It takes 10yrs to create a great startup. If you don’t love & believe it, you’ll likely give up at some point along the way. There’s no way I know of to get through the pain without a belief that the mission matters
Most people in the world will try to pull you back & say, ‘That seems a little too crazy'
At the end of the day, most ppl serve to pull you back towards the mean
Most ppl tend to either be wrong abt what is/isn’t risky or aren’t taking enough risks (especially early)
Risk: Also, let’s re-define risk:
I think what risk actually looks like is not doing something that you will then spend the rest of your life regretting
Too many ppl get caught up in the idea of “working hard” w/o taking a pause to make sure they’re moving in the right direction.
This whole productivity porn thing where you have systems and multi-variable charts and 3-dimensional whatever, those people never seem to be the people that move the world forward
Minimize your own cognitive load from distracting things that don’t really matter.
But this a good thing (it means there’s less competition)
Also, the truly good ideas don’t sound like they’re worth stealing (so don’t be afraid to share your idea with others)
If it takes more than a sentence to explain what you’re doing, it’s almost always a sign that it’s too complicated
You should instead be proud of how few employees you have. Lots of employees equals a high burn rate—meaning you’re losing lots of money every month, complexity, tension, and slow decision-making
A single mediocre hire out of your first five will often, in fact, kill a startup
With every early hire, ask: “Am I willing to bet the future of the company on this one hire?
Optimists: The whole world will be telling you why you’re going to fail as a startup. You need that internal fire of belief
Idea Generators: Can generate solutions to solve problems
“I’ve Got It”: Ppl on your team who are always willing to step up to the job
I think the best thing you can do is realize that, as a first-time founder, you’re likely to be a terrible manager, & then try to overcompensate for that
There’s a huge edge if you’re willing to do it.
- Set the vision
- Raise money
- Evangelize
- Hire & manage
- Make sure the entire company executes
As a founder, you’ll have 100s of important things competing for your attention—your job is to identify the most critical, work on them, & defer the rest
Someone at the startup must be able to recruit, sell the product, talk to the press, raise money, etc.
This requires someone who can affect the whole world with enthusiasm about what the company’s trying to do
Keep momentum!
Establish an operating rhythm—ship product and launch new features weekly
Ignore competitors (until they’re beating you with a shipped product)
Competitors making noise is often what crushes a company’s momentum more than any external factor
Ppl are more likely to tell their friends abt a product when it’s easy to explain
With real trends, a new piece of tech comes along, & the early adopters use it obsessively (and tell their friends how much they love it) (e.g iPhone)
A fake trend is one where people may buy the product, but don’t use it all that often (e.g. oculus)
If you send a thoughtful email, one that shows you’re serious and have done some work, to somebody working at the edge of a particular field on something interesting, they’ll probably meet you.
If you’re doing something that makes people’s eyes gloss over, it’s hard to hire, it’s hard to stake holders to care, etc
They don’t build differentiated products, they are not network affected businesses, they don’t try to build a brand and a community, and they don’t try to make something that gets better the bigger it gets
When you’ve run out of ideas AND something isn’t working, then it’s a good time to stop
Most great companies start with a great idea, not a pivot. If you look at the track record of pivots, they don’t usually become big companies.
Bc most ppl are bad at estimating risk. They'll happily breathe in coal smoke all day & then someday die of cancer, & not connect that together. But if there’s a nuclear meltdown & 3 people die, they will march against nuclear energy forever