🧰 Operator Resources

Operator Resources is a counterpart to Venture & Tech Resources. Operator Resources is a tactical guide intended for founders in company formation through seed stage, but could be useful to other groups (employees at early-stage startups, individuals seeking to learn more about investing or entrepreneurship).

Some resources below are marked with emojis to call out their specific strengths. 

⭐  personal favorite resource

🛍️  consumer-focused resource 

👩‍💻  enterprise-focused resource  

If you’d prefer to consume this information in presentation format, click here. 

COMPANY FORMATION

Creating a Legal Entity 

• Stripe Atlas - entity formation, company structure, access to startup services

• AngelList Stack - entity formation and financial services 

• NameVine - ​​create a consistent online presence - instantly find an available domain name with matching social media profiles. 

• Firstbase - incorporation, operations, bank account, and other services

• doola - launch a LLC, corporation, or DAO from anywhere in the world + bank account + ongoing state and IRS tax filings

• Index of Cooley Go Docs - advisor and consultant agreement templates, term sheet templates. Cooley’s Guidance section also has useful information on common legal questions. 

Recruiting 

• The SaaS Org Chart -  template for SaaS company hiring

• Colorwave - organization cultivating and supporting diverse talent in the startup world

• ⭐ Shift -  organization cultivating and supporting military talent 

Business Plan

• ⭐ Shopify has an excellent business plan template. It covers all of your bases (overview, market analysis, financial plan, etc.). You have to input your email to access it, but I’d suggest doing so if you’re looking for a quality outline! 

• Sequoia Capital guide to writing a business plan (short and sweet!)

INVESTORS & ADVISORS

Investor Lists 

• ⭐ Round Raising Tips by Shl.vc. Granular, detailed, and helpful.

• ⭐ No Warm Intro Required Investor List by Yuliya Bel  

• ⭐ Fundraising CRM & Database Template (with comprehensive investor list).

• Fundraising Tips by Will Bricker (HustleFund)

• List of angel investors by Trace Cohen (NYVP) - 400+ vetted investors. Spreadsheet includes: LinkedIn, check size, focus area. 

• Extensive list of institutional VCs and Angel Investors by Steve O’Dell. Spreadsheet includes nearly 2,000 investors and bios. 

• Deep Tech Investors by Hello Tomorrow 

• #LongLA Investors & Angels List and $30M+ Growth Round Lead Investor List - both by Greg Bettinelli and Molly O'Shea.

SaaS Metrics & Valuations

• ⭐ The 10 Most Important Metrics in a Startup’s Financial Statements by Tomasz Tunguz (all of Tunguz’s content is fantastic, by the way).

• Takeaways from Scaling to $100M by Bessemer Venture Partners

• 16 Startup Metrics by a16z

Investor Update Templates

• Investor Update Template from Bloomberg Beta

• Visible – site for investor updates

Advisors

• My Thoughts on Advisors by Adam Pollack. Blog on the importance of advisors and how to structure an advisor agreement. 

• Our Founding Story, Part 1 by Privacy Dynamics is an inspiring newsletter on founding a company.

SELLING YOUR PRODUCT

GTM

• ⭐👩‍💻 GTM Nirvana - deck by Caroline Clark (Founder of Arcade, formerly Sequoia & Atlassian). Breaks down buyer personas, acquisition channels, and pricing. 

• Pricing Your SaaS Product - great piece in Lenny’s Newsletter (newsletter on product) - summary: determine your value metric & personas. Includes a quantified personas spreadsheet.

• Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It by April Dunford. Check out the free online templates here (bottom of the page after providing your info). 

Marketing

• Holidays, events, and cultural dates calendar by Grace Clarke 

Sales

• B2B Sales Tech Stack by Basis Set - suggestions on effective sales tools 

• The Guide to Crushing Enterprise Sales by Sarah Nökel (Investor at Northzone) - extensive list of resources for a number of company-building categories: marketing, growth, fundraising, benchmarks, pitch deck & board update templates. 

Slide Development & Design

• ⭐️ Journey - storytelling for your slides and data

• Google Slides - shareable, universal. 

• Slidesmania - quirky templates

• Slidesgo - lots of free templates 

• Canva - lots of presentation templates, also includes other design tools

• Noticons - custom emojis for Notion (like the Noun Project)

• Consultants / design firms can also help (but can be expensive). If seeking a comprehensive brand identity, it’s a great idea to use a design firm. They should also create slide templates that you can pull from for different use cases. 

• Figma - this template is a great one for creating a brand guide.

• Pika - tool to help create beautiful images from screenshots

BUILDING A TEAM & CULTURE

Equity Compensation Benchmarks & Resources

• ⭐ Employee Equity Compensation Guide 2021 by Personal Capital. Includes descriptions of key terms (stock options, restricted shares, stock purchase plans, etc.) and mechanics of how they work. 

• Equity 101 by Carta. A series of digestible videos on equity grants, vesting, exercising, and more.

• Understanding Startup Offers by Compound - more info on startup equity compensation.

• The Ultimate Guide for Finding a Startup Job by Vinay Iyengar - a concrete guide, mostly focused on more junior people less than 5 years out of college. 

• Early-stage Marketing Compensation Explained by Kramer & Kathleen of MKT1. Marketing-specific, but has good equity basics.

DEI

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Playbook by LifeLabs Learning - helpful, tactical guide to DEI. 

Onboarding

• Onboarding Tactics for New Hires by First Round Review 

CONSUMER & ENTERPRISE

Consumer

• ⭐🛍️ Thingtesting - elegant website where users can discover and review modern brands. Mostly focused on newer CPG brands. Founded by  Jenny Gyllander.

• ⭐ 🛍️ D2C 2.0: The Rise of Infrastructure by Justine & Olivia Moore. Resources on marketing, payments, product design, manufacturing and more for D2C brands.

• 1-800-D2C - breaks down the tools direct to consumer brands are using. By Tim Masek.

• Market map of B2B software for ecommerce merchants by Damir from Daily Consumer

• How to Launch a Successful D2C Brand with Nik Sharma

Enterprise

• ⭐👩‍💻 Technically - one of my favorite resources for demystifying technical topics - Justin Gage, does a great job of simplifying complicated technology.

GENERAL RESOURCES

Books 

• See my Venture & Tech Resources newsletter. This is generally up to date on books I enjoy in this space. 

• High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil (digital version linked) is helpful to peek into. Specifically, see Characteristics of Great Product Managers 

Other Lists

• ⭐ The Kool-Aid Factory - company-building and culture resources by Brie Wolfson

• ⭐ Homebrew Resources - strong resources on sourcing talent, diversity, performance management

• ⭐ Unusual Ventures’ Tactical Field Guide for early-stage enterprise and consumer companies 

  • Picking a GTM Motion is great for enterprise companies

• ⭐ Alpaca VC’s Master Agency List - extensive list of design, branding, PR, marketing, etc. agencies

• ⭐ Odyssey Planning by Lilli from Breezi

• YC’s Startup Library of resources

• How to Save Money with Startup Deals by Consumer Startups

• Valia’s Library of board management, cap table, compensation, and other resources.

• The Ultimate Back Office Guide to Launch a Startup by Elaine Zelby and Spencer Ackermann

• Entrepreneur Tools List 

• Extensive Airtable of Entrepreneur Tools by Joe Vasquez. Also his Pitch Deck Database

• 37 Angels’ list of Entrepreneur Resources -  List of marketing, data, prototyping, and other tools.

• Community Building Resources Google Doc by People & Co. (acquired by Substack)

• Founder Resources by Eric Ramos - the Management section is particularly strong

USING THIS TOOLKIT

Not all of these resources will be relevant to you simultaneously. I suggest reviewing the list so you’re aware of its contents, and starting with the links that resonate most to you today. Since this is a tactical guide, the order in which you consume this information will vary. Refer back to it when you’re looking to kick-start your work in one of the above areas. Happy building!

Thank you for taking the time to read Alohomora! Please send additions to this list or feedback to mmahlock@alumni.stanford.edu. If you liked this newsletter, please share, subscribe, or comment!