc Andreessen
If you charge more you can allocate more to both distribution efforts and R&D.
Higher prices = faster growth.
Product:
“Give me a great product picker and a great architect, and I’ll give you a great product.” Marc Andreessen
Product picker/manager/originator = people who can actually conceptualize new products. Great architects = people who can actually build it.
“Great product management organizations help set product vision and road maps, establish goals and strategy, and drive execution on each product throughout its lifecycle.” EG
“Bad product management organizations, in contrast, largely function as project management groups, running schedules and tidying up documents for engineers.” EG
Product managers are responsible for:
Product strategy and vision (reflect the voice of the customer)
Product prioritization and problem solving
Execution (timelines, resources, and removal of obstacles)
Communication and coordination
Characteristics of great product managers:
Product taste
Ability to prioritize
Ability to execute
Strategic sensibilities (how is the industry landscape evolving?)
Top 10% communication skills
Metrics and data-driven approach
Interviewing PMs:
Product insights
Contributions to past successful products
Prioritization
Communication and team conflicts
Metrics and data
Product Management Processes:
PRD templates and product roadmaps: Build agreement and clarity on what you are building. What are the requirements for the product itself? Who are you building this for? What use cases does the product meet? What does it solve for and explicitly not solve for? What are the main features and what does the product do? What are the main product dependencies? A PRD may include wireframe that roughly sketch out the product user journey.
Product reviews
Launch process and calendar
Retrospectives
Small, self-sufficient teams:
“There are exceptions, but in most cases, you need original thinking and speed of execution, and it’s really hard to get that in anything other than a small-team format.” Marc Andreessen
Design: Usability, how do we design this? Create the optimal user experience.
Engineering: Feasibility, how can we build this? How can technical road map drive product and vice versa.
Product: Viability, should we build this? Set product vision and road map to ensure the company builds a product that the user needs. Make trade-offs between design, engineering, and business concerns.
Traits to look for in executives:
Functional area expertise: Do they understand the major issues and common failure points for their functions?
Ability to build and manage a team in those functional areas: Do they know how to motivate people in their functions?
Collegiality: Do they do what’s right for the company even if it’s not in their best interest? Create mutually supportive environment.
Strong communication skills: Do they have cross-functional empathy?
Owner mentality: Do they take ownership of their functions and make sure they are running smoothly and effectively?
Smarts and strategic thinking skills: Do they think strategically and holistically about their functions? Are they first principle thinkers? Can they apply their expertise in knowledge in the context of your company, team, and product? Or do they just try to implement exactly what they did in their last role?
External hires: “The way to retain people who are performing and who you really want to retain is to hire someone that they can learn from.” Keith Rabois
Flagship offices in the era of remote work:
Onboarding at headquarters helps to build initial connections and creates significant long-term value.
With remote teams, create a great teleconferencing setup and consider the timing of your key meetings.
Who to emulate?
“I think people should select carefully the companies they seek to emulate and learn lessons from.” Patrick Collison
With great software companies in China (JD, Tencent, Alibaba), there’s a lack of entitlement, complacency, and a determination that there’s a void of in Silicon Valley.
Interviewing (to remove unconscious bias):
Articulate the relevant qualifications for every role.
Designing specific questions to assess for each qualification.
Limiting the domains that each interviewer has to assess. Don’t go in and try to decide “Should we hire this person?” What you want to focus on is, “Does this person meet what we need on these two things?” When you’re trying to assess people on five different areas, it’s really hard, and you start to take shortcuts/allow biases to factor in.
Create rubrics to help interviewers evaluate answers to the questions that they’re asking.