Generative Tech Begins

Calling it Generative AI is only half the equation. Generative Tech is a major shift - a whole new era of human-machine collaboration. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 1 year ago

Playbook for Naming a Startup

Your company name can elevate you, cripple you, or have no impact at all. Yet very few people appreciate the real impact of naming. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 1 year ago

Network Effect #16: Hub-and-Spoke

At NFX we study network effects in the wild so we can help founders build them better. Sometimes it takes us a while to notice the pattern, but we now have another one. Meet the 16th Network Effect on our list: The Hub-and-Spoke Network Effect. It’s the network effect that drove … | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 1 year ago

Why NFX Invested in Faddom: The Startup Helping Companies Map IT Networks

As businesses deploy increasingly complex IT systems with numerous cloud and physical networks, they face an increased risk of cyberattacks or system failures. Nearly without exception, cyberattacks have increased each year since the internet was created. McAffee found that compa … | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 1 year ago

Moves to Survive (& Thrive) in a Downturn: 2022 Edition

NFX's Pete Flint shares 39 battle-tested tactics for operating your startup during a downturn. How to think about fundraising, and more. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 1 year ago

The Durability Formula – How It Will Determine Your Startup’s Future Value

Value creation mostly accrues in the out-years, but you can only capture it if you design for durability from day one. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 2 years ago

Network Binding Theory

Your startup is a network. Your goal is to bond people to it. All kinds of people from employees, investors, customers, and more. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 2 years ago

CEOs Think: 5 Mental Models to Shift from Founder to CEO

5 mental models distinguish "product-Founders" from successful "Founder-CEOs". Trulia Founder, Pete Flint, breaks them down for Founders everywhere. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 2 years ago

Building a “Community-First” Company

Morgan Beller examines why community building is one of the most important skill sets for web 3.0 founders across all industries. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 2 years ago

A Mammoth Becomes a Unicorn

Mammoth Bioscience's CEO and Cofounder walks through his Founder journey from early idea to freshly minted unicorn status. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 2 years ago

A Founder’s Exponential Toolset: Wright’s Law, Moore’s Law, & More

Great Founders attach themselves to the upward bend of the exponential curve, and leverage the exponential laws in startups. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 2 years ago

Keep Them Coming Back: 23 Habit-Making Insights for Product-Minded Founders

A collection of 23 insights to help Founders uncover ideas for hooks, habits, and happiness that you can build into your products. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 2 years ago

Unlocking “Disruptive Power” for Your Marketplace

What does it take to build a disruptive marketplace? Harvard Business School's professor on marketplaces shares his counterintuitive advice. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 2 years ago

Status, Wealth, & Power: Network Effects Demand a New Social Contract

We are the ones creating these massive network effect businesses. So it's up to us to write new social contracts for the people who use them. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 2 years ago

Contrarians Think: The Early Days of Square, Yelp and PayPal

Keith Rabois & James Currier examine how technology's greatest startups deviate from the standard Silicon Valley "playbook". | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 2 years ago

Life Is Driven by Network Effects

Revealing the Unseen Forces That Guide Your Life   What city you live in. Who you date or marry. Which job you choose. What clothes you wear. We all think we make these choices ourselves. It certainly feels like we’re in full control. But it turns out that our choices — both in o … | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 2 years ago

Rules of Storytelling for Fundraising

As a Founder, you are the Chief Storyteller. Here are the storytelling methods we have observed in pitches that motivate VCs to invest. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 2 years ago

“Naivete is an asset”: Tony Fadell on product design

Tony Fadell opens his brain to NFX's Pete Flint for a deep dive on product design do's and don'ts - for the benefit of startups worldwide. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 2 years ago

Startups Are the Ultimate “Mental Game” – Part I

A collection of 48 mental models to help Founders more easily navigate the cascade of startup challenges. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 2 years ago

The Network Effects Manual: 13 Different Network Effects (and Counting)

The 13 Network Effects & How They Actually Work | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 2 years ago

Startup Speed as a Public Good

Today’s generation of Founders need to manage crisis and chaos as a standard operating procedure, not just as a rare skill. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 2 years ago

The Passion Economy and Its Hidden Currency

The “Passion Economy”, as coined by Li Jin, makes it easier for people to monetize their individuality through unique, creative work. This gives creators a feeling of autonomy, intrinsic satisfaction, and opens new markets. But an unseen challenge is this: “Attention” is the powe … | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 2 years ago

The CEO That Jeff Bezos Called “His Teacher”

Amazon's former consumer boss breaks down the systems behind the success of Amazon, Prime, Alexa, & AWS. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

The 7 Powers Known to Tesla, Pixar, Netflix, Apple, and Twilio

There is a fallacy in believing your current performance is indicative of future success: Performance is a trailing indicator. Power is a leading one. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

The New American Dream

Austen Allred, Co-Founder & CEO at Lambda School, breaks down traditional and contrarian thinking on how we are educated. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

Q&A with Gagan Biyani (Sprig, Udemy)

Gagan Biyani, Co-founder at Sprig and Udemy, answers 4 quick-fire questions for Founders everywhere. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

Enterprise Gateway Marketplaces Will Turn Large Organizations Inside-Out

The marketplace revolution is still just beginning and the enterprise gateway is the newest type of marketplace. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

Anti-Patterns of 10x Thinking

Pete Flint and Adam Grant discuss Adam's new book, Think Again, about the counterintuitive and competitive advantages of rethinking. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

The Unusual Signs of a Billion Dollar Company, with Elad Gil

Elad Gil's observations on many of the world’s best known billion-dollar companies and the decision frameworks they used along the way. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

Fiverr's Road to 797% Growth: The Decision Frameworks Behind Their Success

Micha Kaufman, Founder & CEO of Fiverr, gives us access to the early days at Fiverr and what startup lessons he learned from idea to IPO. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

The Patterns of Startup Failure

In this analysis with Prof. Tom Eisenmann at Harvard Business School, we uncover the 6 counterintuitive startup failure patterns. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

The Tribal Network Effect

Today, we’re sharing the newest social nfx we've identified—the 15th type of network effect: Tribal Network Effects. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

How to find product-promise fit? And is it work?

Great Founders are starting to find their product-promise-market fit first. And it doesn’t require a single line of code. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

Viral Effects Are Not Network Effects

Virality and network effects are conflated by even experienced Founders, and it keeps them from developing the right strategies and playbooks. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

The 10x Advantage of Starting a Company

In a downturn, all the advantages that startups inherently have are magnified 10x and many of the advantages of incumbents have become liabilities. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

The 10x Advantage of Starting a Company

In a downturn, all the advantages that startups inherently have are magnified 10x and many of the advantages of incumbents have become liabilities. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

The Founder List

We're launching The Founder List — audio essays from the most prolific leaders in technology, selected by the Founder community. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

How VCs Judge Your Startup (On Zoom)

To help Founders fundraise in this post-COVID-19 world, we asked 7 top VCs to reveal what's working, what's not & why remote pitching can be powerful. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

Why Your Work Matters: Darwin, Machines, & the Future We're Building

Your life as a Founder can feel frenetic, and non-stop. But to create something that matters in the world, you must find the meaning in all of it. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

The Product Thinking That Built Slack and Twitter, with April Underwood

April Underwood offers inside stories and lessons learned from leading product at two category-defining companies, Slack and Twitter. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

B2B Marketplaces Win

The last 15 years saw tremendous consumer marketplace success stories, we expect B2B marketplaces to see similar success over the next 10 years. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

The Product Frameworks Behind Superhuman

Rahul Vohra, Founder and CEO at Superhuman, shares the product frameworks behind Superhuman's onboarding, product development, positioning, and pricing. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

The New Generation of Labor Marketplaces and the Future of Work

With unemployment expected to reach 20-30%, on par with the Great Depression, the COVID-19 crisis heralds a once-in-a-century moment in the job market. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

The Insider Story of Houseparty

The insider story of Houseparty as told by Founder, Ben Rubin, and investor, James Currier. Ben provides a masterclass in product, pivots, and perseverance. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

The Next Social Era Is Here: Why Now Is the Time for Social Products Again

Sudden shelter-in-place is exposing massive and exciting white spaces for Founders to build new social products — as we try to find joy in connection. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

It’s Time to Start Playing Offense

A guide to help Founders context switch between defense and offense during downturns. Having the conviction and guts to play offense will position you well. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 3 years ago

Why Startups That Survive Are “Learning Organizations”

Speed is a startup's primary advantage — especially in downturns. Iconic startups are learning machines, embedding feedback loops across their teams. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 4 years ago

NFX Fast Seed Funding: 9 Days to Decision

As capital is drying up for Founders, we’re leaning in to invest more with our FAST Seed initiative: $1-2M seed round for 15%, decision in 9 days or less. | Continue reading


@nfx.com | 4 years ago