Last week, I met a founder who runs a $10 BILLION company.

He is Jesse's mentor and the most impressive entrepreneur I've ever met.

Here are 12 timeless lessons from the billionaire you've never heard of: @RicElias is one of the most successful + least-known entrepreneurs of our generation.

His company Red Ventures is the largest digital media company in the US.

+ 5000+ employees
+ $3B+ revenue

He’s also one of the most humble, kind-hearted people I know.

Onto the lessons...

Your business isn’t growing because you suck at delegating.

Here’s the 4-step Harvard framework for effective delegation: 1. Start with why they exist

If hires don't understand how they fit into the business, they may not care enough.

Give them context about what’s at stake and share your reasons for taking certain actions.

Articulate everything from the start.

Today, we onboarded a 10/10 hire for Head of talent.

I knew I wanted to hire this person the first time I met her.

I've hired hundreds of people. Thousands of interviews.

Here's what all 10s have in common: 1. Extremely high agency

10s can sense problems, sniff out the opportunities, design solutions and proactively change the course of where a company is headed.

10s always make it rain.

Most people suck at managing up.

They say too much or too little and waste their boss's time.

Here's how to give the right amount of context: 1. Set the stage

Executives are busy people. And they have a lot going on.

You have to set the stage for each discussion.

Start every new email thread or meeting with 60 seconds of context:
Try to answer: "What are we talking about? Why? Where did we leave off?"

400,000 guests are staying at Airbnbs during the Paris Olympics this year.

Just 4 years ago, Airbnb lost 70% of their business overnight due to Covid.

Everyone thought they would die.

But Brian Chesky executed an epic turnaround.

Here's how he did it 🧵 1. Sweat the small stuff

Almost singularly among modern leaders, Brian stresses the value of being in the details.

He was always a hands-on leader, but he became super in-the-weeds during the crisis.

Product, marketing, management, everything.

And the results speak volumes..

Here's what a week in the life of a CEO running a $15M company looks like Sunday

My week starts on Sunday. If I get the setup wrong, it all goes wrong.
Priorities:

1/ Urgent/Important emails (CEOs respond on Sundays)
2/ Reviewing my CEO dashboard to see where we're off plan
3/ Prepping my deep dives for the week

This startup turned a simple version control system into a $7.5 BILLION platform.

It:
• started with $0 funding
• has 100M+ repositories
• was acquired for $7.5B by Microsoft

Here’s the story of the code repository of the world: Tom Preston-Werner and Chris Wanstrath met while working at CNET in the mid-2000s.

Both were passionate about software development and recognized the need for better tools to manage and share code.

In 2008, they started working on a side project.

Two college friends turned a $10 domain name into 25 BILLION dollars.

Completely bootstrapped.

From $0 to $400 million in revenue in 9 years.

And now, going toe-to-toe with Amazon.

Here’s the story 👇 Niraj Shah and Steve Conine became best friends at Cornell engineering in the late 90s.

Both had entrepreneurial families, but neither had considered that path themselves.

Senior year, they both took an entrepreneurship class “for fun”

Peter Thiel is the greatest recruiter of all time.

He hired Reid Hoffman, Sam Altman, David Sacks, and partnered with Elon Musk.

Here are the questions he asks to pick 10/10 people 🧵 1/ Tell me something which is true that almost nobody agrees with you on?

Litmus test of independent thinking + logic.

The combination can be deadly.

In 2015, Notion almost died.

So, the founders moved from SF to Kyoto to build in peace.

Last year, they hit $10 BILLION in valuation.

Here's how 🧵 Two things:

1. Focused Product
2. Community-led growth

Let's break them down:

3 years ago, I co-founded my first business

Recently, we crossed $13,000,000 in revenue. Bootstrapped.

I’m a mom, wife, and now a first-time founder/CEO

Here are my top 7 learnings on leadership, entrepreneurship, and startups 👇🧵 1/ Ups and downs don't go away

Even after growing and seeing success, it's still a nerve-wracking rollercoaster.

The great things aren't as great as they seem and the bad things are usually not as bad. Keep calm and move forward.

Today, I met a 10/10 candidate for a leadership role I'm trying to fill.

I've hired hundreds of people. Thousands of interviews.

Here's all 10s have in common: 1. Hyper-competent

Getting work done is not enough.

Put out great work. Be consistent and reliable. And own the outcome.

GrowthAssistant hit $12,000,000 ARR last year.

This year, we'll cross $20,000,000.

Our systems are our failsafes.

Here are all the tools we use to operate and scale Hubspot - CRM

We use Hubspot as a CRM, for leads, meetings, deals, and more. It houses most of our marketing and sales.

It's not an easy thing to implement at first. But it's an important guardrail to have in place as you scale

3 years ago, I co-founded my first business

Today, we crossed $13,000,000 in revenue. Bootstrapped.

I’m a mom, wife, and now a first-time founder/CEO

Here are my top 11 learnings on leadership, entrepreneurship, and startups 👇🧵 1/ Ups and downs don't go away

Even after growing and seeing success, it's still a nerve-wracking rollercoaster.

The great things aren't as great as they seem and the bad things are usually not as bad. Keep calm and move forward.

Peter Thiel is the greatest recruiter of all time.

He hired Reid Hoffman, Sam Altman, David Sacks, and partnered with Elon Musk.

Here are the questions he asks to pick 10/10 people 🧵 1/ Tell me something which is true that almost nobody agrees with you on?

Litmus test of independent thinking + logic.

The combination can be deadly.

He once cleaned toilets and washed dishes.

Then he started the world's most important tech company that is powering the AI revolution.

Nvidia has added $1 TRILLION in market cap this year alone.

Here's the story of the man behind it 🧵 1/ Jensen Huang was born in Tainan, Taiwan in 1967.

He moved to the US, got his Bachelor's at Oregon State and his Master's at Stanford.

Post-Stanford, along with Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, started Nvidia with a vision to "solve problems that a normal computer can't."

The hardest thing for me to get right as a first-time Founder/CEO?

Effective delegation.

But I learned. And I now run a team of 50+ in 3 countries.

I swear by two tools to help me to do it:
1. Leadership Ladders
2. Task Relevant Maturity

Here's the breakdown 🧵 First things first: delegating is not abdicating.

But it helps you move from the weeds of execution to more focus on direction and big-picture work.

As the manager/leader, it's still ultimately your responsibility to make sure your people are doing what you need them to.

I asked a mastermind of Shopify store owners making $2,000,000+

"What’s one tool or service you can't live without?"

Here are the 8 every store must know 👇👇 1/ @klaviyo for Email

In 2021, I co-founded my first business.

Today, we crossed $10,000,000 in revenue with only 8 US full-time employees. 100% bootstrapped.

I’m a mom, wife, and now a first-time founder/CEO

Here are my top 11 learnings on leadership, entrepreneurship, and startups 👇🧵 1) Tenacity is the most important trait for building a company.

It is not intelligence, creativity or salesmanship, but sheer determination.

Wake up every day and push the ball forward.

Close to 1,000,000 impressions on Twitter with our company account.

Likely over $500k in ARR. Just in 2023.

Here's the EXACT framework we use to create content for it on autopilot!

All it takes to get this flywheel going is:
- Social Media Assistant in the Philippines (couple… https://t.co/BJ1qhewxRztwitter.com/i/web/status/1…
1) Find recurring events that trigger a post

It's different for every business. But I am sure you can come up easily with 3-5 events that could trigger a post.

It's so much easier to create processes if you create repeatable content.

Here are ours:

Bad hiring could kill your startup. I experienced this firsthand.

But after interviewing 10,000+ people, I identified 7 traits you should look for when hiring: I know: 10,000+ people? That must be fake!!

But it's true:
7+ years in HR / Recruiting for a hedge fund. 2+ years of leading Growth Assistant.

With sprints, "normal interviews", group interviews and some networking convos, I turned into an interview.

So, let's get started: