Why Sierra built a design partnership program on “hard mode”

The Hard Way Pays Off: Inside Sierra’s Design Partner Strategy
Instead of chasing low-friction pilots, Sierra asked design partners to pay, commit time and co-build — converting 100% of these partners into...
September 23, 2025

The Unsung Ingredient in Stripe, Square and Linear’s Success: Taste
Tactical advice for weaving craft into your product and operationalizing taste.
May 07, 2025

Gong’s Path to Product-Market Fit — Why This $7B Company Still Works With Design Partners
Gong co-founder and CPO Eilon Reshef sits down with First Round partner Todd Jackson to unpack how he turned an early bet on AI into a multi-billion...
August 22, 2024

Ready, Set, Hypergrowth: How Duo's Product Design Lead Primed Her Team for Momentum
Sally Carson joined Duo as its first product design leader, just as the security startup was ratcheting into hypergrowth. Carson shares her roadmap...
September 16, 2019

Build Products That Solve Real Problems With This Lightweight JTBD Framework
Drawing on her experiences building products at Lumosity, Oculus, and Facebook's New Product Experimentation group, Sunita Mohanty shares a...
January 14, 2021

So You Want to Hire a Forward Deployed Engineer: How to Know If You Need One and How to Get the Role Right
Founders and operators who’ve successfully built forward deployed engineering teams share the nuances that make this idiosyncratic role work, along...
February 24, 2026

Positioning Your Startup is Vital — Here’s How to Nail It
Arielle Jackson has experience crafting marketing campaigns at Google, Facebook and Square. This is her messaging toolbox.
January 28, 2015

Our 6 Must Reads for Onboarding Tactics That Help New Hires Succeed (and Stay)
Onboarding is so much more than the standard-issue IT set-up: It's the foundation for how new hires settle into their roles and their future at the...
June 11, 2019