Meet Cycle, a French startup that is building a collaboration tool for product managers where they can collect data from various tools, work on the next product iterations and close the feedback loop with the most engaged customers. The company raised a total of $6 million across two funding rounds, including a recent funding round led by Boldstart that closed late last year. The startup is backed by eFounders, the European startup studio focused on SaaS products. Base Case, The 20VC Fund, SV Angel, BoxGroup, Hummingbird Ventures and 60 angels also invested in the company ' it's a long list of investors*. Like many software-as-a-service products, Cycle first acts as a single source of truth. Many product teams rely heavily on products like Confluence, Notion or Google Docs. But they also have to check GitHub issues, Intercom messages and more. 'The issue we are trying to solve is an issue that every product manager faces. Product information is scattered across many different products,' Cycle founder and CEO Mehdi Boudoukhane told me. 'As your company scales, you get feedback from users, the sales team, the customer success team and the marketing team.'...

Silicon Valley was built on amazing products, not on stellar leadership skills. In fact, veterans of some of the world’s most successful tech companies often look with skepticism, even disdain, on efforts to build strong management skills. The premise is that all energy should be focused solely on turning fabulous ideas into hyper growth. It’s true that if a start-up fails — or is sold — the need for enduring leadership may never arise. And in the earliest stages of a company, the need to organize, motivate and inspire large groups of people to accomplish shared goals may not be obvious....

Back in 2006, McDonald’s saw its growth stall. The fast-food chain decided that the problem was its limited menu, so it tried out a great many new items and ended up doubling the offerings. But sales hardly budged. Finally, in 2016, it took a new tack. It went back to basics, dropped most of those additional items, and instead extended its popular breakfast offerings. Sales finally jumped, with same-store revenue up 6% in 2017, and the stock rose by 40%....

We are still in the midst — perhaps even the early days — of the coronavirus pandemic, but there have been many predictions of how it has permanently changed the world. The virus exposed the vulnerability of our supply chains, interrupting the flow of critical imports into the U.S., and triggering calls for American multinationals to reshore production. Coming on the heels of the trade war and Washington’s push to de-couple economically from China, this has brought widespread predictions of deglobalization. The U.S. Special Trade Representative even wrote a recent op-ed calling for the end of offshoring....