Growth. It’s the mountain every startup founder must learn to climb in order to run a successful business. And as with any great mountain, the journey to the top never feels more daunting than at the base. How your startup earns its first 10 customers will set the tone for the rest of the trek and determine how fast your team reaches the summit — if at all.

While many businesses struggled to keep pace with the changing economics of a global pandemic, the real estate industry was booming. The housing market reached record-breaking heights last month, with median existing-price homes rising 17.2% over the prior year. This increase in the average cost of a house was compounded by accelerated closing times, as the average house sold in 18 days, a record low.

In the final episode of season two of The Data Chief podcast, we talk with authors of four must-read books for data and analytics leaders — two new and two time-tested. As you invest in your continuous learning, here is the full round up of the latest top books I recommend for today’s data and analytics leaders.

Enabling customers and users to quickly find the value within a product is critical for many organizations and at the heart of being a product manager. The approach to driving user growth involves a growth mindset, combining qualitative and quantitative research methods, and driving impactful solutions.

In a company’s early days, the difference between C-level executives and the rest of the organization is simple — employees can walk away from a failure, leaders cannot. Under those conditions, certain types of people thrive in leadership positions and get a company from ideation to production.