📝 Finding PMF & How to Run Good Meetings

Sup friends 👋🏼,

This week I was adjusting to life back in the big crumpet (🇬🇧) - this meant heads-down and focused in back-to-back work meetings…however, this week was birthday week! 🥳

Reflected on how I grateful I am to work in an industry I care about, with people I admire, while surrounded by love, positive energy, stability, and ambition.

By this time next year, I’d love to have:

• Doubled newsletter growth

• Improved my health (endurance, physical fitness etc)

• Worked on my photography skills (and taken a course)

Here’s to another great year 🎉 !

Let’s get to it 🙂 

1/ “Man is both the Marble and the Sculptor”

We might not be happy with our current situation. Maybe we’re in a job we don’t like, or around people we don’t vibe with.

The good news is, everything can change for you.

You control your actions, and your actions are what can change your reality.

/2 Entrepreneurship Lessons from BVP’s Founders

Bessemer Venture Partners are a VC firm that’s been operating for 100+ years - they recently polled a few of their founders for Leadership lessons. The advice shared:

• Choose long-term viability over short-term profits

• Never compromise on the mission

• Take criticism in stride

• Be open to pivots --- you don't know where they’ll lead

Lots of great learnings, but a key one for me was as you look to scale, you need to think about the long-term.

The key question to ask:

“How does this year's activity position us for next year's success?”

/3 Don’t play safe

Resonated with this quote - there’s been a couple of times in the past month where I regretted not doing something. I can’t think of too many occasions where the opposite is true.

/4 How to Find Product-Market Fit

Am a big admirer of the thirdweb team and what Furqan has created.

He gave a no-BS talk on how to reach PMF - some of the takeaways:

• Build-Measure-Learn is the most important loop you need to know

• Identify Your Target Users

• Talk to Users Constantly

• Measure and Set Accountability

Lots of golden nuggets of wisdom in this one.

/5 How To Run Good Meetings

The purpose of 1:1s is to:

• Discuss careers

• Know each other better

• Learn about challenges

Best tips to run great 1:1s:

• Create a collaborative 1:1 agenda (its a two-way street)

• Manager’s responsibility - ask insightful questions, facilitate genuine two-way conversation, offer support & guidance

And a good graphic to match:

That’s a wrap - let me know your favourite link 🙂 

Till next week,

Fahim ✌️