Answers to your questions about starting and building companies. Hosts: @sbyrnes, @ashrust, @nicmeliones. x4 startup exits. Invested and coached 1,000+ others.
Bay Area
Joined December 2021
- Tweets755
- Following6
- Followers70
- Likes13
"That is not a goal. That was not an achievement. That was a means to an end. I don't want to hear about it."
@sbyrnes on the investor update line that tells you a team has lost the plot.
Report outcomes, progress, milestones, and obstacles.
EP58 has more.
Should a new tool pay off immediately? 🤔
@sbyrnes says yes. Direct returns, not a six-to-nine-month story.
If someone is running the theater of setting things up the way they did at their last big company, it isn't working and it isn't worth it.
EP58 has more.
On our three most recent episodes, @sbyrnes @AshRust and @nicmeliones discussed:
🎯 EP56: Great Product Strategy
🧗 EP57: Promotions
💸 EP58: Spending Your Startup's Money
Tune in wherever you listen to podcasts!
Every dollar you spend is a bet on speed.
In EP58, we answer founders' questions about how to spend their startup's money.
@nicmeliones explains: You raised venture capital to move faster than the people trying to beat you.
EP58 has more 🎯
"We've not had any overspend on laptops. We've not had anybody overspend on food or overspend on events."
@AshRust, on 100+ investments and where the money actually goes wrong.
It's a team that got too big, or server costs that ran out of control.
EP58 has more.
How should you spend your startup's money?
EP58 is live!
@sbyrnes, @AshRust, and @nicmeliones answer your questions on:
💸 Resetting spending habits after a raise
🤖 Whether your AI tools are earning the expense
📋 Writing an expense policy
Available now 🔥
Before you invent a role to keep someone, ask:
✓ Does this job solve a real company problem?
✓ Would we hire for it if this person weren't here?
✓ Is it a fit, or a favor?
@nicmeliones on architecting jobs instead of forcing them. EP57 🔥
"They think the only path forward is managing a team, and they get miserable, and everybody gets miserable, and nobody wins."
@sbyrnes explains the limits of career ladders with only one way up.
High-performing teams need career ladders with multiple paths.
EP57 has more.
On our three most recent episodes, @sbyrnes @AshRust and @nicmeliones discussed:
🦄 EP55: How VCs Invest
🎯 EP56: Great Product Strategy
🧗 EP57: Promotions
Tune in wherever you listen to podcasts!
People don't get left behind because they got worse.
They get left behind because they stayed good at a job that stopped existing. The company grew up around them.
@sbyrnes explains why that's a different problem with a different fix.
EP57 🎯
"How do you make being an individual contributor feel just as cool as being the boss?"
@nicmeliones calls this a completely untapped channel for career advancement.
Talent can grow in two directions.
EP57 is out now 🚀
In each 20-minute episode we pack in 3 founder-submitted questions about startups.
We have discussed:
🧗 Promotions
🎯 Product Strategy
🦄 How VCs Invest
🚀 Secrets to Faster Growth
⭐ Building Teams
🤝 Co-Founders
+ more
Tag us or submit online to share your questions!
Your best salespeople will break your commission structure.
That's why you hired them.
@AshRust explains how fast-growing companies keep closers closing: they don't cap the upside.
EP57 Promotions has more.
Promotions feel like rewards for past work.
They're bets on future performance.
Two completely different decisions. And only one of them is about the job you're actually trying to fill.
@nicmeliones explains the promotion trap in EP57 🎯
"Send them on a management training course. It is one of the most boring five-day experiences you can ever have as an adult."
@AshRust shares step 1 of testing an ambitious individual contributor's resolve to become a manager.
EP57 has the full details!
"If you start making decisions because you're afraid of people leaving, you're essentially letting the team run the company."
@sbyrnes on promoting under pressure.
Promote whoever does the job best. If the other one walks, you deal with it.
EP57 has more.
How Do I Handle Promotions?
EP57 is live!
@sbyrnes, @AshRust, and @nicmeliones answer your questions on:
🧗 Moving a great IC into management
📉 The employee who stops scaling
⚔️ Two great people, one open role
Available now 🔥
"Building a winning team" – one of the most exciting and challenging parts of growing your startup.
In EP53, @sbyrnes, @AshRust, and @nicmeliones discuss:
• How many direct reports is too many?
• The right time to hire a VP of Sales?
• Do you actually need Product Managers?
Founders own sales until the engine works. Hire a VP to run the team better than you, once you have:
✅ Clear ICP
✅ Founder-led deals
✅ Repeatable process
@sbyrnes @AshRust and @nicmeliones discuss hiring a sales leader in EP53.
Available wherever you listen to podcasts.