Vindhya C

Vindhya C

Always looking for learning opportunities in product and life.

Interesting Reads

I gather articles that grab my attention. Send me something I should read.

Growth

  1. A guide to growing your user base and revenues with lean marketing
  2. KG Growth Hacks_Dialflow
  3. Find out why 3000+ Growth Teams use GrowthHackers Experiments
  4. Growth Hacking Techniques: A boot-strappers guide to turning $2000 into $2,000,000 in sales in 4 months.
  5. Many people say referral marketing programs are effective. Why do very few people have one?
  6. What are the do’s and dont’s of referral/invite programs?
  7. An Epic List of 80 Killer Referral Program Examples [+Ideas You Can Steal]
  8. What were the most interesting takeaways from the Growth Hackers Conference held on October 26th, 2012?
  9. Startup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR!
  10. How can I generate website traffic with $0 marketing budget?
  11. 8 Way to Increase Customer Referral Program Participation
  12. Science of Growth: A Catalyzing Event to Accelerate Growth
  13. How 9 SaaS Companies Hacked Their Growth
  14. 35 Growth Hacking Tools for Marketers Who Don’t Code
  15. Meaningful growth vs metric manipulation

Product

  1. Your LTV Math is Wrong
  2. OpenTable’s CEO on How to Dodge Company Breakdown as You Scale
  3. CEO Advice from a New CEO
  4. All Revenue is Not Created Equal: The Keys to the 10X Revenue Club
  5. Take on Your Competition with These Lessons from Google Maps
  6. Square Defangs Difficult Decisions with this System — Here’s How
  7. Retroactively Bundled
  8. Scale-up Leadership Lessons I’ve Learned Over 9 Years as HubSpot’s CEO
  9. Guide: Set goals with OKRs
  10. Transitioning to meta-management
  11. Above the Crowd
  12. Product Roadmap
  13. How to Train Your Human: Designing for Healthier Habits
  14. 10 Necessary Traits of PMs that Can’t be Taught
  15. Are You Managing Your Manager?
  16. Steve Blank
  17. How to Spot and Magnify the Powers of Your Engineering Superheroes
  18. Elided Branches
  19. The 4 Qualities of a Great Product Manager
  20. Operator’s Manual
  21. 26 Resources to Help You Master Customer Development Interviews
  22. Methodology
  23. 79 Articles and Books that will Make you a Great Product Manager
  24. Get One Thing Right
  25. The Elements of Stickers
  26. Using ‘Inflection Points’ to Overcome Fintech Startup Distribution Challenges
  27. Hunting What’s Next in High Tech
  28. All about Network Effects
  29. Sachin Rekhi
  30. The first rule of prioritization: No snacking
  31. Conducting User Research to Grow A Business: Our Method and Questions
  32. How Zendesk onboards new users
  33. Focus on These 8 Things to Build Better Products
  34. What You Can Do to Simplify Your Products
  35. Design in the age of entanglement

Marketing and Sales

  1. Will Your Hardware Startup Make Money?
  2. Features Tell, but Benefits Sell
  3. Extensive Notes from SalesConf
  4. Here are the Scripts for Sales Success — Emails, Calls and Demos That Close Deals
  5. 5 Key Elements of Pitching a Memorable Startup Story
  6. Content is Eating the World — Contently’s CEO on Winning at Marketing’s New Hotness
  7. Control, or Be Controlled: Sales Forecasting Done Right
  8. The Zero B.S. Method To Recruiting A Killer Sales Force
  9. Sales Compensation: Beware, You Get What You Ask for
  10. The Three Frameworks You Need to Kick-start Sales
  11. The essential go to market for beating your SaaS startup’s growth targets
  12. How To Run A High Performing Growth Marketing Team - Reporting, Management & Structure
  13. Learnings from “Running Inside Sales for US, from India”
  14. Looking to Scale Your Sales? Seven Bullets to Dodge
  15. The Price is Right: Essential Tips for Nailing Your Pricing Strategy
  16. The Most Surefire Way I’ve Found to Win Enterprise Deals
  17. The Greatest Sales Deck I’ve Ever Seen
  18. Getting Press for Your Startup
  19. MBA Mondays: Revenue Models
  20. A curated directory of editorial newsletters
  21. The Three Main Elements of Building a Repeatable Sales Process
  22. The Three-Hour Brand Sprint
  23. ClassPass’ CMO on How and When to Invest in Product Marketing
  24. Leslie’s Compass: A Framework For Go-To-Market Strategy
  25. Credit Karma’s CEO Built a Sexy Brand in an Unsexy Category with No PR Firm and a Tiny Budget — Here’s How
  26. This Sales Plan Moves the Needle on Every Success Metric
  27. Our 6 Must Reads On Pricing a Product

Startups

  1. 16 Things to Get IPO Ready (or Just Build a Really Strong Business)
  2. 8 + 2 tips for startup and scaleup financial models… 
  3. A Field Guide to Identifying and Integrating Independent Board Members
  4. eShares is now Carta
  5. Fighting Factions: How Startups Can Scale Without Mutiny
  6. Lessons Learned from Bill Gross’ 35 IPOs/Exits and 40 Failures
  7. Make Operations Your Secret Weapon - Here’s How
  8. My 5-100-500 rule to close your seed round
  9. Snag the Best Advisors for Your Startup, from Best-selling Authors to Fortune 500 CEOs
  10. Splitting Equity Among Founders
  11. Startup Pitch Decks
  12. Take care of your team on payday and every day.
  13. The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint
  14. The Management Framework that Propelled LinkedIn to a $20 Billion Company
  15. Unsupported Browser
  16. When Fear Is a Competitive Advantage — 4 Steps to Make It Work for You
  17. Why Startups Should Raise Money at the Top End of Normal
  18. Within 3 years 92% of startups fail.

Venture Capital

  1. 16 Definitions on the Economics of VC
  2. 500 Startups
  3. A Guide to Seed Fundraising
  4. A(Junior)VC
  5. Angel Investing (1): Dealflow — Are You Sitting at The Right Poker Table?
  6. Bridging a Gap Using a Convertible Note
  7. Cap Table & Exit Waterfall Tool
  8. Congratulations To The YC Summer 2015 Class
  9. Does the Size of a VC Fund Matter?
  10. Elad Blog
  11. Every seed stage founder should send monthly investor updates.
  12. Everything You’ve Ever Wanted To Know About VC Returns (But Were Afraid to Ask)
  13. Financial Modeling for Startups
  14. Fund Structures for Angel Funds and Early Stage/Seed Venture Funds
  15. Get offers from
  16. How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions?
  17. How Startup Options (and Ownership) Works
  18. How the Top VCs Want to Be Pitched
  19. How To Be A VC Without Any Capital
  20. How Venture Capital Works
  21. Musings on Markets
  22. Not All Software M&A Is Created Equal
  23. On Joining Venrock & The Secret To a Good Career Pivot
  24. Raising Venture Capital - Pitching a VC
  25. Reaction Wheel - Power laws in venture
  26. Recommendations for Startup Employee Option Plans
  27. Required Reading for Aspiring VCs
  28. Role Descriptions in Venture Capital (VC)
  29. Sam Altman - Employee Equity
  30. Seed Stage Valuation Guide
  31. SeriesSeed.com
  32. Standardized Venture Funding Docs
  33. Startup financing options – equity vs debt vs convertibles
  34. Term Sheet: Liquidation Preference
  35. The Angel VC - Good VCs vs Bad VCs
  36. The Beginner’s Guide To VC
  37. The Crunchbase Unicorn Leaderboard
  38. The Deal on the Table
  39. The Disappearing Act (aka The Worst Way of Saying No)
  40. The Lack of Options for (Startup Employees’) Options
  41. The Secret to Making Board Meetings Suck Less
  42. The Top 44 Most Active Angel Investors Of India For Startups (2018 Updated)
  43. To Acquire a Unicorn: A Waterfall Analysis of Lyft’s (Inevitable) Sale
  44. Top 47 Most Active Venture Capital Firms In India For Startups
  45. Unicorns vs. Donkeys: Your Handy Guide to Distinguishing Who’s Who
  46. Valuation 101 – for startups looking to raise their first round
  47. Venture Capital Funds - How the Math Works
  48. Venture Hacks - Option Pool Shuffle
  49. Venture Hacks - Seed Valuation
  50. Want to Know How VC’s Calculate Valuation Differently from Founders?
  51. What Angel Investing & Florida Condos Have in Common
  52. What are the key parameters that can help startups raise funding at different stages
  53. What is the Definition of a Seed Round or an A Round?
  54. When Is a “Mark” Not a Mark? When It’s a Venture Capital Mark “1. Why IRR Is The Most Important VC Performance Metric (That’s Also Nearly Impossible To Use)”
  55. Within 3 years 92% of startups fail.
  56. YC List

SEO/Content Marketing

  1. 14 Examples of Truly “Epic” Content: How Does Yours Stack Up?
  2. 32 #BrightonSEO 2015 Slide Decks
  3. 7 Smart Ways to Combine Content Marketing with SEO for More Qualified Search Traffic
  4. 70 Inbound Marketing Checklists
  5. BlackHatWorld
  6. How to Create an Actionable KPI Dashboard to Save Time & Manage Your SEO Better
  7. How to Recover From Any Google Penalty
  8. How User Behavior Affects SEO
  9. Link Building Case Study: How I Increased My Search Traffic by 110% in 14 Days
  10. Link Building Strategies: The Complete List
  11. Making Strategic Decisions About Difficult-To-Get Backlinks
  12. Page Speed
  13. Questions to ask before starting user research
  14. SEO considerations when moving from HTTP to HTTPS
  15. Site Speed is (Still) Impacting Your Conversion Rate
  16. Steps to a Google-friendly site
  17. The Complete SEO Checklist For 2020
  18. The Most Actionable SEO Tips Ever
  19. The Periodic Table of SEO Factors
  20. The SEO Tips That Helped Tally 20 Million Visits A Month
  21. TripAdvisor’s Unfair Email Marketing Advantage
  22. You Just Published a Blog Post. Here Are the 14 Things You Need to Do Next.

HR/Culture

  1. 8 Ideas for Making Your Onboarding Process More Efficient
  2. Employee Onboarding at Startups Is Broken – Here’s How to Fix It
  3. Facebook’s VP of Tech Communications on Building a Bulletproof Comms Strategy
  4. Start Traditions That Won’t Last
  5. The Anatomy of the Perfect Technical Interview from a Former Amazon VP
  6. The Best Approach to the Worst Conversation: “You’re Fired”
  7. The Best Hires Are Right Under Your Nose - Use This System to Never Miss Them Again
  8. The Maybe Pile
  9. The Only Onboarding Timeline You’ll Need: From Offer to First Friday
  10. The science of building a scalable sales team
  11. This is How Coursera Competes Against Google and Facebook for the Best Talent
  12. What Scott Cook Wished He Knew About Being a CEO When He Founded Intuit
  13. Why Every Company Needs a Dream Manager