When we were starting @masterclass, I kept hearing startup myths that made me question not only the idea, but myself as an entrepreneur. What helped me was thinking of counterfactuals. They were inspiring. Startup myths I felt and their counterfactuals:
Myth #1: "You can't start that idea -- you aren't an expert in that!" Counterfactual: almost every entrepreneur. @elonmusk wasn't an expert in payments, batteries, rockets and solar panels. @JeffBezos didn't run bookstores.
Myth #2: "You get only one chance to be an entrepreneur so your first idea better work!" Counterfactual: @reidhoffman started SocialNet before Linkedin.
Myth #3: "If it fails, you set your career back years." Counterfactual: every acquihire. @WilliamsonMark taught me about job vs career risk. At a startup, you have job risk, but little career risk. If the startup fails, you'll have learned a ton you can bring to a next job
Myth #4: "Be careful about getting investors. They have hidden agendas!" Counterfactual: investors have the most transparent agendas I've seen -- maximize company value. If you don't want to do that, then don't raise venture capital.
Myth #5: "I don't think that idea will work, because I wouldn't use it" Counterfactual: Apple, Uber, @masterclass (we heard that all the time). I think it's because we're bad at imagining things that don't exist and worse at imagining the needs of people who aren't us.
Myth #6: "You shouldn't grow with paid marketing!" Counterfactual: every consumer Fortune 100 company. You can't scale without paid marketing. It's a litmus test of product market fit. Buying growth and relying on it is bad, but buying profitable paid marketing is great.
Myth #7: "You 'just' need to hire amazing people!" Counterfactual: you do, it's 'just' not easy. The types of people you need change by stage (e.g. early on you need T shaped people). Hiring is the most important thing you do and it's 'just' hard. Credit: @WilliamsonMark
Myth #8: "Connection requests on LinkedIn are an effective way to network." Counterfactual: have you ever done a deal that came in from a generic LI connection request? It's the last form of widely practiced spam. At least send an InMail (those work!).
Myth #10: "You don't need a Head of Finance or People until you're much bigger." We should've hired both way sooner. I didn't know how much leverage they would provide. Helps exponentially!
