Insight
Fernandez: Early-stage startups lack the traffic required for effective A/B testing
“There's this narrative that a company should come in and beta test everything and AB test everything. Let me tell you something. It's a lot better. You are at millions of visits per month or fifty million per month versus when you only have five or 10 or 20 or…”
Insight
Fernandez: Senior executives are assigned false competence and figure things out iteratively
“The reality is people who are in these roles start by not knowing what the hell they're doing, right? And they figure it out piece by piece. And oftentimes, even though they've been doing jobs for a long time, they still don't know what the hell they're doing.…”
Insight
Fernandez: Protecting yourself from board members prevents effective board utilization
“I will say, number one, how valuable it is to have honesty and transparency. There's a lot of talk of protecting yourself against your board and investors in startup circles, and I 100% understand where this comes from, but I think the reality is that this oft…”
Opinion
Fernandez: Advice that multitasking is ineffective ignores working parents and executives
“The one that causes me to roll my eyes the most profoundly is that multitasking is ineffective, clearly written by someone who is not a mother of three kids, a CEO of a company, and sitting on the board of Atlassian.”
Insight
Fernandez: 80% of organizational drama stems from ineffective communication
“80% of the drama in any relationship has to do with the ability to effectively or ineffectively communicate, right, and the misunderstanding that happen when you aren't able to effectively communicate.”
Insight
Fernandez: Startups should not copy other companies' cultural value statements
“Oftentimes startups, when they're looking to build their value statement or their cultures, they'll start by looking up what other startups do, and I think that's exactly the wrong thing to do.”
Insight
Fernandez: Diverse teams require intentional culture building beyond spontaneous drinks
“There is a reality when you're building a more diverse company with parents or athletes or people with interests outside of work that you need to be more intentional.”
Insight
Fernandez: Two-sided marketplaces always face supply or demand frustration
“I think it is true that there will always be frustration on some side of your marketplace.”
Insight
Fernandez: Consumer transparency in real estate marketplaces ultimately benefits supply-side agents
“So if you take the Trulia and Zillow use case, ultimately what we realize as a company is that if we were helping consumers make better decisions or shining a light in the darkness, as they would say at Zillow, in terms of the consumer, that ultimately that wo…”
Insight
Fernandez: Marketplace success requires internal leadership to balance supply and demand
“And I actually think that it's ensuring that you've got the right leadership internally, understanding what are the core priorities of each side of your marketplace, and then fighting those battles internally so that you have the requisite balance, I think is …”
Insight
Fernandez: No one is ever 100% ready for a new role, so take the leap
“Know that you're never going to be a hundred percent ready, but neither is the other guy. So just take a leap.”
Insight
Fernandez: Startups need distinct hiring personas for 0-10, 10-50, and 50-100 employees
“In general, there's a framework that I use, which I think is helpful when you think about certainly the early stages of the first hundred people at a company, you know, so the first zero to 10 people, you know, those are your creators. So self-directed, oftent…”
Insight
Fernandez: Premature spending is a top pitfall for venture-backed startups
“I think this is one of the biggest challenges for a startup, and especially those that have raised, is spending too soon.”
Insight
Fernandez: Trust equals credibility, reliability, and accessibility divided by self-interest
“This one is the trust equation. I think about it often when it comes to managing my own team, managing conflict within different organizations, or frankly talking to customer groups. And the trust equation is trust equals credibility plus reliability. Plus acc…”
Insight
Fernandez: Eliminating regret is the single best productivity hack
“My biggest productivity hack is I have no regrets. People spend an inordinate amount of Time. Regretting that something wasn't done in a certain way, or rehashing a bad situation over and over again, and so my hack is I use all of that time, and I focus on doi…”
Assertion Supported
Fernandez: Trulia reached 50M uniques and $250M revenue before Zillow acquisition
“When I first started at Trulia, there were roughly a dozen people in the room, you know, nearly zero dollars in revenue, a couple thousands of visits to the site, and when I left over that time span, after our IPO and sale to Zillow, we were at roughly fifty m…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Fernandez: Atlassian co-CEOs explicitly ask board members to challenge them
“So taking Mike and Scott as an example, they're incredibly humble and transparent with their board, clearly outlining their perspective, asking us to directly challenge them across core issues facing the company.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Fernandez was the first woman to become pregnant at Trulia
“When I started at Trulia, like everyone else, except for maybe one person, we were young, either recently married or single, and I was the first woman to be pregnant at Trulia.”
Assertion Supported
Fernandez: Amy Bohutinsky scaled from PR lead to Zillow COO
“Amy Butinsky started as the woman in charge of PR, went on to become the CMO of Zillow, and then now is the COO of the Zillow Group.”
