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Overview

  • Four areas that matter
    • Idea
    • Product
    • Team
    • Execution
  • Ideas do matter
    • Pivots work best when it's to an idea that the founders want for themselves
    • Bad ideas + Good execution = Sub optimal at best
    • Ideas come first, the startup second
  • You will be working on an idea for 10 years
  • Long term thinking is rare in startups
    • Focus on a good kernel to begin with
  • Best companies are mission focused
  • Best ideas sound horrible at first
    • AirBnB
    • Facebook
  • Sound crazy, be right.
  • Aim to capture all of a small market, that is likely to grow to be used by everyone someday.
  • Look at the market size in 10 years. Ignore what investors say here.
  • The thing you control least is the market. So pick the right market.
  • Why now? Why not 2 years ago? Why not 2 years from now?
  • If you are not the customer for your product, you are at a big disadvantage. Only solution is to be as close to your customer as you possibly can.
  • You should be able to explain idea in one sentence.
  • What makes you different from out there? One big difference or completely different.
  • Think about what people want first. What you want to build second.

Building a product

  • Talk to customers, build, exercise, sleep and eat. Rinse and repeat.
  • Conferences, PR, even hiring etc. not important at first. These will be way easier if you build something people want, so do that first.
  • Build something a small group of people love, not something a lot of people like
  • A great product is the secret to long term growth. Multiplier on everything else.
  • Great founders don't put anyone between themselves and their users. Don't hire sales or customer service people.
  • Employees build what the CEO measures -- registrations, active users, cohort retention, revenue, net promoter scores. Focus on growth.

Why you should start a startup w/ Dustin Moskovitz

  • Common reasons: Glamorous, your own boss, flexibility, $$$

  • Entrepreneurship is much more stressful than people think -- Economist article, Entrepreneur's Anonymous

  • A lot of responsibility - fear of failure for yourself and for your employees

  • Always on call - startup doesn't stop when you go on holiday

  • It's not glamorous parties or huge epiphanies -- it's hard work day after day

  • You're much more committed. You can't just quit like a regular job. Leaving is a big deal as a cofounder. 5 years commitment if doesn't go well. 10 years if it is going well.

  • No. 1 job of a CEO - managing your own psychology.

  • Being your own boss sounds pretty nice. Reality is that no one has more bosses than a CEO -- every employee, every customer, every investor, every partner. "The life of most entrepreneurs is reporting to everyone else" - Phil Libin, CEO Evernote

  • Flexibility sounds pretty nice. Reality: "You'll be able to work any 24 hours a day you want!" - Phil Libin, CEO Evernote. Hyper growth startups take a ridiculous amount of work and you are the role model for the rest of the company.

  • Financial reward sounds pretty nice. Beware. Facebook's 100th employee made $200mn. Dropbox's 100th made $10mn. If you own 10% of a $100mn or even $2bn company, you could come out at the same financial reward as the 100th employee of a hypergrowth startup.

  • You can make a massive impact as an employee instead of as a founder. 1500th employee of Google made Google Maps, which everyone uses. Plenty of similar examples.

  • So what's the best reason??? -- You can't not do it

  • Passion -- you will go through all of these struggles to do it. You're passion will cause other people to join you in your mission.

  • Aptitude -- the world needs you to do it. The world needs it and the world needs you. Find what people want and why you're the person to do it.

Readings