Startup for Startup - Global ⚡ by monday.com

The current geopolitical situation in Israel brings quite a few challenges for startups wishing to raise money. These challenges become even more significant when they involve foreign VCs who may need help understanding the situation, making the way startups communicate with them even more critical.    In mid-November, we held an event where Daria Wertheim interviewed Shuli Galili from the UpWest Fund, Jacques Benkoski from U.S. Venture Partners, and Aaron Jacobson from NEA about the way investors in the U.S. perceive the current situation, how they would like founders to communicate with them, And how they see raising money for Israeli startups today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why is it important for CS & AM to work together? What can this cooperation allow us as a company? Customer retention is one of the most, if not the most, important abilities for a company. It becomes even more important in a time when markets are changing, and companies are re-evaluating their expenses and making sure every service they use is at the core of their business - not a nice to have, but a must-have. There for, it’s crucial for the CS and AMs (account managers) to be on top of their metrics, and make sure they can identify any potential risk or churn in advance. In this episode, Adva Shisgal speaks with George Graham, Enterprise Account Manager, and Lauren Knowles, Customer Success Manager at monday.com, about the way their two functions work together. George and Lauren discuss the changes their departments made in order to make sure they work closer together, what led to these changes, and how have they impacted the entire company. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Let's talk about SaaS metrics in 2023. The last few years have turned the tables for many startups, and have also changed the way the market, and investors in particular, have evaluated startups. As part of this, many of the metrics we have worked with until then - such as ARR or CAC, have become much less relevant. The market wanted to focus on profitability and efficiency and had to find new metrics to support this.In this week's episode, Darya Wertheim spoke with Jason Lemkin, SaaStr founder & CEO, and with Eran Zinman and Roy Mann, the Co-Founders and Co-CEO of monday.com about SaaS metrics in 2023. They've discussed what has changed in the SaaS business model in recent years, how to look at ARR, CAC, and NDR today, and why it is not certain that these metrics serve us as well as they did in the past, and on many more topics that arise when we put three SaaS geeks in the same room (or in the same virtual conversation). The episode dives deep into the business model of SaaS companies, so it is aimed at those who are familiar with and discuss concepts such as ARR, CAC and NDR.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A discovery call is fundamental to any successful sales cycle. Looking at the more simple definition of it, a discovery call is the first conversation with a potential customer after they’ve shown initial interest in our product. It’s basically our chance to get to know the customer and see if we're a good fit for them, and, in return, if they're a good fit for us. But there’s is a lot more to a successful discovery call than calling and asking questions for 30 minutes. Making sure you’re asking the right set of questions is a skill you must obtain as well as many other practices that will optimize the impact you could create while on the call. On this episode of Startup for Startup, Nathan Newman, Senior Account Executive at monday.com, takes us through the intricacies of discovery calls, offering valuable insights and strategies to help you master this crucial element of business growth. Nathan shares his insights about the purpose of the call, finding relevant leads, preparing for the call, and the questions that will allow you to get a lot more from your discovery calls.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you build a product that people will want to share with each other? What do you do when you have two weeks left until your runway ends? How do you know that pivot is the right thing for your startup? Back in 2015, Joe Thomas and his fellow co-founders held a meeting where they each pitched three startup ideas. They spent the next eight months striving to develop a video-based product for customer feedback but unfortunately, their startup wasn't growing as quickly as they hoped, and they found themselves with only two weeks until their runway ended. But they didn't give up, and taking everything they learned from their journey up until then, they managed to pivot just in time to save the company from going under. On this week's episode of 'Startup for Startup - Global', Darya Wertheim sits down with Joe to discuss Loom's inspiring journey from crisis to success. Joe candidly shares the mistakes they made when founding Loom, the questions that guided them to make the right pivot, and the obstacles they encountered along the way.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why have we decided to build a startup within monday.com? What makes a founder that closed their company want to start a new one within an existing company? And how does the integration between the two companies work?  How many of the big companies you know have started within other companies? Gmail started within Google, Atlassian has companies with a different brand like confluence, and most other examples related to companies acquired by more prominent brands and kept their autonomy.  In this episode, Darya Wertheim spoke with Roy Mann, monday.com Co-CEO and Co-Founder, and Noam Ackerman, who leads ‘monday canvas’, about how we built a new startup within monday. Roy and Noam shared the experience of starting a new, separate startup - one that is led by its own founder doesn’t use any of monday’s resources and hires slowly - like any other startup in its first stages. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is a number of important points in an employee’s life at a company. The most crucial one is probably the onboarding. a good onboarding experience can improve the employees’ retention by 82%, and their performance by 70%. It puts a lot of weight on this process - that many companies struggle with. By working right with a few tools, you can improve dramatically the onboarding to your team. In this episode, we’ll understand what makes a great onboarding assignment, how to make the onboarding less theoretical, what’s the value of a team member that walks the new joiner hand in hand through the first few months, and how to shape the onboarding based on the recruitment process.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the age of technology, careers shift all the time. A programmer can wind up in product management. A content writer can find their passion for design and become a graphic designer. More and more, we’re becoming comfortable switching career paths, and like any new practice, there’s a name for it: job crafting. Though job crafting is all the rage at the moment, not every company - or manager - embraces the idea—and we get it. This kind of change is complex, not only for the one switching careers, but for management, who now needs to fill the role. For managers, is it worth giving an employee the chance to make this kind of change? And if management gives employees the green light on "job crafting", what does the employee need to smoothly make the switch? Tune in as we discuss one of startup’s latest habits.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

 “Well done!” “Err, good job.” “It’s sufficient.” For both the giver and receiver, feedback can feel daunting. As a manager, you face quite a few challenges: you don’t want to be so slight-handed that the team member doesn’t know what to improve or how, but you also don’t want to come across as cold and demotivate the person, or equally as undesirable,  causing an argument leading nowhere. Thankfully, there’s a scheme - and an attitude - that allows us to get the most out of feedback,  helping us navigate a conversation so no one feels defensive. If you’re wondering what this conversation looks like,  what you can do to prepare yourself for this talk, the wrong way to raise an issue, and more, you’re in for a treat this week as we answer all that and more.     Wanna hear more about feedback and ask Joe Hirsch YOUR questions? Register now and join us on March 24th: https://www.startupforstartup.com/ww/feedback-event/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Having a bunch of great team members doesn’t guarantee team success. Your team needs to be able to run smoothly and independently, effectively collaborating with each other without needing constant reassurance. Vitali Margolin learned this lesson the hard way when he realized that as a CTO of a small startup, his team wasn’t capable of making decisions and moving forward without asking for his permission on every single step. He found himself micromanaging, and wanted to know how he could build their confidence to solve minor issues on their own.  Along with Vitali, monday customer success managers share the lessons they’ve learned about building a strong team. What routines are important for improving communication and alignment? How can you create a work environment that supports innovation? And how can you combine a team member’s personal ambitions and goals with the team’s goals? We answer all that and more in this week’s episode! *** On March 24th, 10:00 AM EST, we'll have an online event focusing on feedback. We'll discuss some of our top principles regarding giving constructive feedback. Register now and join us on zoom! https://www.startupforstartup.com/ww/feedback-event/   If you want to get updates on related articles, events and more insightful surprises - subscribe to our newsletter. We never spam! https://www.startupforstartup.com/ww/newsletter_ww/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The hiring manager has a lot of responsibility: they define their precise hiring requirements, take part in interviews, and most likely - create a home assignment for candidates. After this whole process, they provide a retro look to improve the hiring process. Absurdly, most hiring managers lack this expertise. We answer a few questions around how hiring managers can become stronger at one of the most crucial aspects of their role: hiring the right person. Our guests today identify the best questions to ask in interviews and likens defining the company’s needs in the early stages to buying furniture. *** If you want to get updates on related articles, events, and more insightful surprises - subscribe to our newsletter. We never spam! https://www.startupforstartup.com/ww/newsletter_ww/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ask five Heads of CS the following questions and you may end up with five different answers: how do you define KPIs for CS teams? How can we make sure the KPIs cover all of our goals? In CS, a well-defined KPI can boost revenues, while inaccurate metrics can shift the focus from what’s important.  This week Darya Wertheim spoke with Head of High Touch Customer Success, Tom Ronen, and Head of Client Services, Nir Fogel, about why setting KPIs for Customer Success teams is often a road stricken with potholes. They discuss three main dilemmas related to the topic – Is it better to define individual or team KPIs? Should you connect the KPIs to compensations? And what encourages more growth – Leading or Lagging KPIs?   *A short clarification – we know that the term CS can relate to different teams in different companies. At monday.com, CS refers to the teams who help the client implement and scale with the product, not technical support teams.  *** On March 24th, 10:00 AM EST, we'll have an online event focusing on feedback. We'll discuss some of our top principles regarding giving constructive feedback. Register now and join us on zoom! https://www.startupforstartup.com/ww/feedback-event/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Quick, describe your company culture in six words. Got it? We’ll go next: ownership, inclusion, product-centric, customer-centric, impactful, and speed. When starting the company, monday.com’s founders, Eran Zinman and Roy Mann, chose these attributes to guide their company culture. Well, it definitely sounds good - but does that still stand today? Creating company culture is one hell of a challenge, and in this SFS Talks episode, we broke it all down. We’ll cover some of the ways values change as a company grows and evolves, whether a company should try to preserve its culture or embrace the changes that occur along the way, and the price it pays for choosing one approach over another.   In this week’s episode, our founders team up with Head of “Startup for Startup”, Lior Krengel, to divulge the six cultural attributes that lie at the core of monday.com’s culture. They share their insights into how to form a company culture, the impact culture has on the hiring process, and why we don’t believe in hanging ‘culture posters’ on the wall.   On March 24th, 10:00 AM EST, we'll have an online event focusing on feedback. We'll discuss some of our top principles regarding giving constructive feedback. Register now and join us on zoom! https://www.startupforstartup.com/ww/feedback-event/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What does ‘making an impact’ really mean? In this episode, we explore how to make a meaningful impact, analysis paralysis, and why making mistakes can be a good thing. Tune in for one of our most exploratory episodes yet! "Impact" is a startup buzzword, but it’s harder to know what that looks like in practice. We define impact as using our technology, talent, and teamwork to improve a situation or solve an issue. This is all important, worthy stuff, but how do we actually apply this principle in our day-to-day work? In this episode, we spoke with monday.com’s Co-Founder and Co-CEO, a CX team lead, and CX advocate, to understand what it means to be impact-driven and what it looks like when we’re not.   Lior and Eran's talk: https://www.startupforstartup.com/ww/impact-driven-leadership/ *** On March 24th, 10:00 AM EST, we'll have an online event focusing on feedback. We'll discuss some of our top principles regarding giving constructive feedback. Register now and join us on zoom! https://www.startupforstartup.com/ww/feedback-event/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What are the challenges in keeping things in-house? How to decide which project should be outsourced, and which shouldn’t be? And how can we choose a vendor wisely? At monday, we kept everything in-house since the very early days of the company. Developers, designers, customer experience representatives, marketing associates and managers, video creators - everything. This policy proved itself, but as the company grew, maintaining it became more complex. In this episode we talk with people who share different angles about this dilemma - from a CEO that solely believes in keeping things in-house, to the founder of an outsourcing company. *** On March 24th, 10:00 AM EST, we'll have an online event focusing on feedback. We'll discuss some of our top principles regarding giving constructive feedback. Register now and join us on zoom! https://www.startupforstartup.com/ww/feedback-event/   If you want to get updates on related articles, events and more insightful surprises - subscribe to our newsletter. We never spam! https://www.startupforstartup.com/ww/newsletter_ww/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

IC - Individual Contributor - is a development path companies can offer for those of us who want to move forward, but managing is just not our thing. Many companies promote great employees, only to find out that they don't get the most out of them as managers. It happened to us at monday as well. In this episode, we dived into this issue with the help of two ICs, an HR VP and an organizational psychologist. What does this IC path include? How can you create one in your company? Why would a company even want to invest resources in creating this kind of path? And what does it all have to do with a Canadian teacher born in 1919? *** On March 24th, 10:00 AM EST, we'll have an online event focusing on feedback. We'll discuss some of our top principles regarding giving constructive feedback. Register now and join us on zoom! https://www.startupforstartup.com/ww/feedback-event/   If you want to get updates on related articles, events, and more insightful surprises - subscribe to our newsletter. We never spam! https://www.startupforstartup.com/ww/newsletter_ww/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Working on a product with a team can easily be frustrating. The product manager has his own vision, but the designer rather go in a different direction - and it ends up getting to the developer who just doesn't understand why they think this UI fits the code. This separation between each profession along the process creates misunderstandings, frustration, and often limits every single person to his own field without understanding the whole picture. Luckily, there's a model that helps deal with these issues - but obviously it has downsides as well. *** If you want to get updates on related articles, events, and more insightful surprises - subscribe to our newsletter. We never spam! https://www.startupforstartup.com/ww/newsletter_ww/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When thinking about salespeople's salary - we know that it comes with commissions aside. For years we’ve known that this is the way to get the most out of your salespeople. Lately, this assumption has been undermined. The rise of behavioral economics’ studies, alongside companies that reconsidered their incentives, led to different approaches that can change dramatically not only the way we think about compensation in the sales world, but also about incentives in general. The full TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_the_puzzle_of_motivation?language=en *** If you want to get updates on related articles, events, and more insightful surprises - subscribe to our newsletter. We never spam! https://www.startupforstartup.com/ww/newsletter_ww/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A new podcast is coming soon. It doesn't matter if you're a founder, a salesperson, an experienced marketing manager, or a junior developer - this podcast is for you. It's all about sharing our insights from different fields - fields that every startup deals with.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Product and Sales are two departments that are traditionally at odds. While sales reps request certain features in the product to close a deal, the product managers work according to a pre-defined roadmap. Even though both of the departments aim for the company’s success, they usually see different ways to get there. This miscommunication can eventually cost the company a lot. So how do you align the sales and product departments? How do you build processes that improve workflows between departments? And why having a shared KPI isn’t enough for both parties’ success? This week we are talking to Leah Bauman, Product Alignment Manager, and Nir Goldstein, VP of EMEA & APAC Sales at monday.com, who will share the process of creating and defining the new role of Product Alignment, the challenges in creating a bridge between potential customers needs and the product roadmap, and how having a dedicated owner for a process already generated more than 2$ million dollars in the past year, and made many customers happier.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.