Instead of your traditional org chart, imagine having two distinct charts, one focusing on management lines while the other focuses on teams. What would it look like? And why would this be better?

Startups typically need to raise funds at several stages throughout their growth. A successful round of fundraising can secure the startup’s future while a failed round can have devastating effects. Yet as a CTO or technical lead, it’s easy to assume that fundraising is not part of your role.

I took part in multiple rounds of fundraising as CTO at Brandwatch, and investigated several startups as investment or acquisition opportunities - effectively sitting on both sides of the fundraising table. Here is an brief of what I came to expect of the fundraising process - how it typically works and a few lessons learnt along the way.

One-on-ones are regular meetings between an employee and his/her line manager. They are possibly the most important tool that managers have to do their work - a time-tested technique that Google found to be a key habit of effective managers.