Rachel Brennan
Editor in Chief & Co-Founder
Rachel Brennan is a seasoned business strategist who has spent 15+ years helping founders turn ideas into scalable companies. After earning her MBA from Stanford GSB, she joined McKinsey & Company as a consultant before co-founding two venture-backed startups — one acquired in 2019. She launched EntrepreneurBytes to share the playbooks she wished she had as a first-time founder.
Credentials & Education
Areas of Expertise
Articles by Rachel Brennan
Customer Discovery Interviews: The Mom Test in Practice
How to run customer discovery interviews that produce real insight — the Mom Test rules, JTBD questions, and the patterns that separate signal from politeness.
First 100 Customers: How to Get From Zero to Initial Traction
The channels and tactics that actually work to get your first 100 customers — by business type, with realistic timelines and the unscalable work that compounds.
Sales Pipeline Management: Stages, Hygiene, and Forecasting
How to build and manage a sales pipeline that actually predicts revenue — stage definitions, hygiene rules, conversion benchmarks, and forecasting math.
Building a Customer Feedback Loop That Drives Roadmap Decisions
How to build a customer feedback loop that informs the product roadmap — collection channels, prioritization frameworks, and closing the loop with customers.
NPS Surveys: Design, Sampling, and Acting on the Score
How to design NPS surveys that actually drive decisions — sampling, timing, the score interpretation, and the follow-up that turns NPS into retention.
Sales Discovery Calls: 27 Questions Top Reps Ask
The discovery questions that separate top sales reps from average ones — pain, impact, decision process, and timing — with a 30-minute call framework.
User Onboarding Design: Slashing Time-to-Value
How to design SaaS onboarding that gets users to their 'aha moment' fast — activation metrics, the 4-step framework, and the patterns that consistently work.
How to Build an Advisory Board for Your Startup
A practical guide to building a startup advisory board — from compensation norms (0.25-1% equity) to structuring meetings and extracting real strategic value.
Building an MVP: What to Include and What to Skip
How to scope and build a minimum viable product using MoSCoW prioritization, with real MVP examples from Zappos, Dropbox, and Buffer.
Startup Legal Basics: What You Need Before You Launch
LLC vs C-Corp, state of incorporation, IP protection, essential contracts, and when to hire a lawyer — the legal checklist every founder needs.
Finding and Working With a Co-Founder: A Practical Guide
Where to find a co-founder, how to evaluate fit, structure equity splits and vesting, and the red flags that signal a partnership will fail.
How to Write a Pitch Deck That Gets Meetings
The 10-12 slide structure VCs actually want to see, with real examples from Airbnb, Buffer, and Front's pitch decks and common mistakes that kill deals.
How to Validate a Business Idea: 7 Methods to Test Before Quitting
Practical validation methods you can run while employed — from problem interviews and landing page tests to pre-selling and minimum viable experiments.
The Lean Business Plan: A One-Page Planning Alternative
How to build a one-page lean business plan using the Business Model Canvas and Lean Canvas, with templates and guidance on when a full plan still matters.
Scaling From Solo to Team: When and How to Make Your First Hire
A practical guide to knowing when you are ready for your first hire, choosing between generalist and specialist, and navigating compensation and legal basics.
How to Build a Referral Program That Actually Works
Step-by-step guide to building referral programs that drive growth, with mechanics from Dropbox, PayPal, and Uber plus CAC measurement frameworks.
Customer Retention Strategies That Cost Less Than Acquisition
Proven retention strategies that cost 5-25x less than acquiring new customers, with frameworks from Costco, Amazon Prime, and high-retention SaaS companies.
When to Pivot: 7 Signs Your Business Model Needs to Change
Learn the 7 signals that indicate a pivot is needed, with real examples from Slack, Instagram, and YouTube's radical business model shifts.
The First 90 Days After Launching Your Business: What to Focus On
A week-by-week breakdown of where to focus your energy in the critical first 90 days post-launch, with metrics to track and mistakes to avoid.
How to Find Product-Market Fit: A Framework for Early Startups
A practical framework for measuring and achieving product-market fit, from the Sean Ellis test to Superhuman's engine, with real startup examples.