Builders' Studio: a Founder School by Slush Slush

Most startups die. It’s a painful, inevitable consequence of the exceptionally difficult task of finding an intense problem shared by many and solving it delightfully.
However, not all startup death is inevitable. In fact, a lot of it is caused by avoidable mistakes along the way.
Sometimes, failure can also be for the better. Failing fast in the face of impossible odds is better than failing slowly and excruciatingly because you didn’t let go.
Joining Builders’ Studio to prepare us against the 10 vital signs of a startup meeting its doom is Marta Krupinska, Head of Google for Startups UK. She will not only activate the inner survival mode in us but also tell us when we shouldn’t give up.

An adjective that always comes up when successful founders look back on their journeys is hard. The early days are littered with decisions you’ve never made before and that will stay with your company for years. Later on, you become responsible for a growing number of team members and customers. Through it all, you never seem to have enough time to judge thoughtfully, and always lack people with whom you can be candid. As a result, every founder’s journey will be littered with difficulty – hard decisions, wrong decisions, long hours, existential doubt, wrong hires and painful fires.
To share advice on how to cope with it all we have Ross Mason, who spent 12 years building Mulesoft, which eventually got acquired by Salesforce for €6.5B.

All companies grow, but startups are defined by growth. It means the process of being intentional about growing. It requires creating meaningful and predictable change while being able to ship fast and reiterate quickly.
Joining us to give a growth crash course from seed to public is Brian Ta, Product manager at Coinbase. Before Coinbase, he worked on Growth at Airbnb, Strava, and AngelList. Brian is also a regular speaker at YCombinator where he speaks about Growth to their newest batches.

While some startups are built globally and require no or very little geographical customization, many will have to intentionally open up every new city, country or region. This is no easy task. Expansion is capital-intensive, and often requires hiring and setting up independent teams in unfamiliar locations. Cultural nuances often mean that every location will require some customization of product, offering, messaging or operations. What’s more – locations aren’t born equal. A fantastic one can make a company, while many startups have burnt through their runway fighting an uphill battle in a difficult market.
To provide perspective on all of this is Clara Chappaz, Director at La French Tech.

One thing that doesn’t change as your company grows is that your people will remain your single biggest competitive advantage. While a single bad hire will no longer kill your company, an overall lapse in hiring quality almost definitely will.
At this point, you may be hiring dozens of people a month. Also, while you as a founder could once sit in on every single interview, you’ll struggle to do that now. So, how do you teach your organisation to find, convince and onboard fantastic people at an exceptional pace?
To shed light on this we are welcoming Shimona Mehta, who’s Managing Director, EMEA for the €46B icon that is Shopify.

Culture isn’t static, it constantly evolves as your company evolves and hires new people. Though all of that, the culture needs to be steered with intention so that it leans into the requirements of scale and great ideas that come along but stays anchored your values. You also constantly need to nurture and uphold the culture. After all, your values document doesn’t define your culture – the daily actions of every employee do. Joining us to share his insights on scaling culture at a fast-growing company is Niccolo Perra, Co-Founder at Pleo.
Niccolo has played an active role in defining the fintech giant’s values and turning them to into actions. He’ll provide a playbook for how to build a sustainable culture that grows with your company from 0 to 100 and beyond.