Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending May 17, 2019

1. SALES: When on-boarding a new sales leader into your organization, here are six things to focus on for the first few months
2. VENTURE: At the Seed stage, founders often ask “how much money should I raise?”. This article from The Startup proposes the MVR, or Minimum Viable Raise, which is the smallest amount of money that can get a business to Series A metrics in 18 months.
3. SAN FRANCISCO. Check this map for a clear reason why San Francisco is such a magnet for new business (all the states in blue have smaller economies than the Bay Area). The team at the Founder Institute have compiled a San Francisco Startup Ecosystem Canvas which is a list of local resources available to help early-stage entrepreneurs based in the Bay Area. It’s a fantastic list!
4. PITCH: Seed fundraising is hard and competitive. Having a great pitch is critical! Here is a great article on how to make a good pitch great.
5. RETENTION: SaaS revenues are amazing only if retention in subscriptions (and corollary cash flow) remain high. The team at ChartMogul take a deeper look at this from their own books. In 2018 the majority of cash came from customers who signed up in 2017. 
6. PRODUCT. My Billion Dollar Mistake by Hiten Shah. This is a fascinating and honest read for anyone who may be overly product-focused (and who may need a reality check by someone who learnt this the hard way).
7. TELCO: From Business Insider the full telecoms and technology forecast book for 2019. Includes 5G, AI and home-mobile-work integrations.
8. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION: Another phrase for your tech dictionary. Did you ever notice how apps or software just update incrementally these days? Well this is in-part due to a process called Continuous Integration and this blog post has a great breakdown of what that actually is (and why it’s a great practice).
9. VIRALITY: What is it about some products that make them viral? Point Nine capital take a look at some of the best.
10. AGILE: In past newsletters we referenced a road map for implementing a more agile organization. The transformation journey to an agile organization is tough and touches strategy, structure, people, process, and technology.​

POD OF THE WEEK: "If it ain’t blue, I can’t be friends with you". This is all about how iPhone users judge other people with green text bubbles. A great podcast about how technology forces us to make specific choices.

BONUS: Missed the Alexa Live Online conferences last month? No problem, just replay recordings of all sessions plus resources shared during the sessions.