The Daily Index — Wednesday, August 23, 2023 · TLDR Index

HEADLINES & TRENDS

TLDR Founders

TLDR Founders

WHY DO INVESTORS CARE SO MUCH ABOUT LTV:CAC?

Your CAC is a reflection of your sales and marketing spend to acquire a new user. The higher your LTV:CAC ratio, the more efficient that spending is. The more efficient it is, the more capital you’ll have to fund research and development to improve your product and continuously increase the LTV of your users. It’s a flywheel, and investors use this to directly value your company’s future potential.

a16z.com · 5 min

TLDR Founders

AUTOMATING CREATIVITY

Wharton staged an idea-generation contest, pitting AI against a group of students. Human judges assessed idea quality. Of the 40 best ideas, 35 were created by ChatGPT. Oh boy. Thankfully, two other papers covered in this article mention that humans using AI tools can create even more powerful outcomes.

oneusefulthing.org · 6 min

TLDR Founders

THE PERILS OF CUSTOMER SELECTION

Finding your first customers is a combination between intuition and strategy. Your customers dictate your trajectory. Great logos influence how others perceive you and they also dictate how you build your product and price it. If you choose the right customers early on (and they choose you!), it’ll act as a force multiplier to your success.

akashbajwa.substack.com · 7 min

TLDR Founders

STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS AS A CEO

There’s no clear formal education that prepares you to be a CEO. Embrace a mindset of constant learning, seek support from fellow founders, assemble a strong team, prioritize self-care, and appreciate the unique opportunity to build something from scratch.

markmacleod.me · 2 min

TLDR Founders

THE B2B SAAS GOLDEN QUADRANT

High-velocity sales motions aim for efficiency and quick returns, with shorter sales cycles and lower average deal sizes. On the other hand, enterprise field sales motions involve longer lead times and costly sales reps, resulting in higher net dollar retention rates. The ideal approach would combine the best of both strategies.

mostlymetrics.com · 4 min

TLDR Founders

12 RESPONSE TEMPLATES FOR TRICKY CUSTOMER SERVICE EMAILS

Something something Pareto principle. How you efficiently handle tricky customers will enable you to spend more time on your best customers. Here’s a series of templates to tackle common customer escalations.

helpscout.com · 20 min

TLDR Founders

HOW GAMES TYPICALLY GET BUILT

As gaming gets increasingly more mainstream, and venture capital dollars flood to the space, should we think about building or joining a gaming startup? This article explores how building games stacks up against traditional software development. Hint: they’re pretty different.

newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com · 12 min

TLDR Founders

LAYOFF LESSONS: FOUR THINGS I WISH I KNEW

Layoffs involve making decisions between different versions of bad. There’s no scenario where someone isn’t unhappy. Ask hard questions to ensure you only make one round of layoffs and focus your energy on supporting and motivating the employees who will remain with the company.

mollyg.substack.com · 11 min

TLDR Founders

HOW TO AVOID KPI PSYCHOSIS

A practical guide to a good measurement culture in today’s data-obsessed world.

blog.promaton.com · 5 min

TLDR Founders

INTELLIGENT VS. SMART

There is a difference between intelligence and smarts: while intelligence involves technical abilities and logic, smarts require empathy, communication, and understanding emotional nuances.

collabfund.com · 8 min