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Marc Andreessen explains the 3 Necessities for Start-up Success: "The general criteria for a successful high-tech startup, in my view, you see different sort of rules of thumb from different people. But the three big things you always come back to are, is there a big market? And by... the way, that comes in two parts. Is there a big existing market that you think you can go after and sort of displace incumbents or do you believe there will be a new market that will be big? So big market. Is there a fundamental technology or economic change that causes you to basically justify having a new company? And that's really important. And the way I always think about that is, is there a 10X change happening in the technology landscape? Is something 10X faster or 10X cheaper or 10X better? And if it's not 10X, we as both VCs and entrepreneurs, we really have to ask ourselves like, is it really worth doing? Because it's really hard. I mean, it's really hard to start new companies. new companies generally shouldn't exist. Existing companies are usually pretty good at what they do. And so for a new company to exist, it not only has to like come in and go into business and bring a product to market, but it has to bring a product to market that's so much better than what already exists that it punches through the sort of status quo. And most customers in most markets are pretty happy buying from the current suppliers and so there has to be a real kind of edge on the thing and we look for that in either a technology change, usually a technology change or an economic change. which are often the same thing. And then the third is team. Is the team outstanding? And if you think about this as an entrepreneur, it becomes a question of the founding team. Some companies are solo founders and they can work, but generally most of us, like myself, we're human beings, we're mortal. You want to have a founding team of complementary skill sets. And so you want to have at least one super strong technologist, quite possibly more than one. Some of the best startups are actually more than one founding technologist and then it often helps to have somebody who's like a product or who's a market or sales person or has a sort of really good understanding of business on the team, certainly helps a lot. And so we sort of look at market, product, and team. And the reality is you need all three. I would say, interestingly, if you're going to compromise as an investor, if we're going to compromise on one of those, it would actually be the product. And the reason I say that is because a great market is a lot easier to make up for with iterative product execution than a poor market. Because the problem with a poor market, a small market, is even if you do a great job on the product, there just aren't that many customers. It's hard to ever get big."show more

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Marc Andreessen on the 3 things he looks for when investing in a startup The first thing Marc Andreesen looks for is a big market: “Is there a big existing market that you think you can go after and displace incumbents? Or do you believe there will be a new market that will be big?” The second thing he looks for is a 10x better product: “Is there a fundamental technology or economic change that justifies a new company? And the way I always think about that is: Is there a 10x change happening in the technology landscape? Is something 10x faster, 10x cheaper, or 10x better? If it’s not 10x, we as both VCs and entrepreneurs have to ask ourselves if it’s really worth doing because it’s really hard to start new companies . . . Existing companies are usually pretty good at what they do. So for a new company to exist, it has to bring a product to market that’s so much better than what exists that it punches through the status quo.” The third is the team: “Is the team outstanding? . . . You want to have a founding team of complementary skillsets. You want to have at least one super strong technologist — quite possibly more than one. Some of the best startups are actually more than one founding technologist. And then it often helps to have someone who is a marketing or salesperson who has a really good understanding of business.” Marc believes that you need all three of these, but if you’re going to compromise on one of those as an investor, it should be the product: “A great market is a lot easier to make up for with iterative product execution. The problem with a poor or small market is that even if you do a good job on the product, there just aren’t that many customers so it’s hard to ever get big and people get demoralized . . . And then we evaluate the team of a startup by its ability to get into a big market with a good product.”

Marc Andreessen on the 3 things he looks for when investing in a startup The first thing Marc Andreesen looks for is a big market: “Is there a big existing market that you think you can go after and displace incumbents? Or do you believe there will be a new market that will be big?” The second thing he looks for is a 10x better product: “Is there a fundamental technology or economic change that justifies a new company? And the way I always think about that is: Is there a 10x change happening in the technology landscape? Is something 10x faster, 10x cheaper, or 10x better? If it’s not 10x, we as both VCs and entrepreneurs have to ask ourselves if it’s really worth doing because it’s really hard to start new companies . . . Existing companies are usually pretty good at what they do. So for a new company to exist, it has to bring a product to market that’s so much better than what exists that it punches through the status quo.” The third is the team: “Is the team outstanding? . . . You want to have a founding team of complementary skillsets. You want to have at least one super strong technologist — quite possibly more than one. Some of the best startups are actually more than one founding technologist. And then it often helps to have someone who is a marketing or salesperson who has a really good understanding of business.” Marc believes that you need all three of these, but if you’re going to compromise on one of those as an investor, it should be the product: “A great market is a lot easier to make up for with iterative product execution. The problem with a poor or small market is that even if you do a good job on the product, there just aren’t that many customers so it’s hard to ever get big and people get demoralized . . . And then we evaluate the team of a startup by its ability to get into a big market with a good product.”

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Ben Horowitz on the two things every successful technology startup must do 1. Build a product that improves how some large group of people does something by 10x. “You have to build a transformational product. There is no way to build a great new company without a great product… If you look at the great technology companies, the thing that distinguishes them is the ability to keep coming up with a better way of doing things.” 2. Taking the market. “You can come up with the best product, but if you don’t [take the market], you really don’t have a company. Most technology businesses are network effects businesses. You have to win… If you’re an engineer, what business skills do you need to build a technology company? They’re all around the skills that you need to win the market. How do you out-market, out-sell, and beat the competition?… Do you build a good enough company that you go win?” Video source: UC Berkeley (2009)

Ben Horowitz on the two things every successful technology startup must do 1. Build a product that improves how some large group of people does something by 10x. “You have to build a transformational product. There is no way to build a great new company without a great product… If you look at the great technology companies, the thing that distinguishes them is the ability to keep coming up with a better way of doing things.” 2. Taking the market. “You can come up with the best product, but if you don’t [take the market], you really don’t have a company. Most technology businesses are network effects businesses. You have to win… If you’re an engineer, what business skills do you need to build a technology company? They’re all around the skills that you need to win the market. How do you out-market, out-sell, and beat the competition?… Do you build a good enough company that you go win?” Video source: UC Berkeley (2009)

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Ben Horowitz explains the two things every successful technology startup must do 1. Build a product that improves how some large group of people does something by 10x. “You have to build a transformational product. There is no way to build a great new company without a great product… If you look at the great technology companies, the thing that distinguishes them is the ability to keep coming up with a better way of doing things.” 2. Taking the market. “You can come up with the best product, but if you don’t [take the market], you really don’t have a company. Most technology businesses are network effects businesses. You have to win… If you’re an engineer, what business skills do you need to build a technology company? They’re all around the skills that you need to win the market. How do you out-market, out-sell, and beat the competition?… Do you build a good enough company that you go win?” Video Source: UC Berkeley

Ben Horowitz explains the two things every successful technology startup must do 1. Build a product that improves how some large group of people does something by 10x. “You have to build a transformational product. There is no way to build a great new company without a great product… If you look at the great technology companies, the thing that distinguishes them is the ability to keep coming up with a better way of doing things.” 2. Taking the market. “You can come up with the best product, but if you don’t [take the market], you really don’t have a company. Most technology businesses are network effects businesses. You have to win… If you’re an engineer, what business skills do you need to build a technology company? They’re all around the skills that you need to win the market. How do you out-market, out-sell, and beat the competition?… Do you build a good enough company that you go win?” Video Source: UC Berkeley

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77,268 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren

Marc Andreessen: Most successful companies started “product first” “There are products that become companies, and then there are companies that come up with a product. One of the interesting things over the years is that many of the most successful technology franchises were products first, way before they ever became companies.” In this talk, Marc gives a few examples: • His team at the University of Illinois worked on the research project that became Netscape for three years before it became a company • Bill Gates and Paul Allen were deep into PCs before there was a software business • Jobs and Wozniak built the first Apple computer as hobbyists • Mark Zuckerberg was running Facebook out of his dorm room before he ever thought of starting a company • Twitter was a side project at the failed podcasting app Odeo Marc believes that this “product becomes a company” template is successful because “it’s a demonstration that the product has to exist. The market needs the product so badly that somebody actually built it and deployed it and you can actually see evidence that people want it before there was an economic motivation to do so.” He contrasts this with the failure cases he often sees when entrepreneurs try to figure out the idea after starting a company. “It’s very easy in that process to fool yourself into believing that there’s a market because you want to find something and you have a very strong motivation to come up with an answer. It’s hard to go through that process for three months and then say, ‘you know what, we can’t come up with any good ideas.’” There are of course there exceptions. Marc gives Hewlett Packard as an example. But that’s more the exception than the rule. As Marc explains: “The moral of the story is it has to be a really good idea. That often will be an idea that is preexisting at the time you decide to start a company. And if it isn’t, be really careful because you’re walking on sharp rocks at that point with a high risk of falling off the cliff into the ocean.” Video source: Stanford eCorner (2010)

Marc Andreessen: Most successful companies started “product first” “There are products that become companies, and then there are companies that come up with a product. One of the interesting things over the years is that many of the most successful technology franchises were products first, way before they ever became companies.” In this talk, Marc gives a few examples: • His team at the University of Illinois worked on the research project that became Netscape for three years before it became a company • Bill Gates and Paul Allen were deep into PCs before there was a software business • Jobs and Wozniak built the first Apple computer as hobbyists • Mark Zuckerberg was running Facebook out of his dorm room before he ever thought of starting a company • Twitter was a side project at the failed podcasting app Odeo Marc believes that this “product becomes a company” template is successful because “it’s a demonstration that the product has to exist. The market needs the product so badly that somebody actually built it and deployed it and you can actually see evidence that people want it before there was an economic motivation to do so.” He contrasts this with the failure cases he often sees when entrepreneurs try to figure out the idea after starting a company. “It’s very easy in that process to fool yourself into believing that there’s a market because you want to find something and you have a very strong motivation to come up with an answer. It’s hard to go through that process for three months and then say, ‘you know what, we can’t come up with any good ideas.’” There are of course there exceptions. Marc gives Hewlett Packard as an example. But that’s more the exception than the rule. As Marc explains: “The moral of the story is it has to be a really good idea. That often will be an idea that is preexisting at the time you decide to start a company. And if it isn’t, be really careful because you’re walking on sharp rocks at that point with a high risk of falling off the cliff into the ocean.” Video source: Stanford eCorner (2010)

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$Peter Thiel's advice to early-stage startups: "One basic frame is that if you're starting a company, you always start small. So how do you get to monopoly when you're small? Answer, you start with a very small market. And the conventional business thing is always you want to go after really big markets. There are no big markets without lots of competition. You never want to go after big markets. You want to go after small markets. Facebook started with 10,000 people at Harvard. It was such a small market, it could not have been funded. It would not have been funded by investors if you'd actually pitched it. So it sort of bootstrapped the whole thing. It went from 0% to 60% market share in 10 days. That was actually a very auspicious start. Now, PayPal, we went after 30,000 power sellers on eBay. Again, sort of a subset of a subset of a subset of the payment space, but it has these very distinct, unique characteristics that made it a well-defined market. We got to about 30%, 35% market share in three months. Again, a very, very promising start. There was a tremendous amount that went wrong with all the clean tech companies in the last decade. And I think failure is always a little bit overrated because people can't learn much from failure. When you fail, you normally failed for multiple reasons. You failed for reasons A, B, C, D, E, and F. And maybe you think you failed because of A. Next time around, you'll fail for the other five reasons. So that's why I think we often make the mistake of... of overrating failure in various contexts. Cleantech failed for many different reasons. But one that I think is very important, and people haven't thought about enough, is that the markets were just way too big. Every PowerPoint presentation you saw in the period 2005 to 2008 started with, we are in the energy market. And this is a market that's in the hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars. And then it's a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of that market. And then you end up with a dynamic where you have to beat the other nine thin film solar panel companies. Then you have to beat the other 90 solar panel companies. Then you have to beat the wind companies. And then fracking comes out of right field. And China comes out of left field. And you're sort of like this minnow in this vast ocean. And there's just competition everywhere, most of it not even visible from the point at which you get started."$

Peter Thiel's advice to early-stage startups: "One basic frame is that if you're starting a company, you always start small. So how do you get to monopoly when you're small? Answer, you start with a very small market. And the conventional business thing is always you want to go after really big markets. There are no big markets without lots of competition. You never want to go after big markets. You want to go after small markets. Facebook started with 10,000 people at Harvard. It was such a small market, it could not have been funded. It would not have been funded by investors if you'd actually pitched it. So it sort of bootstrapped the whole thing. It went from 0% to 60% market share in 10 days. That was actually a very auspicious start. Now, PayPal, we went after 30,000 power sellers on eBay. Again, sort of a subset of a subset of a subset of the payment space, but it has these very distinct, unique characteristics that made it a well-defined market. We got to about 30%, 35% market share in three months. Again, a very, very promising start. There was a tremendous amount that went wrong with all the clean tech companies in the last decade. And I think failure is always a little bit overrated because people can't learn much from failure. When you fail, you normally failed for multiple reasons. You failed for reasons A, B, C, D, E, and F. And maybe you think you failed because of A. Next time around, you'll fail for the other five reasons. So that's why I think we often make the mistake of... of overrating failure in various contexts. Cleantech failed for many different reasons. But one that I think is very important, and people haven't thought about enough, is that the markets were just way too big. Every PowerPoint presentation you saw in the period 2005 to 2008 started with, we are in the energy market. And this is a market that's in the hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars. And then it's a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of that market. And then you end up with a dynamic where you have to beat the other nine thin film solar panel companies. Then you have to beat the other 90 solar panel companies. Then you have to beat the wind companies. And then fracking comes out of right field. And China comes out of left field. And you're sort of like this minnow in this vast ocean. And there's just competition everywhere, most of it not even visible from the point at which you get started."

Founder Mode

39,978 Aufrufe • vor 9 Monaten

Scott on why conviction in an idea is dangerous as an investor but required as a founder: "From the investor seat, I don't think you want to be in love with an idea. That's a risky thing because you'll find a way to express that by investing and make some compromises on the team because you know this idea is just so good, its time has come. But if the team isn't there, 90% of the time it doesn't work. Then there's a whole thing can you swap out the team? But the whole Founders Fund thesis was always no, you need the founder to run the company. But on the company side, you have to be in love with the idea. It's not that rational to start a company. There's a lot easier, more comfortable ways to make money if that's the goal. So it's got to be about what the company is doing specifically. If you want to actually start a company, it better be something that you're really passionate about, or you think that the problem is really important."

Scott on why conviction in an idea is dangerous as an investor but required as a founder: "From the investor seat, I don't think you want to be in love with an idea. That's a risky thing because you'll find a way to express that by investing and make some compromises on the team because you know this idea is just so good, its time has come. But if the team isn't there, 90% of the time it doesn't work. Then there's a whole thing can you swap out the team? But the whole Founders Fund thesis was always no, you need the founder to run the company. But on the company side, you have to be in love with the idea. It's not that rational to start a company. There's a lot easier, more comfortable ways to make money if that's the goal. So it's got to be about what the company is doing specifically. If you want to actually start a company, it better be something that you're really passionate about, or you think that the problem is really important."

Patrick OShaughnessy

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"Every software product you build, fate has already decided the outcome. The market is either going latch onto your product and run with it, or it's not. Do not ship a product, find a lack of success, and then try to market your way through that. Because the binding receptors likely don't exist. Once you recognize that the market is immutable, that no amount of tweeting, LinkedIn posting, advertising is going change whether the market wants your product, then you take a different mindset." — Matt MacInnis, COO/CPO at Rippling

"Every software product you build, fate has already decided the outcome. The market is either going latch onto your product and run with it, or it's not. Do not ship a product, find a lack of success, and then try to market your way through that. Because the binding receptors likely don't exist. Once you recognize that the market is immutable, that no amount of tweeting, LinkedIn posting, advertising is going change whether the market wants your product, then you take a different mindset." — Matt MacInnis, COO/CPO at Rippling

Lenny Rachitsky

29,706 Aufrufe • vor 10 Monaten

Elon Musk: If you are creating a company or joining a company the most important thing is to attract great people "If you are creating a company or joining a company the most important thing is to attract great people, so either be with or join a group that's amazing that you really respect, or if you have building a company you have to gather great people I mean all the company is a group of people that have gathered together to create a product or service and so depending upon how talented and hardworking that group is, and the degree to which they're focused, cohesively, and in a good direction, that will determine the success of the company Do everything you can to gather great people, if you are creating a company"

Elon Musk: If you are creating a company or joining a company the most important thing is to attract great people "If you are creating a company or joining a company the most important thing is to attract great people, so either be with or join a group that's amazing that you really respect, or if you have building a company you have to gather great people I mean all the company is a group of people that have gathered together to create a product or service and so depending upon how talented and hardworking that group is, and the degree to which they're focused, cohesively, and in a good direction, that will determine the success of the company Do everything you can to gather great people, if you are creating a company"

SMX 🇺🇸

12,251 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten

It's not a bull or bear market. It's a monkey market. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen says Bitcoin could move 30% either way within a month or two, as AI mega-IPOs flood the market "Whether Bitcoin price at 83K today is a bull market or bear market, I actually talked about this, and I think it's more like a monkey market. So monkey jumps up and down, and that's how I feel about the current market." "So don't be too surprised if Bitcoin went down another 30%, but also don't be too upset if Bitcoin went up 30%. And I think that's both very reasonable, and that could happen even within this year, like just in 1 or 2 months." "Because the current market is quite unpredictable. AI stocks are quite hyped. SpaceX launch is a trillions sort of level launch, and there are more AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI that's expecting to do an IPO." "Not necessarily all the capital moving to those companies, but that's a huge amount of stocks that's dumped to the market, in my opinion."

It's not a bull or bear market. It's a monkey market. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen says Bitcoin could move 30% either way within a month or two, as AI mega-IPOs flood the market "Whether Bitcoin price at 83K today is a bull market or bear market, I actually talked about this, and I think it's more like a monkey market. So monkey jumps up and down, and that's how I feel about the current market." "So don't be too surprised if Bitcoin went down another 30%, but also don't be too upset if Bitcoin went up 30%. And I think that's both very reasonable, and that could happen even within this year, like just in 1 or 2 months." "Because the current market is quite unpredictable. AI stocks are quite hyped. SpaceX launch is a trillions sort of level launch, and there are more AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI that's expecting to do an IPO." "Not necessarily all the capital moving to those companies, but that's a huge amount of stocks that's dumped to the market, in my opinion."

The Wolf Of All Streets

45,067 Aufrufe • vor 5 Tagen

Naval Ravikant’s checklist for starting a company “The most important thing is there are no formulas. At the end of the day, you have to do what you love, and you have to do it even though people tell you it’ll never work. But that being said, if there was a formula [for starting a company], I would put it something like this.” Naval started seven companies before AngelList and this is the checklist he recommends running through before starting a startup: 1. Pick a great cofounder. This is most important: “You can do a company on your own, but it’s like you can raise a child on your own, but you probably shouldn’t. You need someone who’s going to be there with you.” This has it’s own checklist. Your cofounder should be: a. Very high intelligence (”hopefully they make you feel dumb, or they’re not smart enough”) b. Very high energy (”They should be extremely hardworking. A founder is someone who never has to be motivated. You should not have to be telling them to do their job.”) c. Very high integrity. (”a smart, hardworking crook who’s going to cheat you is the worst kind of person to be paired up with.”) 2. Pick a very large market. “Notice I don’t talk about the idea. I think ideas are almost irrelevant… The more important thing is that you pick a large space that you’re knowledgeable and passionate about. And then you will figure out what the right thing to do within that space is.” You want to be able to say to investors: “This is a space where there’s a huge market. I’m really knowledgeable and passionate about it. Here’s the great person that I have doing it with me. And here’s the minimum viable product that we have built. That will show that we can test in the marketplace… You iterate until you get to product/market fit… And then you go and you raise money from people you trust. And you use that money to scale.”

Naval Ravikant’s checklist for starting a company “The most important thing is there are no formulas. At the end of the day, you have to do what you love, and you have to do it even though people tell you it’ll never work. But that being said, if there was a formula [for starting a company], I would put it something like this.” Naval started seven companies before AngelList and this is the checklist he recommends running through before starting a startup: 1. Pick a great cofounder. This is most important: “You can do a company on your own, but it’s like you can raise a child on your own, but you probably shouldn’t. You need someone who’s going to be there with you.” This has it’s own checklist. Your cofounder should be: a. Very high intelligence (”hopefully they make you feel dumb, or they’re not smart enough”) b. Very high energy (”They should be extremely hardworking. A founder is someone who never has to be motivated. You should not have to be telling them to do their job.”) c. Very high integrity. (”a smart, hardworking crook who’s going to cheat you is the worst kind of person to be paired up with.”) 2. Pick a very large market. “Notice I don’t talk about the idea. I think ideas are almost irrelevant… The more important thing is that you pick a large space that you’re knowledgeable and passionate about. And then you will figure out what the right thing to do within that space is.” You want to be able to say to investors: “This is a space where there’s a huge market. I’m really knowledgeable and passionate about it. Here’s the great person that I have doing it with me. And here’s the minimum viable product that we have built. That will show that we can test in the marketplace… You iterate until you get to product/market fit… And then you go and you raise money from people you trust. And you use that money to scale.”

Startup Archive

36,050 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

.Naval on Finding Technical Co-founders Join the conversation: "It's getting harder and harder because these days those people just go and start their own company. So what do you bring to the table that a good technical co-founder would not have? That's number one. And that would either mean you have some particular deep insight and relationships into a market and you have capital because you've got to bring a lot to the table because you're not creating the product anymore. Or secondly, you have to have a relationship that's pre-existing. You worked together before at some company or you've gone to school together. Outside of those cases, it's incredibly hard to recruit a quality technical co-founder. And I'm not even sure you're in a position to start a company. This is why so many companies come out of universities or come out of the Bay Area because there you're just very likely to have business founders and technical founders next to each other. The business founders at least have enough technical experience that they can properly evaluate the technical co-founder. And then the business founder has to hustle and raise money, recruit people, have a vision, have a customer base, have a market ready to go, and have proven themselves. And now lots and lots of other things to balance out the skills a technical founder brings to the table. There are now more successful cases of solo technical founders starting companies than there are of solo non-technical founders starting companies. So it is an uphill climb. I'm not going to sugarcoat it for you.”

.Naval on Finding Technical Co-founders Join the conversation: "It's getting harder and harder because these days those people just go and start their own company. So what do you bring to the table that a good technical co-founder would not have? That's number one. And that would either mean you have some particular deep insight and relationships into a market and you have capital because you've got to bring a lot to the table because you're not creating the product anymore. Or secondly, you have to have a relationship that's pre-existing. You worked together before at some company or you've gone to school together. Outside of those cases, it's incredibly hard to recruit a quality technical co-founder. And I'm not even sure you're in a position to start a company. This is why so many companies come out of universities or come out of the Bay Area because there you're just very likely to have business founders and technical founders next to each other. The business founders at least have enough technical experience that they can properly evaluate the technical co-founder. And then the business founder has to hustle and raise money, recruit people, have a vision, have a customer base, have a market ready to go, and have proven themselves. And now lots and lots of other things to balance out the skills a technical founder brings to the table. There are now more successful cases of solo technical founders starting companies than there are of solo non-technical founders starting companies. So it is an uphill climb. I'm not going to sugarcoat it for you.”

Airchat

15,522 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren

Qullamaggie on Feeling Like a Genius, It's The Market Not You “A melt-up market is when everything is going straight up. And it becomes too easy to make money. You start feeling like a genius — that’s a melt-up market. Trust me, you are not a genius. None of you. It’s the market, not you. No, it’s true. It’s true. Most of my money has come from periods when the market is really good. You just have to line your trading with a period where the market is really good. You know, you gotta be aggressive when the market is really good. Your job is to identify good setups in a good market — and then let the market take care of the rest. Too many people think they are the shit just because they’re making a lot of money. But that’s not really true. It’s the market, not you.”

Qullamaggie on Feeling Like a Genius, It's The Market Not You “A melt-up market is when everything is going straight up. And it becomes too easy to make money. You start feeling like a genius — that’s a melt-up market. Trust me, you are not a genius. None of you. It’s the market, not you. No, it’s true. It’s true. Most of my money has come from periods when the market is really good. You just have to line your trading with a period where the market is really good. You know, you gotta be aggressive when the market is really good. Your job is to identify good setups in a good market — and then let the market take care of the rest. Too many people think they are the shit just because they’re making a lot of money. But that’s not really true. It’s the market, not you.”

Lone

14,021 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten

"Courage is far shorter in supply than genius." - Peter Thiel "One of the challenges in writing a book about entrepreneurship or teaching a class on this is that there is sort of no formula. And I think science always starts with a number two. It starts with experiments you can repeat, things you can do over and over again. But there's sort of a sense in which every moment in the history of business, every moment in the history of technology happens only once. The next Mark Zuckerberg will not be starting a social networking company. The next Larry Page will not start a search engine. The next Bill Gates will not be starting an operating system. And so if you are trying to copy these people, you're in some sense not learning from them. And so I think one of the really big challenges in teaching or writing about entrepreneurship is what can you say about being an entrepreneur at all when the key thing is always to do something new, different, that's not precisely been done before. And so the point of departure I start with in Zero to One is a somewhat indirect approach by asking a series of contrarian questions. The business question is, what great company is nobody starting? The more intellectual version of this question is, tell me something true that very few people agree with you on. And this is a fantastic interview question. It turns out to be quite a hard question, even when people can read on the internet that you ask of everybody who comes in the door, it still is a hard question. It's one of those unusual questions where if you know it's on the test, it's still hard. And it's hard not just because we sort of think that new things require brilliance or something like that, but because it's socially difficult. If I ask you that question, if you tell me something like the education system is screwed up or our political system doesn't work very well, those are true answers, but they're not actually good answers because all of us already know them to be true. The good answers are ones that are somehow uncomfortable that the person interviewing you does not actually want to hear. And I think we live in this world where courage is in far shorter supply than genius. And so it is sort of this, it is in a sense this problem of political correctness properly understood, is this very deep, very, very broad sort of a problem."

"Courage is far shorter in supply than genius." - Peter Thiel "One of the challenges in writing a book about entrepreneurship or teaching a class on this is that there is sort of no formula. And I think science always starts with a number two. It starts with experiments you can repeat, things you can do over and over again. But there's sort of a sense in which every moment in the history of business, every moment in the history of technology happens only once. The next Mark Zuckerberg will not be starting a social networking company. The next Larry Page will not start a search engine. The next Bill Gates will not be starting an operating system. And so if you are trying to copy these people, you're in some sense not learning from them. And so I think one of the really big challenges in teaching or writing about entrepreneurship is what can you say about being an entrepreneur at all when the key thing is always to do something new, different, that's not precisely been done before. And so the point of departure I start with in Zero to One is a somewhat indirect approach by asking a series of contrarian questions. The business question is, what great company is nobody starting? The more intellectual version of this question is, tell me something true that very few people agree with you on. And this is a fantastic interview question. It turns out to be quite a hard question, even when people can read on the internet that you ask of everybody who comes in the door, it still is a hard question. It's one of those unusual questions where if you know it's on the test, it's still hard. And it's hard not just because we sort of think that new things require brilliance or something like that, but because it's socially difficult. If I ask you that question, if you tell me something like the education system is screwed up or our political system doesn't work very well, those are true answers, but they're not actually good answers because all of us already know them to be true. The good answers are ones that are somehow uncomfortable that the person interviewing you does not actually want to hear. And I think we live in this world where courage is in far shorter supply than genius. And so it is sort of this, it is in a sense this problem of political correctness properly understood, is this very deep, very, very broad sort of a problem."

Founder Mode

12,339 Aufrufe • vor 9 Monaten

Avichal Garg on his $5-10M $BTC thesis "The way we've always thought about it is, this is digital gold. It's a fixed supply asset, it's easy to transport, it's easy to subdivide, it's a global liquid market." "People in the United States sometimes, or people in the west sometimes, forget how easy it is for us to acquire gold. You can go to the store and buy some, or you can get some gold futures. In a lot of the world, you can't get gold that easily. And people want it, people want dollars and gold." "So I tend to think as many people will have BTC as hold gold. If you just look at it from a market cap perspective, if BTC and gold get to a similar market cap, you're talking well in excess of a million dollars per BTC." "One of the lessons of the internet is, when you put things on a phone, you get addressable market expansion. Back in the day people used to talk about, how could Uber possibly be worth more than $10 billion, because the entire taxi industry is only worth $10 billion. Without realizing that when you put Uber on one of these things, all of a sudden 10x as many people can do it." "If you went back 15 years and told your friends there are gonna be 10 companies worth more than a trillion dollars, nobody would have believed you. So I don't think it's crazy that BTC ends up being bigger than gold in the fullness of time."

Avichal Garg on his $5-10M $BTC thesis "The way we've always thought about it is, this is digital gold. It's a fixed supply asset, it's easy to transport, it's easy to subdivide, it's a global liquid market." "People in the United States sometimes, or people in the west sometimes, forget how easy it is for us to acquire gold. You can go to the store and buy some, or you can get some gold futures. In a lot of the world, you can't get gold that easily. And people want it, people want dollars and gold." "So I tend to think as many people will have BTC as hold gold. If you just look at it from a market cap perspective, if BTC and gold get to a similar market cap, you're talking well in excess of a million dollars per BTC." "One of the lessons of the internet is, when you put things on a phone, you get addressable market expansion. Back in the day people used to talk about, how could Uber possibly be worth more than $10 billion, because the entire taxi industry is only worth $10 billion. Without realizing that when you put Uber on one of these things, all of a sudden 10x as many people can do it." "If you went back 15 years and told your friends there are gonna be 10 companies worth more than a trillion dollars, nobody would have believed you. So I don't think it's crazy that BTC ends up being bigger than gold in the fullness of time."

The Wolf Of All Streets

31,248 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat

Elon Musk: I'll be long dead before we're really a multiplanet species. But at least I'd like to see us make great progress in this direction. “Why do these things? I think this is important for maximizing the probable lifespan of humanity or consciousness. Human civilization could come to an end for external reasons, like a giant meteor, or supervolcanoes, or extreme climate change. Or World War III, or, you know, any one of a number of reasons. But the probable lifespan of civilization and consciousness, as we know it, which we should really view as this very delicate thing, like a small candle in a vast darkness, that is what appears to be the case. We're in this vast darkness of space, and there's this little candle of consciousness that's only really come about after 4.5 billion years. And it could just go out. I think that's powerful, and I think a lot of people will be inspired by that vision. And so the reason you need the million people is because there has to be enough people there to do everything that you need to survive. The critical threshold is, if the ships from Earth stop coming for any reason, does the Mars city die out or not? We have to pass that. People talk about the great filters, the things that perhaps, you know, we talk about the Fermi paradox and where are the aliens, and, well, maybe there is various great filters that the aliens didn't pass, and so they eventually just cease to exist. And one of the great filters is becoming a multiplanet species. So we want to pass that filter. And I'll be long dead before this is a real thing, before it happens. But I'd like to at least see us make great progress in this direction.” Source: TED, April 6, 2022.

Elon Musk: I'll be long dead before we're really a multiplanet species. But at least I'd like to see us make great progress in this direction. “Why do these things? I think this is important for maximizing the probable lifespan of humanity or consciousness. Human civilization could come to an end for external reasons, like a giant meteor, or supervolcanoes, or extreme climate change. Or World War III, or, you know, any one of a number of reasons. But the probable lifespan of civilization and consciousness, as we know it, which we should really view as this very delicate thing, like a small candle in a vast darkness, that is what appears to be the case. We're in this vast darkness of space, and there's this little candle of consciousness that's only really come about after 4.5 billion years. And it could just go out. I think that's powerful, and I think a lot of people will be inspired by that vision. And so the reason you need the million people is because there has to be enough people there to do everything that you need to survive. The critical threshold is, if the ships from Earth stop coming for any reason, does the Mars city die out or not? We have to pass that. People talk about the great filters, the things that perhaps, you know, we talk about the Fermi paradox and where are the aliens, and, well, maybe there is various great filters that the aliens didn't pass, and so they eventually just cease to exist. And one of the great filters is becoming a multiplanet species. So we want to pass that filter. And I'll be long dead before this is a real thing, before it happens. But I'd like to at least see us make great progress in this direction.” Source: TED, April 6, 2022.

ELON CLIPS

37,369 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten

$ABCL CEO Carl Hansen explains the net negative overall value creation in biotech and how AbCellera plans to beat it: “I really think it can be beat because there’s a lot of mistakes that get made in where you allocate capital.” “If you’re a biotech and you start a company on a drug, and you go public and have a drug, and now the data is looking not that great, you just keep running that drug. … Because if you quit that drug, the company is done.” “So, because you’re so concentrated on one thing, you end up having blinders. It’s like a cult of a molecule. And even a real, practical, capital access problem that makes you continue to move things forward” ______________________________________ “Another problem is that many of the drugs that get started, get started by people who don’t understand the competitive or commercial landscape and have no intent of ever actually manufacturing it. … Because they know someone else is going to buy it. So then their framework is not ‘Am I making a drug that’s going to make a difference for people?’ The framework is ‘Can I make something that I think someone will take off my hands?’ And that happens a lot.” “There are many acquisitions where a big pharma company spends $10B, $20B, and it’s a complete bust. So really no value is generated for patients but someone was able to get a good exit on that because they anticipated what someone would want. And a lot of decision making gets done like that”. _______________________________________ “I’m not saying that we have this all solved. But what we’re trying to do is create a framework where we are able to take many bets so that we don’t fall in love with anything, or we don’t have to fall in love with anything. … And then always hold up very explicitly what we know and what we don’t know along the dimensions that matter. The dimensions that matter are - Will it work? That’s a science. - When it gets where will people care? - Is it differentiated? - Does it solve a big problem? In order to get it there, is there a path with our resources and expertise that would allow us to see it through?” “When you start to hold things up like that, you start to see where the mistakes are, where the uncertainties are, and you can be more rational in deciding ‘We’re going to run it to here because we get to flip the card and if the card goes the wrong way we’re going to kill it because we’ve got something else behind it.’” “I do think that if done right, and if you can pick the right opportunities, the success rate can be well higher than an order of magnitude better. … And there are examples of this… companies I’ve mentioned, you know, Regeneron, their success rate is at least 10x the industry in bringing programs forward and getting them approved. … So it’s… you can do it better that way”

$ABCL CEO Carl Hansen explains the net negative overall value creation in biotech and how AbCellera plans to beat it: “I really think it can be beat because there’s a lot of mistakes that get made in where you allocate capital.” “If you’re a biotech and you start a company on a drug, and you go public and have a drug, and now the data is looking not that great, you just keep running that drug. … Because if you quit that drug, the company is done.” “So, because you’re so concentrated on one thing, you end up having blinders. It’s like a cult of a molecule. And even a real, practical, capital access problem that makes you continue to move things forward” “Another problem is that many of the drugs that get started, get started by people who don’t understand the competitive or commercial landscape and have no intent of ever actually manufacturing it. … Because they know someone else is going to buy it. So then their framework is not ‘Am I making a drug that’s going to make a difference for people?’ The framework is ‘Can I make something that I think someone will take off my hands?’ And that happens a lot.” “There are many acquisitions where a big pharma company spends $10B, $20B, and it’s a complete bust. So really no value is generated for patients but someone was able to get a good exit on that because they anticipated what someone would want. And a lot of decision making gets done like that”. _ “I’m not saying that we have this all solved. But what we’re trying to do is create a framework where we are able to take many bets so that we don’t fall in love with anything, or we don’t have to fall in love with anything. … And then always hold up very explicitly what we know and what we don’t know along the dimensions that matter. The dimensions that matter are - Will it work? That’s a science. - When it gets where will people care? - Is it differentiated? - Does it solve a big problem? In order to get it there, is there a path with our resources and expertise that would allow us to see it through?” “When you start to hold things up like that, you start to see where the mistakes are, where the uncertainties are, and you can be more rational in deciding ‘We’re going to run it to here because we get to flip the card and if the card goes the wrong way we’re going to kill it because we’ve got something else behind it.’” “I do think that if done right, and if you can pick the right opportunities, the success rate can be well higher than an order of magnitude better. … And there are examples of this… companies I’ve mentioned, you know, Regeneron, their success rate is at least 10x the industry in bringing programs forward and getting them approved. … So it’s… you can do it better that way”

Jack Prescott

31,665 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten

From Eric Vishria on how the top AI founders are building products completely opposite of the SaaS era: "One of the things that is really different in the AI world versus the SaaS world, is that in the SaaS world, over and over again, you had people who really understood the customer. And the problem. And then they understood a domain. They understood what the technology was more or less capable of. But it wasn't a real question of if you could build something or not. For example, take Salesforce, Workday, and ServiceNow. CRM existed before Salesforce. HR management existed before Workday. Same thing with ServiceNow. So in every case, Salesforce followed Siebel. Workday followed Peoplesoft. ServiceNow followed Peregrine and Remedy, and others. So they were just kind of, cloud SaaS versions of the prior generation product. They just understood the customers. They understood the problem. And they were just like, here's a better version. And that evolved a little bit over time in SaaS land. But that's what it is. And so product development in that way was done by people who really understood the customer and the problems. And then just took advantage of the next wave. And this is almost diametrically opposite of product development in the AI era. When I look at the teams that are having the most success today, they have intimate knowledge of the models. They are right on the frontier of understanding which models are better at what, and why, and when. And what they're going to be good at and what they're not going to be good at. And what they're spending their time on, is figuring out how do I apply this capability of this model to this domain or to this user. So they're actually working inside out or technology out, versus customer problem in. And of course, they understand the customer problem. And a lot of times they have firsthand knowledge of it. But they're really close to the metal and capability, and they're applying it. And I think this is a really different way to develop products than in SaaS. I started my career as a product manager a long time ago, and it's almost the complete opposite of everything you learned. "Listen to the customer, understand it, then bring it back to the engineering and product teams." If you did that right now, ask a bunch of customers what they want out of AI, and you brought it back, for the most part, it may not be possible today with today's technology. Whereas the teams that are winning right now really understand the technology and are applying it out. And so I think this reversal matters. I think it's a big difference in terms of how companies are getting built. And maybe even the types of entrepreneurs that will be successful. I'm not sure. You're seeing some real change there. Look at the Bret Taylor's at Sierra. That's a super, super technical founder who really gets it. Brett and Clay really get it. You look at Michael and his co-founders at Cursor. They're super technical founders and they get it. They all really understand what these things can and can't do. And that's a pretty different dynamic relative to the way the best SaaS companies got built." Link in bio for the full conversation going deep on the current class of startups going from zero to $100m+ in ARR within 12 months.

From Eric Vishria on how the top AI founders are building products completely opposite of the SaaS era: "One of the things that is really different in the AI world versus the SaaS world, is that in the SaaS world, over and over again, you had people who really understood the customer. And the problem. And then they understood a domain. They understood what the technology was more or less capable of. But it wasn't a real question of if you could build something or not. For example, take Salesforce, Workday, and ServiceNow. CRM existed before Salesforce. HR management existed before Workday. Same thing with ServiceNow. So in every case, Salesforce followed Siebel. Workday followed Peoplesoft. ServiceNow followed Peregrine and Remedy, and others. So they were just kind of, cloud SaaS versions of the prior generation product. They just understood the customers. They understood the problem. And they were just like, here's a better version. And that evolved a little bit over time in SaaS land. But that's what it is. And so product development in that way was done by people who really understood the customer and the problems. And then just took advantage of the next wave. And this is almost diametrically opposite of product development in the AI era. When I look at the teams that are having the most success today, they have intimate knowledge of the models. They are right on the frontier of understanding which models are better at what, and why, and when. And what they're going to be good at and what they're not going to be good at. And what they're spending their time on, is figuring out how do I apply this capability of this model to this domain or to this user. So they're actually working inside out or technology out, versus customer problem in. And of course, they understand the customer problem. And a lot of times they have firsthand knowledge of it. But they're really close to the metal and capability, and they're applying it. And I think this is a really different way to develop products than in SaaS. I started my career as a product manager a long time ago, and it's almost the complete opposite of everything you learned. "Listen to the customer, understand it, then bring it back to the engineering and product teams." If you did that right now, ask a bunch of customers what they want out of AI, and you brought it back, for the most part, it may not be possible today with today's technology. Whereas the teams that are winning right now really understand the technology and are applying it out. And so I think this reversal matters. I think it's a big difference in terms of how companies are getting built. And maybe even the types of entrepreneurs that will be successful. I'm not sure. You're seeing some real change there. Look at the Bret Taylor's at Sierra. That's a super, super technical founder who really gets it. Brett and Clay really get it. You look at Michael and his co-founders at Cursor. They're super technical founders and they get it. They all really understand what these things can and can't do. And that's a pretty different dynamic relative to the way the best SaaS companies got built." Link in bio for the full conversation going deep on the current class of startups going from zero to $100m+ in ARR within 12 months.

The Peel

209,752 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang on why your product can be better and still lose, because perception is more real than reality: Most founders assume the best product wins. Build something that works, prove it with data, and customers will see it. Wang says that assumption breaks down when you sell to large organisations. "Probably a lot of the companies that you all have worked with, they're very data-driven companies. It feels like the truth makes its way... everybody serves a shared sense of reality and whatnot. That's not true at most large companies and also not true within the government, unfortunately." So what do they run on instead? Perception. "At a lot of large customers, perception is more real than reality. The reality is just so ugly most of the time that very rarely do people actually confront reality, and most of the time they just sort of choose to believe the perceptions that they live in." That is how a better product loses. If buyers aren't judging reality, being better in reality isn't enough. The deal goes to whoever owns the perception. Wang spells out what this means for anyone building or selling to enterprises: "If you end up doing enterprise sales or you end up building enterprise products... just as much as your job is to improve the reality, it is to shape the perception." The product still matters, but by his reckoning, it's only half the job. One company he singles out for mastering the other half is Palantir: "One of Palantir's superpowers is that they shape the perception better than most other technology companies do, because I think they view themselves... it's like a combination of a sort of acting troupe combined with a software company." And Alexandr Wang means it literally: "They literally give an acting book to all of the new hires, or they did for a very long time." A software company that trained its people in performance. That tells you how seriously Palantir took the perception half of the job.

Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang on why your product can be better and still lose, because perception is more real than reality: Most founders assume the best product wins. Build something that works, prove it with data, and customers will see it. Wang says that assumption breaks down when you sell to large organisations. "Probably a lot of the companies that you all have worked with, they're very data-driven companies. It feels like the truth makes its way... everybody serves a shared sense of reality and whatnot. That's not true at most large companies and also not true within the government, unfortunately." So what do they run on instead? Perception. "At a lot of large customers, perception is more real than reality. The reality is just so ugly most of the time that very rarely do people actually confront reality, and most of the time they just sort of choose to believe the perceptions that they live in." That is how a better product loses. If buyers aren't judging reality, being better in reality isn't enough. The deal goes to whoever owns the perception. Wang spells out what this means for anyone building or selling to enterprises: "If you end up doing enterprise sales or you end up building enterprise products... just as much as your job is to improve the reality, it is to shape the perception." The product still matters, but by his reckoning, it's only half the job. One company he singles out for mastering the other half is Palantir: "One of Palantir's superpowers is that they shape the perception better than most other technology companies do, because I think they view themselves... it's like a combination of a sort of acting troupe combined with a software company." And Alexandr Wang means it literally: "They literally give an acting book to all of the new hires, or they did for a very long time." A software company that trained its people in performance. That tells you how seriously Palantir took the perception half of the job.

Big Brain Business

271,944 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat

Rahul Vohra on how to measure product/market fit Rahul Vohra is the founder and CEO of Superhuman. He was looking for a metric to measure product/market fit so that he and his team could optimize, and he came across the following methodology from Sean Ellis: Simply ask your users: “How would you feel if you could no longer use the product?” with three options: (1) not disappointed, (2) somewhat disappointed, or (3) very disappointed. It turns out that the benchmark for product/market fit across hundreds of venture-backed startups is 40% of respondents saying “very disappointed”. And as Rahul puts it: “If more than 40% of your users would be very disappointed without your product, then you should focus on growing your company. If less than 40% of your users would be very disappointed without your product, then you’ll probably struggle to grow.” 40% may not sound like a lot, but it’s an incredibly hard benchmark to beat. For example, Slack posed this to 731 customers early in the company’s history, and 51% said they would be very disappointed without Slack. One might expect a terrific product like Slack to have a score of 60-80%, but that wasn’t the case. Rahul’s explanation of why the response options are focused on disappointment rather than happiness is interesting too: “I think the reason behind that is that if you ask people how they feel about a product and you give them positive potential responses, I think it invites more bias. People are more likely to be polite. And it also doesn’t get to the heart of the matter which is: how necessary has your product become in people’s lives? If you’re trying to build a company that’s going to stand the test of time, you really do have to build a product that matters and that people ultimately come to depend on because it’s just so incredible at what it does. And that’s what this question gets to the heart of.”

Rahul Vohra on how to measure product/market fit Rahul Vohra is the founder and CEO of Superhuman. He was looking for a metric to measure product/market fit so that he and his team could optimize, and he came across the following methodology from Sean Ellis: Simply ask your users: “How would you feel if you could no longer use the product?” with three options: (1) not disappointed, (2) somewhat disappointed, or (3) very disappointed. It turns out that the benchmark for product/market fit across hundreds of venture-backed startups is 40% of respondents saying “very disappointed”. And as Rahul puts it: “If more than 40% of your users would be very disappointed without your product, then you should focus on growing your company. If less than 40% of your users would be very disappointed without your product, then you’ll probably struggle to grow.” 40% may not sound like a lot, but it’s an incredibly hard benchmark to beat. For example, Slack posed this to 731 customers early in the company’s history, and 51% said they would be very disappointed without Slack. One might expect a terrific product like Slack to have a score of 60-80%, but that wasn’t the case. Rahul’s explanation of why the response options are focused on disappointment rather than happiness is interesting too: “I think the reason behind that is that if you ask people how they feel about a product and you give them positive potential responses, I think it invites more bias. People are more likely to be polite. And it also doesn’t get to the heart of the matter which is: how necessary has your product become in people’s lives? If you’re trying to build a company that’s going to stand the test of time, you really do have to build a product that matters and that people ultimately come to depend on because it’s just so incredible at what it does. And that’s what this question gets to the heart of.”

Michael McGuiness

67,106 Aufrufe • vor 3 Jahren

Naval Ravikant’s advice for raising venture capital: “It is an emotional sale, not a rational sale” “The process of raising money from an investor, a friend of mine once joked, is the process of young men and women seducing old men and women. You’re essentially trying to get them to look at you, and to see themselves in you… And so it is an emotional sale. It is not a rational sale. And you have to understand that at its core level.” And as Naval explains, emotional sales do not happen via checklists. For example, it’s rare to fall in love with someone because they check a bunch of boxes (e.g. pretty good looking, pretty nice, pretty smart, etc.). “Usually there is one thing about the person that is so overwhelming that makes you fall in love with them. And in that same way, when an investor is deciding to make an investment in a startup, they usually look for one exceptional characteristic about the startup that they truly adore.” Naval believes there are four categories in which you can really excel: Team. “If you can show that you have done something exceptional, other than starting this company, that’s a huge thing.” Product. “A lot of entrepreneurs make the mistake of showing investors a half-finished or not-working product and then try and explain their way around it. The reality is investors are users also, so they’re highly visual. They want to see it. They want to play with it. And they’ll make up their mind very quickly.” Customer traction. “If you have users and if those users are organically joining and growing, that’s very good. If you have to say: give us money and then I’ll go get customers, they don’t like to hear that.” Social proof. “Social proof is basically looking at what other people are doing and doing that. So in the investing context, what this means is if you have one investor committed, very often you can get more investors interested. Or if you have a famous entrepreneur or advisor who’s very knowledgeable, involved with with the company, that can help bring investors.” Naval concludes: “So those are the four criteria that I think most investors look at, and you really want to be exceptional at at least one of them.

Naval Ravikant’s advice for raising venture capital: “It is an emotional sale, not a rational sale” “The process of raising money from an investor, a friend of mine once joked, is the process of young men and women seducing old men and women. You’re essentially trying to get them to look at you, and to see themselves in you… And so it is an emotional sale. It is not a rational sale. And you have to understand that at its core level.” And as Naval explains, emotional sales do not happen via checklists. For example, it’s rare to fall in love with someone because they check a bunch of boxes (e.g. pretty good looking, pretty nice, pretty smart, etc.). “Usually there is one thing about the person that is so overwhelming that makes you fall in love with them. And in that same way, when an investor is deciding to make an investment in a startup, they usually look for one exceptional characteristic about the startup that they truly adore.” Naval believes there are four categories in which you can really excel: Team. “If you can show that you have done something exceptional, other than starting this company, that’s a huge thing.” Product. “A lot of entrepreneurs make the mistake of showing investors a half-finished or not-working product and then try and explain their way around it. The reality is investors are users also, so they’re highly visual. They want to see it. They want to play with it. And they’ll make up their mind very quickly.” Customer traction. “If you have users and if those users are organically joining and growing, that’s very good. If you have to say: give us money and then I’ll go get customers, they don’t like to hear that.” Social proof. “Social proof is basically looking at what other people are doing and doing that. So in the investing context, what this means is if you have one investor committed, very often you can get more investors interested. Or if you have a famous entrepreneur or advisor who’s very knowledgeable, involved with with the company, that can help bring investors.” Naval concludes: “So those are the four criteria that I think most investors look at, and you really want to be exceptional at at least one of them.

Startup Archive

27,261 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten