Thread by @eriktorenberg

1/ Building a Personal Moat in tech for ppl who don’t want to build companies.

To reiterate: The cleanest & most direct way to build career capital in tech is to start a successful company.

Step 1 - Start company
Step 2 - Do whatever you want.

https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg/status/1068037464336605184

2/ Building a company hard, and not for everyone, but there are other ways to build career capital, particularly if you want to get into venture.

That said, if you can handle it from a stress POV (or $ POV), it’s less risky than one thinks:

https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg/status/1043666107888885760

3/ IMO, the best way to get good at starting companies is to…start companies.

Find the best people. Move, if you have to & it’s feasible.

If this is your goal, you can start sooner than you think.

4/ That said, a lot of people want to build career capital and *not* start companies.

Gentle reminder: If you build a big company, you can basically do whatever you want.

If you don’t, you want to have some specific skill, knowledge base, or asset that gives you a moat.

5/ Skills/Knowledge are fairly obvious, and there are no real short cuts.

Assets are more non-obvious, and hard to build, but if you do them they can be good moats.

6/ What are assets?

In technology, what do startups need help with?

- Distribution
- Recruiting
- Fundraising
- Expertise
- Etc

Build something that helps startups with a core need.

@andrewchen calls it “having a thing”:

https://twitter.com/andrewchen/status/1065751150341718016

7/ Steps to building a moat if you’re not going to start a company:

a) “Get in the game”
b) Build an asset that builds some social capital
c) Convert social capital to financial capital (e.g invest)

8/ First you have to break in.

You have to “get in the game”, as @Dude_Br0 once told me.

What does this mean?

Place yourself in the surface area of interesting opportunities.

9/ A lot has been written about this. The @everest10x podcast has tons of examples.

@rrhoover couldn’t have started Product Hunt when at Playhaven, he had to start his blog experiment to build enough critical relationships.

He built an asset first: medium.com/@rrhoover/buil…

10/ Once you’re “in the game”, you can compound a skill, knowledge base, or build an asset.

@Nivo0o0 worked at PH/Angel List, and then started a fund. AL and PH were how he got in the game, the price of entry. He didn’t own it, but he could raise a fund off his social capital.

11/ @HarryStebbings owns 20 min VC. That’s an asset. A valuable asset.

He leveraged that asset to partner with someone and raise a fund.

Lesser known his is work with Saastr, which gave him a vertical network/skillset in conjunction with a horizontal one.

12/ How can you build an asset?

The playbooks are all around you:

20 min VC for X—X could be functional area (Sales, Eng, Marketing) or vertical (20 min healthcare, e-sports, etc)

Saastr Annual for X—create the premier conference for your vertical

LMK if you’re doing either

13/ "Get in the game" so you can build an asset.

Build an asset to get deal flow.

Leverage it to make investments.

14/ Example, in action:

- Join Product Hunt in *any* role (“get in the game”)
- Start dinner series for people looking to do their next thing (“build asset”)
- Share deals with VCs until they give you allocation + build track record to start a fund (“leverage asset”)

15/ Have fun and build long term relationships along the way because:

https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg/status/1068024551081238533

"Personal Moat" as a term is somewhat exclusionary - what's a better way to describe the same concept that is also positive sum?

These are such obvious spaces to build an asset. Just have to do the work.