Our Favorite Bits of Advice from the Past 10 Years of The Review

As November comes to a close, this month we're celebrating a special milestone. Back when we started The Review (a whopping 10 years ago!), our promise to readers was that each article we published would serve up tactics that you could use right away to change your company and career. We even put this manifesto in writing to hold ourselves accountable to that mission.

A decade and nearly 600 articles later, we sincerely hope that we’ve lived up to that promise. Whether it’s product, founder, manager, marketing, design, engineering or IC advice you seek, page through the digital archives of The Review and you’ll find plenty of essential lessons from startup folks of all stripes.

So, to celebrate this 10-year milestone, we combed each article from the hundreds in our archives for 100 snappy snippets of the best advice we’ve ever shared.

Here’s a sneak peek at 10 of the best bite-sized bits of advice from The Review’s history — but don’t miss the full list, there are way too many goodies than we could possibly squeeze into a single newsletter.

• There are decisions that deserve days of debate and analysis, but the vast majority aren’t worth more than 10 minutes. It's important to internalize how irreversible, fatal or non-fatal a decision may be. Very few can't be undone. Dave Girouard on making speed a habit.

• “I trust you, make the call” might be the six most powerful words you can hear from a manager. Sean Twersky on high-impact habits for managers.

• Focus on what’s keeping your manager up at night. Often people are so focused on solving their own problems, they don’t think about how their proposed solutions create more problems one level up. What are your boss’s problems and how can you solve them? Jan Chong on managing up.

• End every meeting or conversation with the feeling and optimism you’d like to have at the start of your next conversation with the person. If you envision running into this person again and how you want that to go, it’ll undoubtedly influence how you navigate a present conversation — usually for the better. Chris Fralic on how to become insanely well connected.

• Can you say with confidence that each report would want to be on your team again? If you aren’t sure that the answer is yes, it’s probably no — much like how if you have to ask, “Am I in love?” you’re probably not. Julie Zhuo on essential career questions.

• There’s a happy balance somewhere between being a hermit and a party circuit favorite — and it tilts toward the hermit end of the spectrum. When you’re a founder, every moment you’re not writing code or getting users, you need to be making a conscious choice: Is whatever you’re doing worth your time? Alexis Ohanian Sr. on founder do’s and don’ts.

• When it comes to emotional health, many people wait until they’re having debilitating anxiety before they start to think seriously about taking action. Think about maintaining emotional fitness less like going to the doctor and more like going to the gym. Just because founders aren’t having daily panic attacks does not mean that they are emotionally fit. Dr. Emily Anhalt on emotional fitness.

• If you find yourself constantly interrupted by emergencies, find out why. If you’re regularly putting out fires yourself, you’re doing it wrong. Focus your time on how to enable others on your team to put out fires themselves. Your job as a CEO is to build fire departments, not put out fires. Sam Corcos on optimizing your time as CEO.

• If you don’t consistently teach more and more people how to make the decisions or find resolutions consistent with your company’s goals, you’re going to stall out. Not localizing problem-solving is a secret killer of companies. Claire Hughes Johnson on hitting pause to grow faster. 

• “Why would a customer not want this?” is often a far more interesting question than why they would. Oftentimes the question of why something won’t work uncovers the element that actually does make it work. Rick Song on asking why it won’t work.

Read the full article.