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.

Sam Altman explains why “how big is your market?” is a terrible question for investors to ask “The question that investors usually ask is: ‘How big is your market?’ I think this is a terrible question. You would never ask a startup, ‘How big is your current revenue?’ and... make your investment decision based off of that. You’d want to know how it was going to grow. It’s the same thing for markets.” Sam continues: “The markets that are best for startups are markets that are small today and going to grow explosively over the next 10 years.” The other factor Sam has found to be predictive of startup success is whether or not the startup has already captured a significant part of some small market: “Airbnb by the end of YC had captured a significant amount of pre-existing apartment renters in New York City. Stripe had captured nearly 100% of YC companies in their current batch that wanted to process payments. We look for something like that, but you don’t always see it.” Video source: Khosla Ventures (2021)show more

Startup Archive

157,349 subscribers

154,469 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten •via X (Twitter)

Bildung Finanzen

Anya Rossi• Live Now

Private livecam show

0 Kommentare

Keine Kommentare verfügbar

Kommentare vom Original-Post werden hier angezeigt

Ähnliche Videos

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.”

Startup Archive

17,333 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten

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."

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."

Founder Mode

39,005 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten

Of all the mistakes that investors and founders make, being sure that a market is too small must be near the top. YC and Peter Thiel are the ones I've best heard articulate the opposite: a great way to start is to be the best company in a small but growing market.

Of all the mistakes that investors and founders make, being sure that a market is too small must be near the top. YC and Peter Thiel are the ones I've best heard articulate the opposite: a great way to start is to be the best company in a small but growing market.

Jack Altman

151,167 Aufrufe • vor 8 Monaten

Sam Altman explains why “the great wave” is the most important concept for good startup ideas “This idea of the great wave - I think this is the most important concept to find good ideas out there. People wonder why startups cluster in small periods of time… The reason is that there are these great waves.” He gives the example of the internet giving rise to a number of massive companies in the late 90s and early 2000s. Then smartphones gave rise to another group of companies in the 2009-2011 period. “All of a sudden, new things are possible that were never possible before. And when that happens - because startups can move so quickly - you can do things that otherwise would never happen. Or that a big company would otherwise win on. You want to think about what the next great wave is.” In this lecture that was given in 2017, Sam predicts that the next great wave will be “machine learning applied to every vertical.” He continues: “You want to identify this - What is the big tectonic shift that’s going to happen in the next couple of years? And do something that’s enabled by that and built on that platform.” Video source: Stanford Online (2017)

Sam Altman explains why “the great wave” is the most important concept for good startup ideas “This idea of the great wave - I think this is the most important concept to find good ideas out there. People wonder why startups cluster in small periods of time… The reason is that there are these great waves.” He gives the example of the internet giving rise to a number of massive companies in the late 90s and early 2000s. Then smartphones gave rise to another group of companies in the 2009-2011 period. “All of a sudden, new things are possible that were never possible before. And when that happens - because startups can move so quickly - you can do things that otherwise would never happen. Or that a big company would otherwise win on. You want to think about what the next great wave is.” In this lecture that was given in 2017, Sam predicts that the next great wave will be “machine learning applied to every vertical.” He continues: “You want to identify this - What is the big tectonic shift that’s going to happen in the next couple of years? And do something that’s enabled by that and built on that platform.” Video source: Stanford Online (2017)

Startup Archive

32,091 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

Sam Altman explains why “the great wave” is the most important concept for good startup ideas “This idea of the great wave - I think this is the most important concept to find good ideas out there. People wonder why startups cluster in small periods of time… The reason is that there are these great waves.” He gives the example of the internet giving rise to a number of massive companies in the late 90s and early 2000s. Then smartphones gave rise to another group of companies in the 2009-2011 period. “All of a sudden, new things are possible that were never possible before. And when that happens - because startups can move so quickly - you can do things that otherwise would never happen. Or that a big company would otherwise win on. You want to think about what the next great wave is.” In this lecture that was given in 2017, Sam predicts that the next great wave will be “machine learning applied to every vertical.” He continues: “You want to identify this - What is the big tectonic shift that’s going to happen in the next couple of years? And do something that’s enabled by that and built on that platform.” Video source: Stanford Online (2017)

Sam Altman explains why “the great wave” is the most important concept for good startup ideas “This idea of the great wave - I think this is the most important concept to find good ideas out there. People wonder why startups cluster in small periods of time… The reason is that there are these great waves.” He gives the example of the internet giving rise to a number of massive companies in the late 90s and early 2000s. Then smartphones gave rise to another group of companies in the 2009-2011 period. “All of a sudden, new things are possible that were never possible before. And when that happens - because startups can move so quickly - you can do things that otherwise would never happen. Or that a big company would otherwise win on. You want to think about what the next great wave is.” In this lecture that was given in 2017, Sam predicts that the next great wave will be “machine learning applied to every vertical.” He continues: “You want to identify this - What is the big tectonic shift that’s going to happen in the next couple of years? And do something that’s enabled by that and built on that platform.” Video source: Stanford Online (2017)

Startup Archive

12,919 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten

Q: Is it better to target a small market or a large one? In the clip below, Peter Thiel (billionaire venture capitalist and co-founder of PayPal and Palantir) describes his framework for evaluating markets: “It’s always a big mistake going after a giant market on day 1. That’s typically evidence that you haven’t defined the categories correctly, and there’s going to be too much competition.” He continues: “Almost all of the successful companies in Silicon Valley had some model of starting with small markets and expanding.” Amazon started with books eBay started with Pez dispensers and Beanie Babies PayPal started with power-sellers on eBay Facebook started with Harvard “What’s very counterintuitive about many of these companies is that they often start with markets so small that most people don’t think they’re valuable at all.” The opposite of this is companies that start out targeting really big markets, and he used clean tech companies in 2005-2008 trying to capture a small percentage of a trillion-dollar market as an example. “Once you’re a minnow in a vast ocean, that’s not a good place to be. It means you have tons of competitors, and you don’t even know who all of the competitors are.” As Thiel puts it: “You want to be a one-of-a-kind company where it’s the only one in a small ecosystem… large existing markets typically mean you have tons of competition and it’s very hard to differentiate.” You can then expand concentrically from there. Follow Startup Archive for more tactical startup advice!

Q: Is it better to target a small market or a large one? In the clip below, Peter Thiel (billionaire venture capitalist and co-founder of PayPal and Palantir) describes his framework for evaluating markets: “It’s always a big mistake going after a giant market on day 1. That’s typically evidence that you haven’t defined the categories correctly, and there’s going to be too much competition.” He continues: “Almost all of the successful companies in Silicon Valley had some model of starting with small markets and expanding.” Amazon started with books eBay started with Pez dispensers and Beanie Babies PayPal started with power-sellers on eBay Facebook started with Harvard “What’s very counterintuitive about many of these companies is that they often start with markets so small that most people don’t think they’re valuable at all.” The opposite of this is companies that start out targeting really big markets, and he used clean tech companies in 2005-2008 trying to capture a small percentage of a trillion-dollar market as an example. “Once you’re a minnow in a vast ocean, that’s not a good place to be. It means you have tons of competitors, and you don’t even know who all of the competitors are.” As Thiel puts it: “You want to be a one-of-a-kind company where it’s the only one in a small ecosystem… large existing markets typically mean you have tons of competition and it’s very hard to differentiate.” You can then expand concentrically from there. Follow Startup Archive for more tactical startup advice!

Startup Archive

84,096 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren

Sam Altman: “One of the few arbitrage opportunities left in the market is time” “I don’t think you can beat the market in a lot of ways, but the one way I do is by making a long-term commitment to something. My new belief on how long I should hold stock in the best companies I invest in is forever. And I think in a world where people are increasingly focused on the tick and the quarterly earnings cycle, you should try to go in the other direction. This is a great way to generate value and wealth.” Sam continues: “And so I think that when you’re thinking about a startup, it’s really worthwhile to think about something you’re willing to make a very long-term commitment to because that is where the current void in the market is. You get paid as a founder for the wealth you create for other people… The best companies just create massive amounts of value for the world, and then they capture some of that for themselves. But they capture far less than they create, and they do it over a very long period of time. So if you’re going to be one of those companies, I think you want to make a super long-term commitment to yourself and others that are going to work on it with you… It is worth waiting because you will make far more money over the long term by doing this company really well than a bunch of short term things along the way.” Video source: Y Combinator (2016)

Sam Altman: “One of the few arbitrage opportunities left in the market is time” “I don’t think you can beat the market in a lot of ways, but the one way I do is by making a long-term commitment to something. My new belief on how long I should hold stock in the best companies I invest in is forever. And I think in a world where people are increasingly focused on the tick and the quarterly earnings cycle, you should try to go in the other direction. This is a great way to generate value and wealth.” Sam continues: “And so I think that when you’re thinking about a startup, it’s really worthwhile to think about something you’re willing to make a very long-term commitment to because that is where the current void in the market is. You get paid as a founder for the wealth you create for other people… The best companies just create massive amounts of value for the world, and then they capture some of that for themselves. But they capture far less than they create, and they do it over a very long period of time. So if you’re going to be one of those companies, I think you want to make a super long-term commitment to yourself and others that are going to work on it with you… It is worth waiting because you will make far more money over the long term by doing this company really well than a bunch of short term things along the way.” Video source: Y Combinator (2016)

Startup Archive

49,283 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

Sam Altman explains how he decides to invest in a startup after 10 minutes Y Combinator accepts or rejects a company after just a 10 minute interview. Sam admits he didn’t think you’d be able to do much better than random with only 10 minutes, but he doesn’t think that’s true anymore. “It turns out that in 10 minutes if the only question you’re trying to answer is: Does this person have the potential to be the next Mark Zuckerberg?… [You don’t get to] 100% accuracy, obviously, but it’s good enough that our business model works.” Sam continues: “The obvious thing is intelligence… You can tell that really quickly, much less than 10 minutes… The hardest trait that we’re looking for is determination, and when we’re really wrong one way or the other on a founder, it’s because we were miscalibrated on how determined that founder seemed.” As Sam explains in the clip, he also looks for clarity of vision, communication skills, and non-obvious brilliance of the idea. Video source: Khosla Ventures (2016)

Sam Altman explains how he decides to invest in a startup after 10 minutes Y Combinator accepts or rejects a company after just a 10 minute interview. Sam admits he didn’t think you’d be able to do much better than random with only 10 minutes, but he doesn’t think that’s true anymore. “It turns out that in 10 minutes if the only question you’re trying to answer is: Does this person have the potential to be the next Mark Zuckerberg?… [You don’t get to] 100% accuracy, obviously, but it’s good enough that our business model works.” Sam continues: “The obvious thing is intelligence… You can tell that really quickly, much less than 10 minutes… The hardest trait that we’re looking for is determination, and when we’re really wrong one way or the other on a founder, it’s because we were miscalibrated on how determined that founder seemed.” As Sam explains in the clip, he also looks for clarity of vision, communication skills, and non-obvious brilliance of the idea. Video source: Khosla Ventures (2016)

Startup Archive

160,329 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

One ‘bad’ question people love to ask during bear markets is ‘now that crypto’s over, what are you going to do next?’. This has proven to be wrong 100% of the time, of course.

One ‘bad’ question people love to ask during bear markets is ‘now that crypto’s over, what are you going to do next?’. This has proven to be wrong 100% of the time, of course.

Brian Armstrong

72,538 Aufrufe • vor 10 Monaten

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 8 Monaten

Michael Seibel on how to create a great startup pitch Former Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel breaks down the two types of pitches every startup founder needs: a 30-second elevator pitch and a two-minute pitch for investors. “A lot of people practice 10-minute, 30-minute, hour-long, pitches. I think that’s all garbage. I think you can get all of your points across in two minutes. And one thing I like to tell founders is that the more you talk, the more you have an opportunity to say something that people don’t like.” 30-Second Elevator Pitch: You should be able to explain to anyone you come across what your company does in 30 seconds. This should be three sentences: • What does your company do? Assume the person you’re talking to knows nothing. This should be a 1-sentence explanation that your mom or dad can understand (e.g. “We’re Airbnb and we allow you to rent out the extra room in your house” NOT “We’re Airbnb and we’re a marketplace for space”). • How big is the market? Do a couple hours of research so that you can give investors a rough approximation of the size of the market you’re in (e.g. Airbnb might give the size of online hotel booking market) • How much traction do you have? Ideally you can say something like: “We launched in January and we’re growing 30% month over month. We have SX sales and Y users.” If you’re pre-launch, you need to convince investors that you’re moving quickly (e.g. “the team came together in January. By March we launched our beta. By April we launched our product.”). Two-Minute Pitch: This pitch is for people you’re actually trying to convince of something (e.g. investors, potential employees, etc.). You basically want to simply explain what you do and then ask for money. There are 5 key components: • Clear 30 second pitch (everything mentioned above) • Unique insight—what do the biggest players in your market not understand? This should be 2 sentences. • How do you make money? • Team. If your team has done something that has made investors money, you should mention that (e.g. “we’re the founders of PayPal”). If you haven’t, don’t go on about the awards you’ve won or PhDs you hold. What investors want to hear is: how many founders? (hopefully 2-4) how many of the founders are technical? (hopefully 50% or more engineers) How long have you known each other? (ideally you’ve known each other either personally or professionally for at least 6 months) Are you all full-time? • The Big Ask ($$$). You have to know what you’re talking about when you ask for money. Are you raising on a convertible note or a SAFE? What’s the cap of the SAFE? How much money are you raising? What’s the minimum check size? If you don’t know these things, investors won’t think you’re serious or that you haven’t done your homework.

Michael Seibel on how to create a great startup pitch Former Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel breaks down the two types of pitches every startup founder needs: a 30-second elevator pitch and a two-minute pitch for investors. “A lot of people practice 10-minute, 30-minute, hour-long, pitches. I think that’s all garbage. I think you can get all of your points across in two minutes. And one thing I like to tell founders is that the more you talk, the more you have an opportunity to say something that people don’t like.” 30-Second Elevator Pitch: You should be able to explain to anyone you come across what your company does in 30 seconds. This should be three sentences: • What does your company do? Assume the person you’re talking to knows nothing. This should be a 1-sentence explanation that your mom or dad can understand (e.g. “We’re Airbnb and we allow you to rent out the extra room in your house” NOT “We’re Airbnb and we’re a marketplace for space”). • How big is the market? Do a couple hours of research so that you can give investors a rough approximation of the size of the market you’re in (e.g. Airbnb might give the size of online hotel booking market) • How much traction do you have? Ideally you can say something like: “We launched in January and we’re growing 30% month over month. We have SX sales and Y users.” If you’re pre-launch, you need to convince investors that you’re moving quickly (e.g. “the team came together in January. By March we launched our beta. By April we launched our product.”). Two-Minute Pitch: This pitch is for people you’re actually trying to convince of something (e.g. investors, potential employees, etc.). You basically want to simply explain what you do and then ask for money. There are 5 key components: • Clear 30 second pitch (everything mentioned above) • Unique insight—what do the biggest players in your market not understand? This should be 2 sentences. • How do you make money? • Team. If your team has done something that has made investors money, you should mention that (e.g. “we’re the founders of PayPal”). If you haven’t, don’t go on about the awards you’ve won or PhDs you hold. What investors want to hear is: how many founders? (hopefully 2-4) how many of the founders are technical? (hopefully 50% or more engineers) How long have you known each other? (ideally you’ve known each other either personally or professionally for at least 6 months) Are you all full-time? • The Big Ask ($$$). You have to know what you’re talking about when you ask for money. Are you raising on a convertible note or a SAFE? What’s the cap of the SAFE? How much money are you raising? What’s the minimum check size? If you don’t know these things, investors won’t think you’re serious or that you haven’t done your homework.

Startup Archive

21,631 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

$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

39,870 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten

Mr Shift: What's the true innovation with prediction markets? Kalshi CEO: There's many ways to answer that question. Um there's the Kalshi piece of it, but then there's the prediction market piece of it, which are not exactly the same. “But the... the true innovation in prediction markets, I think, is this notion, like... and, and I think it has been built through a lot of literature, and then I think the prediction markets have come in our generation, like Kalshi and some of the others have proven it” “The best way to answer like all these most pressing questions is like you have to ask the crowd”

Mr Shift: What's the true innovation with prediction markets? Kalshi CEO: There's many ways to answer that question. Um there's the Kalshi piece of it, but then there's the prediction market piece of it, which are not exactly the same. “But the... the true innovation in prediction markets, I think, is this notion, like... and, and I think it has been built through a lot of literature, and then I think the prediction markets have come in our generation, like Kalshi and some of the others have proven it” “The best way to answer like all these most pressing questions is like you have to ask the crowd”

ShaDow | Clipur.com

23,860 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat

Peter Thiel on the importance of starting with a small market “It’s always a big mistake going after a giant market on day 1. That’s typically evidence that you haven’t defined the categories correctly, and there’s going to be too much competition. Almost all of the successful companies in Silicon Valley had some model of starting with small markets and expanding.” Amazon started with books eBay started with Pez dispensers and Beanie Babies PayPal started with power-sellers on eBay Facebook started with Harvard “What’s very counterintuitive about many of these companies is that they often start with markets so small that most people don’t think they’re valuable at all.” The opposite of this is companies that start out targeting really big markets, and he uses clean tech companies in 2005-2008 trying to capture a small percentage of a trillion dollar market as an example: “Once you’re a minnow in a vast ocean, that’s not a good place to be. It means you have tons of competitors, and you don’t even know who all of the competitors are.” As Thiel puts it: “You want to be a one-of-a-kind company where it’s the only one in a small ecosystem… large existing markets typically mean you have tons of competition and it’s very hard to differentiate.” Video source: Y Combinator (2014)

Peter Thiel on the importance of starting with a small market “It’s always a big mistake going after a giant market on day 1. That’s typically evidence that you haven’t defined the categories correctly, and there’s going to be too much competition. Almost all of the successful companies in Silicon Valley had some model of starting with small markets and expanding.” Amazon started with books eBay started with Pez dispensers and Beanie Babies PayPal started with power-sellers on eBay Facebook started with Harvard “What’s very counterintuitive about many of these companies is that they often start with markets so small that most people don’t think they’re valuable at all.” The opposite of this is companies that start out targeting really big markets, and he uses clean tech companies in 2005-2008 trying to capture a small percentage of a trillion dollar market as an example: “Once you’re a minnow in a vast ocean, that’s not a good place to be. It means you have tons of competitors, and you don’t even know who all of the competitors are.” As Thiel puts it: “You want to be a one-of-a-kind company where it’s the only one in a small ecosystem… large existing markets typically mean you have tons of competition and it’s very hard to differentiate.” Video source: Y Combinator (2014)

Startup Archive

71,793 Aufrufe • vor 9 Monaten

Sam Altman on what startup ideas actually work “What you are looking for are good ideas that look like bad ideas. These are things that you can articulate why there’s a reason this is going to be huge that most of the world is missing. Unfortunately, what most people end up chasing are bad ideas that look like good ideas. I would say this is where 90% of all angel capital in the startup ecosystem goes.” Sam elaborates on why founders and investors alike make this mistake so frequently: “The one common way that people make this mistake (pursuing bad ideas that look like good ideas) is chasing the thing that worked two years ago. If you ever find yourself doing that, be very skeptical. If you find yourself tempted to invest in a company where there are hundreds of others working on the same thing, be very skeptical. If you find yourself tempted to invest in something that the founders work super hard to convince you is not going to be a long-term commodity, be very skeptical. It is absolutely true that you want something that has real pricing power that comes from a network effect, a moat, a barrier to entry, whatever it is. But when that’s true, it’s so obvious. So the more a founder tries to sell you on why they’re super differentiated and why they have this long-term competitive advantage, the more skeptical you should be.” He continues: “I have found this framework of asking, ‘Is this a good idea that seems bad? Or is this a bad idea that seems good?’ has helped me make good decisions a bunch of times.” Source: Y Combinator (Mar 2018)

Sam Altman on what startup ideas actually work “What you are looking for are good ideas that look like bad ideas. These are things that you can articulate why there’s a reason this is going to be huge that most of the world is missing. Unfortunately, what most people end up chasing are bad ideas that look like good ideas. I would say this is where 90% of all angel capital in the startup ecosystem goes.” Sam elaborates on why founders and investors alike make this mistake so frequently: “The one common way that people make this mistake (pursuing bad ideas that look like good ideas) is chasing the thing that worked two years ago. If you ever find yourself doing that, be very skeptical. If you find yourself tempted to invest in a company where there are hundreds of others working on the same thing, be very skeptical. If you find yourself tempted to invest in something that the founders work super hard to convince you is not going to be a long-term commodity, be very skeptical. It is absolutely true that you want something that has real pricing power that comes from a network effect, a moat, a barrier to entry, whatever it is. But when that’s true, it’s so obvious. So the more a founder tries to sell you on why they’re super differentiated and why they have this long-term competitive advantage, the more skeptical you should be.” He continues: “I have found this framework of asking, ‘Is this a good idea that seems bad? Or is this a bad idea that seems good?’ has helped me make good decisions a bunch of times.” Source: Y Combinator (Mar 2018)

Startup Archive

14,366 Aufrufe • vor 10 Tagen

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, on why the iPhone, the greatest consumer device ever made, is the wrong hardware for the AI era: Sam argues the iPhone's basic design wasn't made for a world where AI needs to live alongside your entire life. "I think the iPhone is currently the greatest piece of consumer hardware ever made by a lot. Like, incredible what that has done." The iPhone was designed for a pre-AI world. Sam Altman explains: "It was not meant for a world where you needed a piece of hardware that could absorb all of the context of your life. You know, you can use the phone, you can stop using the phone, you can put it in your pocket, but it's kind of like on or off." That binary, on or off, in use or in your pocket, is the core mismatch. A device that flips between active and dormant can't continuously absorb the context that a personal AGI would need to actually be useful to you. Sam uses the conversation he's having in that moment as the example: "This has been a very interesting conversation. I would love this to be referenced by my personal AGI later, but my phone is in my pocket and it's not going to understand." The vision he's pointing toward is a device that participates differently: "I would like a device that, if I wanted to, can participate and understand and know about this conversation." The shift Sam is describing is from a device you pick up and put down, to one that quietly captures the context of your life. Without that continuous context, a personal AGI can't actually be personal.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, on why the iPhone, the greatest consumer device ever made, is the wrong hardware for the AI era: Sam argues the iPhone's basic design wasn't made for a world where AI needs to live alongside your entire life. "I think the iPhone is currently the greatest piece of consumer hardware ever made by a lot. Like, incredible what that has done." The iPhone was designed for a pre-AI world. Sam Altman explains: "It was not meant for a world where you needed a piece of hardware that could absorb all of the context of your life. You know, you can use the phone, you can stop using the phone, you can put it in your pocket, but it's kind of like on or off." That binary, on or off, in use or in your pocket, is the core mismatch. A device that flips between active and dormant can't continuously absorb the context that a personal AGI would need to actually be useful to you. Sam uses the conversation he's having in that moment as the example: "This has been a very interesting conversation. I would love this to be referenced by my personal AGI later, but my phone is in my pocket and it's not going to understand." The vision he's pointing toward is a device that participates differently: "I would like a device that, if I wanted to, can participate and understand and know about this conversation." The shift Sam is describing is from a device you pick up and put down, to one that quietly captures the context of your life. Without that continuous context, a personal AGI can't actually be personal.

Big Brain AI

25,447 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten

Michael Seibel on how to create a great startup pitch In the clip below, former Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel breaks down the two types of pitches every startup founder needs: a 30-second elevator pitch and a two-minute pitch for investors. “A lot of people practice 10-minute, 30-minute, hour-long, pitches. I think that’s all garbage. I think you can get all of your points across in two minutes. And one thing I like to tell founders is that the more you talk, the more you have an opportunity to say something that people don’t like.” 30-Second Elevator Pitch: You should be able to explain to anyone you come across what your company does in 30 seconds. This should be three sentences: 1. What does your company do? Assume the person you’re talking to knows nothing. This should be a 1-sentence explanation that your mom or dad can understand (e.g. “We’re Airbnb and we allow you to rent out the extra room in your house” NOT “We’re Airbnb and we’re a marketplace for space”). 2. How big is the market? Do a couple hours of research so that you can give investors a rough approximation of the size of the market you’re in (e.g. Airbnb might give the size of online hotel booking market) 3. How much traction do you have? Ideally you can say something like: “We launched in January and we’re growing 30% month over month. We have $ X sales and Y users.” If you’re pre-launch, you need to convince investors that you’re moving quickly (e.g. “the team came together in January. By March we launched our beta. By April we launched our product.”). Two-Minute Pitch: This pitch is for people you’re actually trying to convince of something (e.g. investors, potential employees, etc.). You basically want to simply explain what you do and then ask for money. There are 5 key components: 1. Clear 30 second pitch (everything mentioned above) 2. Unique insight—what do the biggest players in your market not understand? This should be 2 sentences. 3. How do you make money? 4. Team. If your team has done something that has made investors money, you should mention that (e.g. “we’re the founders of PayPal”). If you haven’t, don’t go on about the awards you’ve won or PhDs you hold. What investors want to hear is: how many founders? (hopefully 2-4) how many of the founders are technical? (hopefully 50% or more engineers) How long have you known each other? (ideally you’ve known each other either personally or professionally for at least 6 months) Are you all full-time? 5. The Big Ask ($$$). You have to know what you’re talking about when you ask for money. Are you raising on a convertible note or a SAFE? What’s the cap of the SAFE? How much money are you raising? What’s the minimum check size? If you don’t know these things, investors won’t think you’re serious or that you haven’t done your homework.

Michael Seibel on how to create a great startup pitch In the clip below, former Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel breaks down the two types of pitches every startup founder needs: a 30-second elevator pitch and a two-minute pitch for investors. “A lot of people practice 10-minute, 30-minute, hour-long, pitches. I think that’s all garbage. I think you can get all of your points across in two minutes. And one thing I like to tell founders is that the more you talk, the more you have an opportunity to say something that people don’t like.” 30-Second Elevator Pitch: You should be able to explain to anyone you come across what your company does in 30 seconds. This should be three sentences: 1. What does your company do? Assume the person you’re talking to knows nothing. This should be a 1-sentence explanation that your mom or dad can understand (e.g. “We’re Airbnb and we allow you to rent out the extra room in your house” NOT “We’re Airbnb and we’re a marketplace for space”). 2. How big is the market? Do a couple hours of research so that you can give investors a rough approximation of the size of the market you’re in (e.g. Airbnb might give the size of online hotel booking market) 3. How much traction do you have? Ideally you can say something like: “We launched in January and we’re growing 30% month over month. We have $ X sales and Y users.” If you’re pre-launch, you need to convince investors that you’re moving quickly (e.g. “the team came together in January. By March we launched our beta. By April we launched our product.”). Two-Minute Pitch: This pitch is for people you’re actually trying to convince of something (e.g. investors, potential employees, etc.). You basically want to simply explain what you do and then ask for money. There are 5 key components: 1. Clear 30 second pitch (everything mentioned above) 2. Unique insight—what do the biggest players in your market not understand? This should be 2 sentences. 3. How do you make money? 4. Team. If your team has done something that has made investors money, you should mention that (e.g. “we’re the founders of PayPal”). If you haven’t, don’t go on about the awards you’ve won or PhDs you hold. What investors want to hear is: how many founders? (hopefully 2-4) how many of the founders are technical? (hopefully 50% or more engineers) How long have you known each other? (ideally you’ve known each other either personally or professionally for at least 6 months) Are you all full-time? 5. The Big Ask ($$$). You have to know what you’re talking about when you ask for money. Are you raising on a convertible note or a SAFE? What’s the cap of the SAFE? How much money are you raising? What’s the minimum check size? If you don’t know these things, investors won’t think you’re serious or that you haven’t done your homework.

Startup Archive

80,490 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren

What is the biggest advantage for companies to stay private today? David George " The biggest advantage is the avoidance of volatility in your stock price and employee management. If you can steadily grow or control your stock price in the private markets. Even if it's a slight discount to where you would be in the public markets it is a benefit We've seen some of our companies that have been able to do that. Stripe, SpaceX, Databricks, it's worked to their advantage for sure." I would love to hear your thoughts Brian Halligan Sameer Dholakia John Collison Noah Glass mark pincus

What is the biggest advantage for companies to stay private today? David George " The biggest advantage is the avoidance of volatility in your stock price and employee management. If you can steadily grow or control your stock price in the private markets. Even if it's a slight discount to where you would be in the public markets it is a benefit We've seen some of our companies that have been able to do that. Stripe, SpaceX, Databricks, it's worked to their advantage for sure." I would love to hear your thoughts Brian Halligan Sameer Dholakia John Collison Noah Glass mark pincus

Harry Stebbings

93,731 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten

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

Small assumptions allow big lies. That's why we question everything on my show. There's a small assumption going around that ICE is asking American citizens like you or me to show proof of citizenship papers. Like, do we have to carry around our birth certificate in our pocket? The big lie is that the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, mass deportations, and secure borders are all evidence that the United States of America is just like Nazi Germany. And ICE is like the Nazi SS. Well, that's the big lie that is begotten of believing a small assumption that's not true. The reality, of course, is much simpler. The reality is that ICE and other members of DHS are asking individuals who are in the vicinity of criminal aliens who've been arrested to identify themselves. Same as DHS investigations have always been conducted. But of course, going back to the framework, small assumptions allow big lies. This is a perfect example of that. This is why we question everything on The Liz Wheeler Show. Don't believe the fake news.

Small assumptions allow big lies. That's why we question everything on my show. There's a small assumption going around that ICE is asking American citizens like you or me to show proof of citizenship papers. Like, do we have to carry around our birth certificate in our pocket? The big lie is that the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, mass deportations, and secure borders are all evidence that the United States of America is just like Nazi Germany. And ICE is like the Nazi SS. Well, that's the big lie that is begotten of believing a small assumption that's not true. The reality, of course, is much simpler. The reality is that ICE and other members of DHS are asking individuals who are in the vicinity of criminal aliens who've been arrested to identify themselves. Same as DHS investigations have always been conducted. But of course, going back to the framework, small assumptions allow big lies. This is a perfect example of that. This is why we question everything on The Liz Wheeler Show. Don't believe the fake news.

Liz Wheeler

15,459 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten