Video wird geladen...

Video konnte nicht geladen werden

Beim Laden dieses Videos ist ein Problem aufgetreten. Dies könnte an einem vorübergehenden Netzwerkproblem liegen oder das Video ist möglicherweise nicht verfügbar.

Paul Graham’s advice for future startup founders: “Just learn” “If you make a conscious effort to try and think of startup ideas, you will think of ideas that are not only bad but bad and plausible-sounding—meaning you and everybody else will be fooled by them and you’ll waste a... lot of time before realizing they’re no good.” As Paul Graham explains, the way to come up with good startup ideas is to take a step back: “Instead of trying to make a conscious effort to think of startup ideas, turn your brain into the type that has startup ideas unconsciously.” You do this by: 1. Learning a lot about things that matter 2. Working on problems that interest you 3. With people you like and respect (this is incidentally how you get co-founders at the same time as the idea) “The component of entrepreneurship that really matters is domain expertise. Larry Page is Larry Page because he was an expert on search. And he became an expert on search because he was genuinely interested in it, not because of some ulterior motive.” PG continues: “At its best, starting a startup is merely an ulterior motive for curiosity, and you’ll do it best if you introduce the ulterior motive at the end of the process. So here is the ultimate advice for young, would-be startup founders reduced to two words: Just learn.” Video source: Y Combinator (2017)show more

Startup Archive

156,668 subscribers

51,157 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten •via X (Twitter)

Anya Rossi• Live Now

Private livecam show

0 Kommentare

Keine Kommentare verfügbar

Kommentare vom Original-Post werden hier angezeigt

Ähnliche Videos

Q: Why are startup ideas worthless? In his essay Ideas for Startups, Paul Graham wrote: “startup ideas are not million dollar ideas, and here's an experiment you can try to prove it: just try to sell one. Nothing evolves faster than markets. The fact that there's no market for startup ideas suggests there's no demand. Which means, in the narrow sense of the word, that startup ideas are worthless.” Steve Jobs expands on this idea further: “There’s a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product” A lot of people think that a really great idea is 90% of the work, but a great product idea will never turn out as originally conceived. You learn a lot from the details of building it and there are always tradeoffs you have to make. In this clip, Jobs tells the story of how a widowed man showed him a rock tumbler when he was little kid. He uses the rock tumbler and process of turning common stones into beautifully polished rocks as a metaphor for a team working really hard on something they're passionate about: "It's through the team--through a group of incredibly talented people--bumping up against each other, having arguments, having fights sometimes, making some noise, and working together... they polish each other and polish the ideas. And what comes out are these really beautiful stones." The key to building a great product is a great team, not a great idea.

Q: Why are startup ideas worthless? In his essay Ideas for Startups, Paul Graham wrote: “startup ideas are not million dollar ideas, and here's an experiment you can try to prove it: just try to sell one. Nothing evolves faster than markets. The fact that there's no market for startup ideas suggests there's no demand. Which means, in the narrow sense of the word, that startup ideas are worthless.” Steve Jobs expands on this idea further: “There’s a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product” A lot of people think that a really great idea is 90% of the work, but a great product idea will never turn out as originally conceived. You learn a lot from the details of building it and there are always tradeoffs you have to make. In this clip, Jobs tells the story of how a widowed man showed him a rock tumbler when he was little kid. He uses the rock tumbler and process of turning common stones into beautifully polished rocks as a metaphor for a team working really hard on something they're passionate about: "It's through the team--through a group of incredibly talented people--bumping up against each other, having arguments, having fights sometimes, making some noise, and working together... they polish each other and polish the ideas. And what comes out are these really beautiful stones." The key to building a great product is a great team, not a great idea.

Michael McGuiness

667,271 Aufrufe • vor 3 Jahren

The founders of Stripe and Pinterest on how to convince people to join your startup Stripe CEO Patrick Collison argues that part of the reason startups resonate so much is because the outcome is not guaranteed: "If it were guaranteed, it would be boring... Whether or not you're the best person in the world at what you do, you're probably not going to alter Google's trajectory. But if you really want to benchmark yourself and see how much of a contribution and impact you can make--which is a really compelling prospect for a lot of the best people--a startup is a much better place to test that." Pinterest founder Ben Silbermann emphasized this as well: "No smart person that you're hiring is under the illusion that you have a crystal ball into the future and that joining is a guaranteed thing. In fact, if you're telling them that and they select in, you shouldn't hire them because they didn't pass a basic intelligence test. I think it's important to tell them what's exciting and where you think the company can go. But also tell them where it will be hard and chart your best plan. And then tell them why their role can be instrumental--because it will be... What I would discourage doing is whitewashing all of that. If people are joining your company because they want all of the certainty and safety of working at Google but also the perks of working at a small startup with lots of responsibility and transparency, that's a really negative sign." Apparently in the early days of PayPal, Peter Thiel and Max Levchin would tell people after they interviewed all the reasons that the company would fail: "Visa and MasterCard want to kill us. We also might be doing something that's illegal. But if we succeed, we'll redefine payments." Don't whitewash the risks. Instead tell them how your startup will change the world if you succeed and how their role will be instrumental in affecting that change. Video source: Y Combinator (2014)

The founders of Stripe and Pinterest on how to convince people to join your startup Stripe CEO Patrick Collison argues that part of the reason startups resonate so much is because the outcome is not guaranteed: "If it were guaranteed, it would be boring... Whether or not you're the best person in the world at what you do, you're probably not going to alter Google's trajectory. But if you really want to benchmark yourself and see how much of a contribution and impact you can make--which is a really compelling prospect for a lot of the best people--a startup is a much better place to test that." Pinterest founder Ben Silbermann emphasized this as well: "No smart person that you're hiring is under the illusion that you have a crystal ball into the future and that joining is a guaranteed thing. In fact, if you're telling them that and they select in, you shouldn't hire them because they didn't pass a basic intelligence test. I think it's important to tell them what's exciting and where you think the company can go. But also tell them where it will be hard and chart your best plan. And then tell them why their role can be instrumental--because it will be... What I would discourage doing is whitewashing all of that. If people are joining your company because they want all of the certainty and safety of working at Google but also the perks of working at a small startup with lots of responsibility and transparency, that's a really negative sign." Apparently in the early days of PayPal, Peter Thiel and Max Levchin would tell people after they interviewed all the reasons that the company would fail: "Visa and MasterCard want to kill us. We also might be doing something that's illegal. But if we succeed, we'll redefine payments." Don't whitewash the risks. Instead tell them how your startup will change the world if you succeed and how their role will be instrumental in affecting that change. Video source: Y Combinator (2014)

Startup Archive

11,811 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten

Elon Musk explains how to get startup ideas When asked how he comes up with startup ideas, Elon responds: “I tend to think of things from a sort of physics standpoint… what’s the best way to accomplish something? And then pursue that. That’s also a good way to determine if something’s far from its optimum.” He gives rockets as an example: “You could reason by analogy and say the rocket is going to cost a certain amount because that’s what prior rockets have cost. Or you can say, well, what is a rocket made of? What are the material constituents? What do they weigh? What’s the cost per unit mass? And that sets the limit asymptotically for what a rocket can be. So if you can figure out some creative way to rearrange those elements into a rocket shape, then you can achieve a much better outcome.” He also thinks combining ideas from different industries is really helpful for innovation: “What have people discovered in one industry and can that be applied to other industries? That’s I think also a great source of ideas. But usually you just struggle on a solution and try a bunch of things. Most of them don’t work and occasionally one does.” Source: VANITY FAIR (Oct 2014)

Elon Musk explains how to get startup ideas When asked how he comes up with startup ideas, Elon responds: “I tend to think of things from a sort of physics standpoint… what’s the best way to accomplish something? And then pursue that. That’s also a good way to determine if something’s far from its optimum.” He gives rockets as an example: “You could reason by analogy and say the rocket is going to cost a certain amount because that’s what prior rockets have cost. Or you can say, well, what is a rocket made of? What are the material constituents? What do they weigh? What’s the cost per unit mass? And that sets the limit asymptotically for what a rocket can be. So if you can figure out some creative way to rearrange those elements into a rocket shape, then you can achieve a much better outcome.” He also thinks combining ideas from different industries is really helpful for innovation: “What have people discovered in one industry and can that be applied to other industries? That’s I think also a great source of ideas. But usually you just struggle on a solution and try a bunch of things. Most of them don’t work and occasionally one does.” Source: VANITY FAIR (Oct 2014)

Startup Archive

33,984 Aufrufe • vor 18 Tagen

Jony Ive: “Ideas are always fragile” “Ideas, by definition, are always fragile. If they were resolved, they wouldn’t be ideas. They would be products that were ready to ship.” The legendary designer reflects on what he learned at Apple: “I’ve come to learn that you have to make an extraordinary effort not to focus on the problems, which are implicated with any new idea. These problems are known. They’re quantifiable and understood. But you have to focus on the actual idea, which is partial, tentative, and unproven. If you don't actively suspend your disbelief — if you don't believe there is a solution to the problems — of course you will lose faith in your idea.” He continues: “That is why criticism and focusing on the problems can be so damaging, particularly in the absence of a constructive idea. Remember, opinions are not ideas. Opinions are not as important as ideas. Opinions are just opinions.” Source: California College of the Arts (May 2021)

Jony Ive: “Ideas are always fragile” “Ideas, by definition, are always fragile. If they were resolved, they wouldn’t be ideas. They would be products that were ready to ship.” The legendary designer reflects on what he learned at Apple: “I’ve come to learn that you have to make an extraordinary effort not to focus on the problems, which are implicated with any new idea. These problems are known. They’re quantifiable and understood. But you have to focus on the actual idea, which is partial, tentative, and unproven. If you don't actively suspend your disbelief — if you don't believe there is a solution to the problems — of course you will lose faith in your idea.” He continues: “That is why criticism and focusing on the problems can be so damaging, particularly in the absence of a constructive idea. Remember, opinions are not ideas. Opinions are not as important as ideas. Opinions are just opinions.” Source: California College of the Arts (May 2021)

Startup Archive

23,544 Aufrufe • vor 24 Tagen

Sam Altman: “The good founders are people who have ideas all the time” “You can give a founder an idea and they can start a company. The problem is they need to come up with new ideas for the company basically every week. You have to come up with crazy new ideas and big changes all the time.” When Sam was at Y Combinator, they tried an experiment where they funded 20 teams of strong founders that didn’t have ideas but were otherwise really good. They all failed. “What we learned is that the good founders are people who have ideas all the time. There’s an intelligence component to this. There’s a creativity component to this. There’s an ability to think independent thoughts component to this. But whatever you want to call this - this particular kind of intelligence that leads to seeing problems in different ways and thinking of ideas that don’t yet exist but should - you’ve got to have that in a founder.” Video source: Y Combinator

Sam Altman: “The good founders are people who have ideas all the time” “You can give a founder an idea and they can start a company. The problem is they need to come up with new ideas for the company basically every week. You have to come up with crazy new ideas and big changes all the time.” When Sam was at Y Combinator, they tried an experiment where they funded 20 teams of strong founders that didn’t have ideas but were otherwise really good. They all failed. “What we learned is that the good founders are people who have ideas all the time. There’s an intelligence component to this. There’s a creativity component to this. There’s an ability to think independent thoughts component to this. But whatever you want to call this - this particular kind of intelligence that leads to seeing problems in different ways and thinking of ideas that don’t yet exist but should - you’ve got to have that in a founder.” Video source: Y Combinator

Startup Archive

133,596 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

Sam Altman: “The good founders are people who have ideas all the time” “You can give a founder an idea and they can start a company. The problem is they need to come up with new ideas for the company basically every week. You have to come up with crazy new ideas and big changes all the time.” When Sam was at Y Combinator, they tried an experiment where they funded 20 teams of strong founders that didn’t have ideas but were otherwise really good. They all failed. “What we learned is that the good founders are people who have ideas all the time. There’s an intelligence component to this. There’s a creativity component to this. There’s an ability to think independent thoughts component to this. But whatever you want to call this - this particular kind of intelligence that leads to seeing problems in different ways and thinking of ideas that don’t yet exist but should - you’ve got to have that in a founder.” Video source: Y Combinator (2018)

Sam Altman: “The good founders are people who have ideas all the time” “You can give a founder an idea and they can start a company. The problem is they need to come up with new ideas for the company basically every week. You have to come up with crazy new ideas and big changes all the time.” When Sam was at Y Combinator, they tried an experiment where they funded 20 teams of strong founders that didn’t have ideas but were otherwise really good. They all failed. “What we learned is that the good founders are people who have ideas all the time. There’s an intelligence component to this. There’s a creativity component to this. There’s an ability to think independent thoughts component to this. But whatever you want to call this - this particular kind of intelligence that leads to seeing problems in different ways and thinking of ideas that don’t yet exist but should - you’ve got to have that in a founder.” Video source: Y Combinator (2018)

Startup Archive

93,460 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

Sam Altman on why you shouldn’t track absolute user growth in the early days of a startup “Nothing but a great product will save you; you can get everything else right and it still won’t work.” He points out that almost all startup founders get the following wrong: “It is more important to have a small number of users that love you than a lot of users that like you… Eventually what you want of course is a lot of users that really love your product, but that’s almost impossible to do.” In practice, you have two choices: Deep and Narrow: “You have a small number of users that really love you and then find out how to find more and more of those users and broaden the appeal of the product.” Shallow and Wide: “You can have a lot of people that sort of use the product once or twice and kind of like it and try to figure out how to get them more engaged over time.” “With high confidence, I can say that you want to start with a small number of users that really love you. Almost all great companies have products that start this way.” He argues that a good indicator of users loving your product is retention and frequency of use: “In fact, I think this is so important that you actually shouldn’t track absolute growth in number of users in the early days of a startup. You should just track how often they’re using it… That’s a good early indicator of users that love you—better still is them spontaneously telling their friends to buy your product.” Follow Startup Archive for more tactical startup advice!

Sam Altman on why you shouldn’t track absolute user growth in the early days of a startup “Nothing but a great product will save you; you can get everything else right and it still won’t work.” He points out that almost all startup founders get the following wrong: “It is more important to have a small number of users that love you than a lot of users that like you… Eventually what you want of course is a lot of users that really love your product, but that’s almost impossible to do.” In practice, you have two choices: Deep and Narrow: “You have a small number of users that really love you and then find out how to find more and more of those users and broaden the appeal of the product.” Shallow and Wide: “You can have a lot of people that sort of use the product once or twice and kind of like it and try to figure out how to get them more engaged over time.” “With high confidence, I can say that you want to start with a small number of users that really love you. Almost all great companies have products that start this way.” He argues that a good indicator of users loving your product is retention and frequency of use: “In fact, I think this is so important that you actually shouldn’t track absolute growth in number of users in the early days of a startup. You should just track how often they’re using it… That’s a good early indicator of users that love you—better still is them spontaneously telling their friends to buy your product.” Follow Startup Archive for more tactical startup advice!

Startup Archive

565,774 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren

Sam Altman on how to identify founders who can build $10 billion companies “It’s difficult to hear an idea at the very early stage and say: ‘Yeah, this idea has what it takes to be a $10 billion company.’ However, I think you can, with practice, identify founders that have a chance at creating one of those companies.’” The first four traits Sam looks for comes from gmail creator Paul Buchhiet: obsession, focus, frugality, and love. Next, Sam looks for intelligence: “You can give a founder an idea, but the problem is they need to come up with new ideas for the company basically every week… We tried an experiment at Y Combinator where we funded 20 teams of strong founders that didn’t have ideas but otherwise were really good, and they all failed. What we learned is that good founders have ideas all the time.” #6 is communication skills: “So much of your job as a founder is about communication—every time you hire someone, go to raise money, try to sell the product, and set a direction for the company. A huge amount of a founder’s job is being an evangelist for the company. If you don’t have strong communication skills or you don’t develop them quickly, you’re at a big disadvantage.” #7 is execution speed. How quickly can you generate a hypothesis, test it, and implement it? Sam observes that most slow-moving founders who went through Y Combinator didn’t go on to be successful: “A relentless cadence of execution is incredibly correlated with success.” #8 is the rate of improvement of the founder: “If you look at a founder who comes to meet you for a seed round and compare that founder to Brian Chesky, you will be disappointed 100% of the time. That’s the wrong comparison… You should look at the at the growth rate of the founder… Humans always underestimate exponential growth.” #9 is the right motivations: “There a lot of people who start a startup because they think it’s a way to get rich quickly, and unfortunately it’s just not. So startups have become the new default career trajectory for ambitious people… This does not work given the amount of pain you have to suffer for a startup… In our portfolio at YC, every time we thought a company was going to go really well and didn’t, the founder did not have a deep sense of mission.” Video source: Y Combinator (2018)

Sam Altman on how to identify founders who can build $10 billion companies “It’s difficult to hear an idea at the very early stage and say: ‘Yeah, this idea has what it takes to be a $10 billion company.’ However, I think you can, with practice, identify founders that have a chance at creating one of those companies.’” The first four traits Sam looks for comes from gmail creator Paul Buchhiet: obsession, focus, frugality, and love. Next, Sam looks for intelligence: “You can give a founder an idea, but the problem is they need to come up with new ideas for the company basically every week… We tried an experiment at Y Combinator where we funded 20 teams of strong founders that didn’t have ideas but otherwise were really good, and they all failed. What we learned is that good founders have ideas all the time.” #6 is communication skills: “So much of your job as a founder is about communication—every time you hire someone, go to raise money, try to sell the product, and set a direction for the company. A huge amount of a founder’s job is being an evangelist for the company. If you don’t have strong communication skills or you don’t develop them quickly, you’re at a big disadvantage.” #7 is execution speed. How quickly can you generate a hypothesis, test it, and implement it? Sam observes that most slow-moving founders who went through Y Combinator didn’t go on to be successful: “A relentless cadence of execution is incredibly correlated with success.” #8 is the rate of improvement of the founder: “If you look at a founder who comes to meet you for a seed round and compare that founder to Brian Chesky, you will be disappointed 100% of the time. That’s the wrong comparison… You should look at the at the growth rate of the founder… Humans always underestimate exponential growth.” #9 is the right motivations: “There a lot of people who start a startup because they think it’s a way to get rich quickly, and unfortunately it’s just not. So startups have become the new default career trajectory for ambitious people… This does not work given the amount of pain you have to suffer for a startup… In our portfolio at YC, every time we thought a company was going to go really well and didn’t, the founder did not have a deep sense of mission.” Video source: Y Combinator (2018)

Startup Archive

167,320 Aufrufe • vor 9 Monaten

Q: How do I know if my startup is working on a worthwhile problem? Former Google CEO Larry Page uses a simple framework called "The Toothbrush Test" to decide whether he likes a business. He asks himself if the product is, like a toothbrush, "something you will use once or twice a day." Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel has a similar framework for assessing whether or not a startup is working on a good problem. As he explains in the clip below, it's extremely important to analyze the frequency and the intensity of the problem you're solving for the customer. He uses a car shopping website as an example. A lot of founders will think that their customer here is the person buying a car. But the problem with that is most people keep a car for 7 years. As he points out: "What happens if I told you I was going to create a startup and if my customer absolutely loves me, they're going to come back 7 years from now?" Probably not a great startup idea. This is why a lot of car buying websites are not built for the person shopping for a car--that person doesn't have the problem very often. They're actually built for the person selling the car, because that person has a problem every day. When you're assessing a startup idea, you want to do a frequency and intensity analysis of the problem. If you have an infrequent and low-intensity problem that you're trying to solve, you're going to have a hard time getting a lot of customers interested in even talking to you. All things equal, it's better for the problem you're solving to be higher-frequency and higher-intensity. Take Uber for example. Usually, when you need to go somewhere (e.g. work, doctor, pick up your kids, etc.), it's a pretty intense problem--so intense that people will spend $20,000 on a car to solve this problem. And then when you think about frequency: how often do you move more than walking distance every day? Probably a lot. Uber is clearly working on a worthwhile problem. If the problem your customer has is high-intensity and happens frequently, there's probably a good business to be built there.

Q: How do I know if my startup is working on a worthwhile problem? Former Google CEO Larry Page uses a simple framework called "The Toothbrush Test" to decide whether he likes a business. He asks himself if the product is, like a toothbrush, "something you will use once or twice a day." Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel has a similar framework for assessing whether or not a startup is working on a good problem. As he explains in the clip below, it's extremely important to analyze the frequency and the intensity of the problem you're solving for the customer. He uses a car shopping website as an example. A lot of founders will think that their customer here is the person buying a car. But the problem with that is most people keep a car for 7 years. As he points out: "What happens if I told you I was going to create a startup and if my customer absolutely loves me, they're going to come back 7 years from now?" Probably not a great startup idea. This is why a lot of car buying websites are not built for the person shopping for a car--that person doesn't have the problem very often. They're actually built for the person selling the car, because that person has a problem every day. When you're assessing a startup idea, you want to do a frequency and intensity analysis of the problem. If you have an infrequent and low-intensity problem that you're trying to solve, you're going to have a hard time getting a lot of customers interested in even talking to you. All things equal, it's better for the problem you're solving to be higher-frequency and higher-intensity. Take Uber for example. Usually, when you need to go somewhere (e.g. work, doctor, pick up your kids, etc.), it's a pretty intense problem--so intense that people will spend $20,000 on a car to solve this problem. And then when you think about frequency: how often do you move more than walking distance every day? Probably a lot. Uber is clearly working on a worthwhile problem. If the problem your customer has is high-intensity and happens frequently, there's probably a good business to be built there.

Michael McGuiness

162,983 Aufrufe • vor 3 Jahren

Jony Ive: “Ideas are always fragile” “Ideas—by definition—are always fragile. If they were resolved, they wouldn’t be ideas. They would be products that were ready to ship.” The legendary Apple designer continues: “I’ve come to learn that you have to make an extraordinary effort not to focus on the problems, which are implicated with any new idea. These problems are known. They’re quantifiable and understood. But you have to focus on the actual idea, which is partial, tentative, and unproven.” All new ideas have problems, and if you don’t suspend your disbelief and trust that you will find a solution, you will lose faith in your idea. “That is why criticism and focusing on the problems can be so damaging—particularly in the absence of a constructive idea. Remember, opinions are not ideas. Opinions are not as important as ideas. Opinions are just opinions.” Source: California College of the Arts

Jony Ive: “Ideas are always fragile” “Ideas—by definition—are always fragile. If they were resolved, they wouldn’t be ideas. They would be products that were ready to ship.” The legendary Apple designer continues: “I’ve come to learn that you have to make an extraordinary effort not to focus on the problems, which are implicated with any new idea. These problems are known. They’re quantifiable and understood. But you have to focus on the actual idea, which is partial, tentative, and unproven.” All new ideas have problems, and if you don’t suspend your disbelief and trust that you will find a solution, you will lose faith in your idea. “That is why criticism and focusing on the problems can be so damaging—particularly in the absence of a constructive idea. Remember, opinions are not ideas. Opinions are not as important as ideas. Opinions are just opinions.” Source: California College of the Arts

Startup Archive

112,426 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren

Jeff Bezos just revealed the best time to start a company: "There's never been a better time to be an inventor and a pioneer than right now because the world is on fire with new ideas and with AI and space opportunities. And we're in the middle of multiple golden ages right now with a rapid rate of change." "And by the way, rapid change is good for startup companies and bad for incumbents. It's hard for incumbents to keep up, to move fast." "And so this is the best time ever, in my lifetime, probably ever, to start a company and do something inventive." "The second thing is an eagerness to invent. That you wanna be pioneering, that you wanna do new things." Every incumbent is struggling to keep up. Every startup has the advantage of speed. The founder of Amazon just told you the window is wide open. — Jeff Bezos Jeff Bezos P.S. We build content infrastructure for founders and VCs. 1.5M views/week average. Your voice, cross platform, compounding daily. If you need massive distribution and brand exposure, apply here:

Lewis 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

25,907 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat

Sam Altman on the importance of surrounding yourself with people who don’t shoot down your ideas “Good ideas are not a solo endeavor. You want to find a group of smart people that you can start bouncing things off of… You don’t just sit in a room and write on the window with the whiteboard pen and have the good ideas come to you. Good ideas come because you talk to people.” But Sam stresses that this comes with an important caveat: surround yourself with people who build on your ideas rather than shoot them down: “Ideas are very fragile. So when you find this set of people to start talking about ideas with, you want people who don’t immediately shoot down a bad, half-baked idea… You want people who will say, ‘Well, that sounds crazy unlikely to work, but think how big it could be if it did work.’.. And then you can figure out how to make it work if you want.” Video source: Stanford Online (2017)

Sam Altman on the importance of surrounding yourself with people who don’t shoot down your ideas “Good ideas are not a solo endeavor. You want to find a group of smart people that you can start bouncing things off of… You don’t just sit in a room and write on the window with the whiteboard pen and have the good ideas come to you. Good ideas come because you talk to people.” But Sam stresses that this comes with an important caveat: surround yourself with people who build on your ideas rather than shoot them down: “Ideas are very fragile. So when you find this set of people to start talking about ideas with, you want people who don’t immediately shoot down a bad, half-baked idea… You want people who will say, ‘Well, that sounds crazy unlikely to work, but think how big it could be if it did work.’.. And then you can figure out how to make it work if you want.” Video source: Stanford Online (2017)

Startup Archive

65,766 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

Balaji Srinivasan on what he looks for in the founders he backs “You’re really looking for people who are very fast, very resourceful, very positive… And obviously high intelligence, work ethic, all that type of stuff, but I think the positivity thing [is really important].” As Balaji explains, startups are so hard and you need to be positive and resilient. “Lots of people will break if you put enough pressure on them and you don’t really know who has titanium adamantium skeletons until that pressure actually arrives.” He continues: “As a VC, an investor, or an angel, what you really want to do is throw coins into a hot air balloon in the sense that you want to back somebody who has independent lift and who’s going to take off on their own… The money is a help but it’s not even necessary for you to do it. They would be able to do it even with you. That’s a person who, as an investor, you want to bet on typically.” Video source: Startup Grind (2017)

Balaji Srinivasan on what he looks for in the founders he backs “You’re really looking for people who are very fast, very resourceful, very positive… And obviously high intelligence, work ethic, all that type of stuff, but I think the positivity thing [is really important].” As Balaji explains, startups are so hard and you need to be positive and resilient. “Lots of people will break if you put enough pressure on them and you don’t really know who has titanium adamantium skeletons until that pressure actually arrives.” He continues: “As a VC, an investor, or an angel, what you really want to do is throw coins into a hot air balloon in the sense that you want to back somebody who has independent lift and who’s going to take off on their own… The money is a help but it’s not even necessary for you to do it. They would be able to do it even with you. That’s a person who, as an investor, you want to bet on typically.” Video source: Startup Grind (2017)

Startup Archive

11,541 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

Mark Zuckerberg on how to avoid bad hires when your startup is growing quickly As Mark explains, every fast-growing startup will repeatedly face the choice: “Do I hire the person who’s in front of me now because they seem good?” or “Do I hold out to get someone who’s even better?” Mark offers his personal heuristic for founders facing this choice: “The heuristic that I always focused on for myself and my own kind of direct hiring, that I think works when you recurse it through the organization, is that you should only hire someone to be on your team if you would be happy working for them in an alternate universe. I think that works, and that’s basically how I’ve tried to build my team.” He continues: “I’m not in a rush to not be running the company, but I think in an alternate universe where one of these other folks was running the company, I’d be happy to work for them. I feel like I’d learn from them. I respect their general judgment. They’re all very insightful. They have good values… I think if you apply that at every layer in the organization, then you’ll have a pretty strong organization.” Video source: Lex Fridman (2023)

Mark Zuckerberg on how to avoid bad hires when your startup is growing quickly As Mark explains, every fast-growing startup will repeatedly face the choice: “Do I hire the person who’s in front of me now because they seem good?” or “Do I hold out to get someone who’s even better?” Mark offers his personal heuristic for founders facing this choice: “The heuristic that I always focused on for myself and my own kind of direct hiring, that I think works when you recurse it through the organization, is that you should only hire someone to be on your team if you would be happy working for them in an alternate universe. I think that works, and that’s basically how I’ve tried to build my team.” He continues: “I’m not in a rush to not be running the company, but I think in an alternate universe where one of these other folks was running the company, I’d be happy to work for them. I feel like I’d learn from them. I respect their general judgment. They’re all very insightful. They have good values… I think if you apply that at every layer in the organization, then you’ll have a pretty strong organization.” Video source: Lex Fridman (2023)

Startup Archive

157,679 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten

Q: Best advice for a pre-product/market fit startup? One of my favorite pieces of advice on this topic comes from Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong: “Action produces information. Just keep doing stuff.” He borrows this from Paul Graham who said: “Startups are like sharks. If they stop swimming they die.’” Even if you’re not sure what to do, just try something different. Don’t get stuck in endless debate or analysis paralysis. When you try a product or go-to-market experiment, it will produce information and help you come up with better ideas of what to try next. This is true even when you build the wrong thing because it will help you identify which hypotheses about your users, value proposition, go-to-market strategy, etc. are wrong. So if you’re pre-product/market fit, my best advice is to just keep moving and trying things. Follow Startup Archive for more tactical startup advice!

Q: Best advice for a pre-product/market fit startup? One of my favorite pieces of advice on this topic comes from Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong: “Action produces information. Just keep doing stuff.” He borrows this from Paul Graham who said: “Startups are like sharks. If they stop swimming they die.’” Even if you’re not sure what to do, just try something different. Don’t get stuck in endless debate or analysis paralysis. When you try a product or go-to-market experiment, it will produce information and help you come up with better ideas of what to try next. This is true even when you build the wrong thing because it will help you identify which hypotheses about your users, value proposition, go-to-market strategy, etc. are wrong. So if you’re pre-product/market fit, my best advice is to just keep moving and trying things. Follow Startup Archive for more tactical startup advice!

Startup Archive

597,764 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren

Google founder Larry Page explains how he decides what to work on When asked about his philosophy and only working on “10x ideas”, Page invokes the idea of additionality from economics: “It means doing something that wouldn’t happen unless you’re actually doing it. I think the more you can do things like that, the bigger impact you can have. And that’s about doing things people might not think are possible.” Page believes technology is a huge enabler of this impact: “I’ve been amazed… The more you learn about technology, the more you learn what’s possible…. And so for me, I just tried to focus on: What is the future really going to be and how do we create it?” Page’s path to additionality is following your curiosity, working on things nobody else is working on, and being willing to take risks that others aren’t. Video source: TED Talks (2014)

Google founder Larry Page explains how he decides what to work on When asked about his philosophy and only working on “10x ideas”, Page invokes the idea of additionality from economics: “It means doing something that wouldn’t happen unless you’re actually doing it. I think the more you can do things like that, the bigger impact you can have. And that’s about doing things people might not think are possible.” Page believes technology is a huge enabler of this impact: “I’ve been amazed… The more you learn about technology, the more you learn what’s possible…. And so for me, I just tried to focus on: What is the future really going to be and how do we create it?” Page’s path to additionality is following your curiosity, working on things nobody else is working on, and being willing to take risks that others aren’t. Video source: TED Talks (2014)

Startup Archive

109,802 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten

“What you have, I think, is that the president's fundamentally lost the battle of ideas. What you normally do with an economic program is you come up with some ideas and you try and convince people of the virtues of them. He has fundamentally failed.”

“What you have, I think, is that the president's fundamentally lost the battle of ideas. What you normally do with an economic program is you come up with some ideas and you try and convince people of the virtues of them. He has fundamentally failed.”

Justin Wolfers

32,313 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten

Naval Ravikant’s advice to startup founders: “You only have to be right once” Naval reflects on how it took 13 years after starting his first startup before eventually succeeding with AngelList (valued at $4.1B in 2022). “Entrepreneurial ventures fail all the time. Most of my companies failed. I actually started seven companies, and I’ve launched about 40 or 50 projects over my career. And AngelList is the first one that I would truly say is product, market, entrepreneur fit for me that might succeed down the road.” He tells the audience: “It’s a low hit rate over your career, but you only have to be right once… So just keep trying, just keep iterating… a lot of it is market timing and you learn a lot of lessons.” One of my favorite quotes on this topic comes from Sam Altman: “’I will fail many times, and I will be really right once’ is the entrepreneurs’ way. You have to give yourself a lot of chances to get lucky.” Video source: This Week in Startups @jason (2013)

Naval Ravikant’s advice to startup founders: “You only have to be right once” Naval reflects on how it took 13 years after starting his first startup before eventually succeeding with AngelList (valued at $4.1B in 2022). “Entrepreneurial ventures fail all the time. Most of my companies failed. I actually started seven companies, and I’ve launched about 40 or 50 projects over my career. And AngelList is the first one that I would truly say is product, market, entrepreneur fit for me that might succeed down the road.” He tells the audience: “It’s a low hit rate over your career, but you only have to be right once… So just keep trying, just keep iterating… a lot of it is market timing and you learn a lot of lessons.” One of my favorite quotes on this topic comes from Sam Altman: “’I will fail many times, and I will be really right once’ is the entrepreneurs’ way. You have to give yourself a lot of chances to get lucky.” Video source: This Week in Startups @jason (2013)

Startup Archive

65,900 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

What is it like to be a founding engineer at a startup, and how do you become one? Michelle Lim joined Warp as the founding engineer, and she's now a founder at Flint AI where she is hiring founding engineers. We talk through her journey and tactics helpful for anyone wanting to make an impact at a startup. Watch or listen: • YouTube: • Spotify: • Apple: Brought to you by: •⁠ Statsig ⁠ — ⁠ The unified platform for flags, analytics, experiments, and more. •⁠ Linear ⁠ — ⁠ The system for modern product development. I really liked how Michelle was realistic how, as a founding engineer, you have two jobs at once: #1: Software engineering. Build the stuff you need to do #2: Everything else to help the business succeed, including lots of things that are not to do with software engineering! Do all of these once you did job #1 well. In return, you get to learn a lot on how a business is built - which will help you if and when you become a founder yourself! Thanks for the great convo, Michelle, and keep it up!

What is it like to be a founding engineer at a startup, and how do you become one? Michelle Lim joined Warp as the founding engineer, and she's now a founder at Flint AI where she is hiring founding engineers. We talk through her journey and tactics helpful for anyone wanting to make an impact at a startup. Watch or listen: • YouTube: • Spotify: • Apple: Brought to you by: •⁠ Statsig ⁠ — ⁠ The unified platform for flags, analytics, experiments, and more. •⁠ Linear ⁠ — ⁠ The system for modern product development. I really liked how Michelle was realistic how, as a founding engineer, you have two jobs at once: #1: Software engineering. Build the stuff you need to do #2: Everything else to help the business succeed, including lots of things that are not to do with software engineering! Do all of these once you did job #1 well. In return, you get to learn a lot on how a business is built - which will help you if and when you become a founder yourself! Thanks for the great convo, Michelle, and keep it up!

Gergely Orosz

17,126 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten