Category: Team

Personal Psychology Startups Team

Hustle Culture vs. Chill Work

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
A few weeks ago, Wil Reynolds and I were on a video call together. I think I joined in a couple minutes after him, and the discussion was already starting: Someone on the call: “… just hustling”Rand: “Ugh, I hate hustle culture.” Wil: “Yo, Fish*, can you define hustle?”Rand: “Easy one. Hustling is working hard to work hard. It’s valuing…
Advertising Data Marketing Product SparkToro Team

NEW in SparkToro: Content and Profile Text Insights

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
What does your audience talk about online? How do they describe themselves? What hashtags do they use? Prior to social media aggregation software, answering these questions was a maddeningly manual, lengthy process. Unfortunately, most of those products are exorbitantly expensive, enterprise tools. After SparkToro’s launch last year, we were somewhat shocked to find: A) How valuable these text insights were…
Data Marketing Product SparkToro Startups Team

One Customer Feedback Email Changed Our Startup’s Trajectory

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Building a new company means constantly managing one’s emotions. The high highs of days when everything’s golden inevitably give way to the low lows when you’re certain it’s all doomed. At the end of February, Casey (my cofounder) and I were in that latter boat, nervous about how signups for our 10-month old startup had slowed to a trickle. Here’s…
Hiring Marketing Psychology Startups Team

Why You Should Hire Agencies & Consultants (for everything you can)

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
In my first decade as a tech CEO, I consistently got advice about how building a great team was essential to building a great business. Agencies and consultants were never part of this conversation. It was always: hire full-time employees in areas where you need a competitive advantage; only hire agencies for functions you want to put on autopilot or…
Marketing Product SparkToro Team

SparkToro’s Finally Here

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Almost two years ago, Casey Henry and I joined forces on SparkToro in the hopes of solving a thorny, expensive, long-standing problem in the market research world: How to discover the publications & people that influence any group of people online. Though we’re launching at a very scary time in the world, we’re excited to finally share that product with…
Hiring Psychology Startups Team

Why Elon Musk’s “People as Vectors” Analogy Resonates

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
In his keynote at INBOUND last year, Dharmesh Shah (Hubspot’s cofounder) shared a personal story of meeting Elon Musk and their short but powerful conversation about aligning people on a team as you would vectors in an equation. Unlike many folks in the startup world, I’m not a die-hard Musk fan. I appreciate his creativity and accomplishments, but also find…

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