Starting a Startup
Notes, Quotes, Thots
Nothing really original, just a set of important ideas
Avoid Fake Work
Fake work is usually more fun than real work. Fake work is everything outside of
A) Selling your product
B) Building & Improving your product
Examples of Fake Work
A) Interviewing accounting & legal firms
B) Designing business cards
C) Arguing over who's CEO
D) Holding a lot of meetings with people
E) Attending conferences
F) Ordering T-Shirts
Keep your team small for as long as possible
- A Product Person
- A Seller (Marketer, Sales)
If your team isn't in either these two categories
You should be super suspicious
Fundraising is not winning
- Get it over as soon as possible
- It's not selling or building
- It's extremely time consuming
If you get a $100,000 investment...
Divide it by half, that's how much you really have
- Taxes, rent, other expenses
Give your first employees a lot of equity
They will make or break your company.
Do not chase valuations.
Begin with a low one
Low Valuations
A company with sales beating a $3 million valuation is much easier than beating a $10 million valuation.
If you beat a $3M, then you can skyrocket to a higher valuation later.
Keep your promises small
Press is not winning
Many founders mess up when they overvalue fame than making sales.
Other wastes of time
- Startup Competitions
- Networking at Conferences
Think like this:
Never think like this:
Our users don't love our product, all is lost!
Okay. No one loves our product. Lets see what we can do about it.
You will mess up
it will feel extremely depressing
"Don't worry about failure, you only have to be right once."
- Drew Houston
Everyone Will Lose Their Morale
the loss of morale is the point where others quit
It will feel like you're about to die. But you're not going to. Our brains are oddly wired to think that every bad thing will cause death.
your job is to work through the drought of morale
Don't
Burn
Out
"burning out" will damage your startup more than anything
The ability to recognize when you're burning out
is very hard to acquire
Health is Critical
- Workout Everyday
- 80% of your diet should be veggies
- Make an effort to get into nature
Don't guess too much
ask a lot of questions
Always include analytics and metrics
Sometimes they tell much better stories than your customers
Launch as fast as you can
People are forgiving
of early products
Don't listen to them
Observe them
"If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product you've launched too late."
-Reid Hoffman
Get feedback as quickly as possible
Then immediately launch version 2.0
Get nitty gritty with growth
Always know your weekly targets
Starting a Startup
By Max Alexander
Starting a Startup
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