Learn to scale your startup with a roadmap to the all-important part of the business lifecycle between launch and IPOIn The Builder's Guide to the Tech Galaxy: 99 Practices to Scale Startups into Unicorn Companies, a team of accomplished investors, entrepreneurs, and marketers deliver a practical collection of concrete strategies for scaling a small startup into a lean and formidable tech competitor. By focusing on the four key building blocks of a successful company - alignment, team, functional excellence, and capital--this book distills the wisdom found in countless books, podcasts, and the authors' own extensive experience into a compact and accessible blueprint for success and growth.In the book, you'll find:* Organizational charts, sample objectives and key results (OKRs), as well as guidance for divisions including technology and product management, marketing, sales, people, and service operations* Tools and benchmarks for strategically aligning your company's divisions with one another, and with your organization's "North Star"* Templates and tips to attract and retain a triple-A team with the right scale-up mindset* Checklists to help you attract growth capital and negotiate term sheetsPerfect for companies with two, ten, or one hundred employees, The Builder's Guide to the Tech Galaxy belongs on the bookshelves of founders, managers, entrepreneurs, and other business leaders exploring innovative and proven ways to scale their enterprise to new heights.

Forewords (Building the Third Way) xixForewords (Preparing Europe for maturity) xxviiIntroduction xxixNorth Star1 Six Dimensions of Direction 3Purpose beyond profitPractice 1: A company that makes the planet a better place 6Company valuesPractice 2: Guiding principles for aligning the crew 8Business ambitionPractice 3: Business outcomes to aspire to in the long run 10North Star metricPractice 4: The PRIMARY metric that matters NOW 11Value propositionPractice 5: Unmet customer needs that you solve uniquely well 12OKRsPractice 6: Making direction operational 162 Environmental, Social and Governance Criteria as Drivers of Business Success (With Johannes enhard and Hannah Leach) 21EnvironmentalPractice 7: Measuring, reducing and offsetting your environmental footprint with clear responsibilities and targets 26SocialPractice 8: Building a culture that embraces diversity and inclusion 29GovernancePractice 9: Establishing internal governance that facilitates growth, compliance, and employee representation 32People & Mindset3 People (HR) Excellence (With Constanze Buchheim, Manjuri Sinha and Chris Bell) 37OKRsPractice 10: Establishing the right people OKRs 40Organizational chart and rolesPractice 11: Defining the roles & responsibilities for a people function 46Practice 12: Scaling the right people roles at the right time 49Recruiting & candidate experiencePractice 13: Building the candidate sourcing muscle 50Practice 14: Evaluating candidates in record time while creating an outstanding candidate experience 55Practice 15: Boosting the offer acceptance rates 57Organizational developmentPractice 16: Establishing a strong job architecture with clear levels, career paths and tracks 58Practice 17: Putting fair appraisal and promotion processes in place 62Employee experiencePractice 18: Driving employee happiness by enabling meaning, mastery, psychological safety, autonomy and community 64Employee stock option programsPractice 19: Building the right employee stock option program 674 Scale-Up Mindset (With Johannes Lenhard) 73Obsession with customer experiencePractice 20: Improving key customer journey experiences as a top priority for leaders 74Impossible is nothingPractice 21: Setting impossible-is-nothing goals by thinking "and," not "or" 77Learn-it-all beats know-it-allPractice 22: Embracing learning cycles by establishing psychological safety and an idea meritocracy 80Autonomy to actPractice 23: Empowering cross-functional teams to make decisions rapidly & independently 82Functional Excellence In Scale-Ups5 Product Management Excellence(With Johnny Quach and Sven Grajetzki) 87OKRsPractice 24: Establishing the right product OKRs 90Organizational chart and rolesPractice 25: Defining the roles & responsibilities for a product function 96Practice 26: Scaling the right product roles at the right time 100Product vision & directionPractice 27: Developing a clear product vision and deriving your roadmap from it 102Practice 28: Focusing your product organization on outcomes, not just designing a "feature factory" 104Practice 29: Investing in the core product while pushing adjacent opportunities and venture bets 106Product development processPractice 30: Creating a crystal clear picture of your target customers 107Practice 31: Aligning your product value proposition with the underserved needs of your customers 108Practice 32: Developing your roadmap as a communication tool with the right prioritization logic 111Product management basicsPractice 33: Getting the brand and product design right early on 115Practice 34: Building a thriving user research engine quickly 119Practice 35: Implementing best-in-class product management tools 1226 Technology Excellence (With Christoph Richter) 129OKRsPractice 36: Establishing the right technology OKRs 132Organizational chart and rolesPractice 37: Defining the roles & responsibilities for a technology function 140Practice 38: Scaling the right technology roles at the right time 144Your way of agile developmentPractice 39: Creating your own version of agile development 145Development operations (DevOps)Practice 40: Establishing lean software development principles 150Practice 41: Establishing technical DevOps practices for continuous delivery 153Practice 42: Enabling a team of doers through the right DevOps culture 156Scalable architecturePractice 43: Creating a "good enough" software architecture that can evolve over time 158Practice 44: Establishing a resilient cloud architecture 161Information securityPractice 45: Mitigating the top 10 web applications' security risks 163Practice 46: Integrating the key information security practices into design, development and deployment early on 165Data managementPractice 47: Democratizing data with self-service data tools while building a scalable data architecture 1677 B2C Marketing Excellence (With Kelly Ford) 175OKRsPractice 48: Establishing the right marketing OKRs 177Organizational chart and rolesPractice 49: Defining the roles & responsibilities for a marketing function 182Practice 50: Scaling the right marketing roles at the right time 185Marketing basicsPractice 51: Establishing a single source of truth for key marketing and growth KPIs 186Practice 52: Bridging the gap between marketing quants and creative brains 186Practice 53: Equipping your teams with the right marketing and growth tools 187Practice 54: Finding your product-channel fit quickly and maintaining it 187Organic and viral marketingPractice 55: Leveraging the power of organic conversions to drive down customer acquisition costs 190Practice 56: Getting your PR machine up with trust 192Paid online marketingPractice 57: Harnessing the six key hacks for buying online ads efficiently 194Offline marketingPractice 58: Leveraging the power of offline marketing in the digital age 197MonetizationPractice 59: Nailing your monetization strategy to drive revenue 198Growth hackingPractice 60: Establishing cross-functional growth hacking teams for activation, retention and monetization 2018 B2B Sales Excellence (With Karan Sharma) 209OKRsPractice 61: Establishing the right sales OKRs 212Organizational chart and rolesPractice 62: Defining the roles & responsibilities for a sales function 217Practice 63: Scaling the right sales roles at the right time 220Sales playing fieldPractice 64: Exploiting the right niches 221Sales basicsPractice 65: Creating a commission plan that fits your growth stage 223Practice 66: Enabling your sales teams with the right sales tech stack 225Practice 67: Attracting and hiring a world-class sales team 227Practice 68: Training and coaching a "challenger" sales team 228Practice 69: Getting your basic sales pitch in place 230Qualifying and closing leadsPractice 70: Becoming rigorous with lead qualifications 231Practice 71: Enabling your sales teams to close leads 234Retaining and "farming" customersPractice 72: Measuring customer health to predict and prevent customer churn 2359 Service Operations Excellence (With Dr Nicola Glusac) 241OKRsPractice 73: Establishing the right service operations OKRs 244Organizational chart and rolesPractice 74: Defining the roles & responsibilities for a service operations function 247Practice 75: Scaling the right service operations roles at the right time 250Preventing contactsPractice 76: Preventing unnecessary contacts in the first place 252Deflecting contactsPractice 77: Deflecting transactional contacts to an automated self-help 253Resolving contactsPractice 78: Investing in a hybrid operating model and specialization to ensure availability at all times 254Practice 79: Resolving customer inquiries with autonomous teams and close-knit performance management 255Practice 80: Investing in Lean Six Sigma processes while giving teams enough room to create moments of service delight 256Practice 81: Investing in a loosely coupled, yet highly integrated suite of service tools 258Practice 82: Steering external partners to jointly drive business goals 259Practice 83: Boosting back-office throughput with performance management, automation and centers of excellence 260Practice 84: Investing in resilience to quickly recover from demand and supply shocks 26110 Supply Chain Excellence (With Matthias Wilrich) 265OKRsPractice 85: Establishing the right supply chain OKRs 268Organizational chart and rolesPractice 86: Defining the roles & responsibilities for a supply chain operations function 271Practice 87: Scaling the right supply chain roles at the right time 275Supply chainPractice 88: Hiring supply chain specialists early on 275Practice 89: Investing in supply chain resilience to quickly recover from demand and supply shocks 276Practice 90: Boosting partner and supplier relationships with smart and scalable contracts 277Practice 91: Becoming proficient in supply chain operational excellence and maintaining a hands-on attitude 280Growth Capital11 Six Questions Every Growth Stage Investor Asks (With Vanessa Pinter) 287Future visionPractice 92: Do you capitalize on the next inflection point? 293Rockstar teamPractice 93: Have you assembled a great team that can scale? 294Business modelPractice 94: Does your company's performance to date show a path toward becoming profitable in the long term? 296Venture-scale marketPractice 95: Can you achieve USD 100 million in annual revenue within 7-10 years? 298Category-leading productPractice 96: Have you created a unique customer value proposition which is 10x better than any other in that market? 300Fund fitPractice 97: Does your company fit the investor's fund in terms of industry, size, and funding needs? 30012 Fifteen Key Issues in Growth Term Sheets (With Vanessa Pinter) 303Negotiating guidelinesPractice 98: Following major guidelines for term sheet negotiations 304Key term sheet issuesPractice 99: Negotiating the 15 most important term sheet issues during a growth round 307Contact Us 321Notes 323