Zvi Band

Author: Zvi

  • Taking planning seriously

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    We’ve always taken the idea of planning seriously, but have recently focused on improving the act of planning. We’ve iterated through different planning methods, and have now handled on what we believe is a really elegant homegrown planning system. I’ll share that at some point. We took a step back and realized that one of…

  • A little less of the credit

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    A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit. – Arnold H. Glasgow There are many lessons I’ve learned these past few years, but just as many things that haven’t been active lessons, rather observations. When we closed our A round, our…

  • It’s all your fault

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    From time to time, a few words are introduced in a conversation, article, book, etc, and instead of slipping in and out of short term memory – it sticks. It becomes something that comes to mind nearly every day. As CEO, I’ve had to struggle with the challenge of being ultimately responsible for everything that…

  • How to interview for a job at a startup – and not suck at it.

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    We’ve been fortunate to have a steadily increasing flow of candidates applying to roles at Contactually. With our ambitious growth goals, much of our managers’ time is spent interviewing. As volume increases, and more specialization is required of our roles, the ratio of interviews:offers has changed. We’ve had to raise our standards, implement better process,…

  • Thankful

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    Being CEO of a growing venture, regardless of current success or support network, is a hard, dark, lonely position. It may be the best job in the world (definitely the best I’ve ever had), but it’s been riddled with many tough periods and scary moments – particularly in my head. Right now, I’m just thankful. Rather…

  • A confession on our 4th birthday

    A confession on our 4th birthday

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    On October 11th, 2011, Contactually was incorporated. We take our Founding Day pretty seriously – we shut down normal operations for the day, make breakfast for the team, retell the origin and history of Contactually, and go and do fun company bonding activities for the rest of the day. In the past, we’ve gone to…

  • Organizational Design

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    One of the core tenets of a first time founder is being responsive to the idea that there is a aircraft carrier’s worth of things you don’t know about building a fast growth organization. But perhaps even more jarring is the delta between the expected and actual importance of certain components of a business. One…

  • In this I believe

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    One thing I believe in – Great companies are founded on one or a few core principles. These could be secrets, facts, guesses, or beliefs about where the ball is heading. Those principles could be ridiculed and trivialized. In our case, it was hated. One of my strong beliefs early on was that email was…

  • Exit Interview

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    I’ve written previously about the positive implications and strategy for 1:1s. One of the more important – and often overlooked – one on one sessions is the exit interview. My first job out of college, an exit interview is a nice way of saying that someone from HR runs through a checklist of to-dos with…

  • All the ways I was weak at building product

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    Last year I made the decision to hire a product manager, who I soon had fully take the reigns as VP Product. I wrote last year about the decision. The decision was primarily driven by the need for me to operate at the CEO level and the priorities that a scaling company required. But it…