---
title: Essays
description: Lightly illustrated essays by Rachel Pike about building startups and working with founders.
url: "https://www.workinghypotheses.com/essays"
author: Rachel Pike
type: index
---

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# Essays

- [Systems Create Integrity](https://www.workinghypotheses.com/essays/systems-create-integrity.md): More than a decade ago, I sat in an open plan office one row behind two women in their mid-twenties.
- [How to Run a Good Startup Advisor Program](https://www.workinghypotheses.com/essays/how-to-run-a-good-startup-advisor-program.md): We ran an advisor program at Modern Treasury that I think every startup should copy.
- [A COO's Unnamed Work Type #4: Janitor](https://www.workinghypotheses.com/essays/a-coos-unnamed-work-type-4-janitor.md): The last category of unnamed work was the most fun to name.
- [A COO's Unnamed Work Type #3: Founder Vault](https://www.workinghypotheses.com/essays/a-coos-unnamed-work-type-3-founder-vault.md): Of the unnamed work that is emotional or interpersonal, there’s two types: the part that doesn't face founders, and the part that does.
- [A COO's Unnamed Work Type #2: Onramps and Offramps](https://www.workinghypotheses.com/essays/a-coos-unnamed-work-type-2-onramps-and-offramps.md): Take three truths.
- [A COO's Unnamed Work Type #1: TV Producer](https://www.workinghypotheses.com/essays/a-coos-unnamed-work-type-1-tv-producer.md): After about ten COO interviews, I started thinking about my last job differently.
- [The Shape of Work is Changing](https://www.workinghypotheses.com/essays/the-shape-of-work-is-changing.md): If you draw a chart of effort applied in different phases of making things, the shape of the curve on that chart is changing.
- [Anti-process leads to Sprezzatura](https://www.workinghypotheses.com/essays/anti-process-leads-to-sprezzatura.md): One common thing that happens in startups is founders renounce the whole idea of planning and process.
- [The Three Types of COOs](https://www.workinghypotheses.com/essays/the-three-types-of-coos.md): About a year ago, I ran into a founder CEO friend of mine.
- [Revenue is a Feeling](https://www.workinghypotheses.com/essays/revenue-is-a-feeling.md): One of the best conversations I had was with a COO who works for a solo founder.
- [Have Wonder](https://www.workinghypotheses.com/essays/have-wonder.md): I sometimes get asked what to write about, and one hack I’ve used to explain it is: have wonder.
- [Poka-Yoke & the Planning Fallacy](https://www.workinghypotheses.com/essays/poka-yoke-the-planning-fallacy.md): Most startups hate planning. Poka-yoke and how to do it right.
- [Off-the-record COO Project](https://www.workinghypotheses.com/essays/off-the-record-coo-project.md): When I left Modern Treasury, I had years of questions built up.

---
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