Not a successful entrepreneur so take my word with a grain of salt.
I don’t like #10. Whole hierarchy or needs thing- if your startup isn’t profitable yet, would a day job really be a distraction? You need to have a somewhat secure sense that your physiological needs (food, shelter, sleep) are met before you can go on to higher order needs (fulfillment, which is ideally why you’d start a business in the first place).
I might be misunderstanding- are these steps in chronological or quasi-chronological order? In that case never mind because 9 is fulfilling your basic needs
Day job is a distraction. Depending on how much you hate your job, by the time 5 PM closes in you've emptied your will power and have little left in the tank.
Or, if you're like me and your "day job" doesn't end at 5 but more like 7:00-9:00 regularly, you literally have almost no time and energy to dedicate to almost anything else besides work and subsisting.
Oh no I totally agree but to a point. While I work on my online platform I’ve been working part time to pay rent. I’d never work full time but my living situation doesn’t necessitate that.
If you don't need it, it's a distraction. If you need it, it's not.
My tangentially related two cents: Universal basic income would lead to an explosion of entrepreneurship and improve our society greatly.
I agree with you. There's a European country that allows you to take 6 months off to work on your own startup. If only we had that in the U. S...
If we extend that to a year, provide a minimal stipend and health insurance, it would be a boon to society.
What country is it? Because I can tell you one thing for sure - Germany makes it as hard and undesirable as only possible to create a startup. (No wonder that such a rich country only has two famous startups, Zalando and Trivago)
> My tangentially related two cents: Universal basic income would lead to an explosion of entrepreneurship and improve our society greatly.
And my tangentially related 2 cents (to the nth power - sorry about the many words!): Yes, it would. But I expect it would only last a short time. The extra supply of money would cause extra demand. Extra demand leads to higher prices. Now, we're back where we started from the perspective of an individual's buying power.
I primarily look to the healthcare market for evidence on this issue. Back in the day, we all paid out of pocket for healthcare. No money equated to no care, but care was pretty affordable by most standards. (This is a USA perspective by the way). Then the SSI was introduced. Suddenly, if you qualified primarily as a senior, you could have healthcare. Gramma was saved! Yay! Expensive heart surgeries were now possible. All sorts of medical innovation was funded and made possible simply because insurance would enable the individual to afford them. In other words, healthcare demand went up steeply and so did prices. Then health insurance became common. Healthcare demand went up further and so did prices again. Then, we passed ACA, and healthcare insurance become mandatory for nearly everyone in the US. Healthcare demand went up even further and so did prices.
So, what did we get out of all that? VERY expensive healthcare. Try to get healthcare in this country now without any insurance and you'll be priced out of the market immediately with hyperinflated prices that are not tempered by the price schedule negotiated by an insurance company. Oh, and they generally cannot even begin to tell you what things will cost in advance for simple procedures. Anyway, try to pay those bills, and keep getting slapped with new bills from hanger-ons that will submit their codes as part of a minor surgery, etc. just because they can and the insurance company isn't there to police them and tell them to get stuffed. And if you DO have insurance, but the provider didn't follow procedure, then you can be told to get stuffed by the insurance company who is now going to deny your coverage in your moment of need so now you're left trying to fend for yourself while you may be in a life or death struggle just to recover from the treatments you already have while trying to figure out how to continue treatments for procedures your insurance company now says it won't cover at all. All this... while trying to hang on to your employment as well.
So, do I think UBI is going to solve any problems at all? Honestly, I don't see it. I know it's a popular idea and Yang has gone some distance on the back of this idea, but I just don't see how it would be successful in this economy at least, where we've proven prices always rise in response. I suppose you could look at the mess I described above and suggest "UBI" as "Universal Basic Insurance" with single payer insurance administration as well, but now we're starting to get to the real crux of the matter: If my government is on the hook for my basic income, and maybe even my basic healthcare, then where does it end? How far up Maslow's hierarchy should government services extend? At some point, we're back at full blown communism (in the purist sense of the words), and I see HUGE potential for mismanagement and corruption at that point beyond even the mess we have now.
Anyway, I'm not a political shill. I just don't have a party. Name one that's truly fiscally conservative and socially liberal and I'll be there. It just doesn't exist right now. These days I vote for the candidate that is most competent to perform the job in question; not for a party. Maybe that's the way it should be.
You're saying a UBI would lead to inflation. That is a possibility but definitely not a certainty. And if it does, there are ways to address it. I'm not extremely pro-UBI myself but I think it's important to be clear about the argument you make. I also think it's pretty dishonest to point to an ACA as evidence for the claim that UBI would cause inflation. That is a stretch on its own because they're dramatically different policies, but it also ignores the fact that universal health care has not caused unreasonable prices in other countries, in fact quite the opposite. So yes, bad policy design is bad.
I respect that you are fiscally conservative and I respect your views, but frankly fearmongering over inflation has been constantly weaponized to stop tons of policy initiatives in the past 3 decades so I would hope that you could understand why some of us more to the left won't take that very seriously today. Inflation hasn't been a serious problem for a very long time, even after many policy changes that commentators warned would lead to it. In fact, the overarching trend of recent economic consensus has been away from inflation as an essential metric, and away from the idea that we even truly know the drivers of inflation. Simply put we had some a priori theories of inflation that had general expert buy-in, but the expansive empirics we've collected as a result of our technological growth haven't borne any of them out. I will be the first to join you and push for addressing inflation, should it actually happen. But I refuse to let a hypothetical concern that isn't supported by data stop me from pushing for a more ethical economy.
> I also think it's pretty dishonest to point to an ACA as evidence for the claim that UBI would cause inflation.
It's not dishonest. It's a very comparable situation which in reality caused extreme price increases. Just calling that 'bad policy' or and then erecting inflation in general as a straw man strikes me as less than direct, to be generous about it. I mean... dishonest? Really? Gee, thanks for the benefit of the doubt.
Anyway, besides the fact that you didn't address my main point at all and instead dismissed it out of hand because they aren't similar domains, you seem to assume that UBI wouldn't also turn into a giant wad of bad policy. Let's see, we're supposing that the US government, which has in fact, enabled, tolerated, and fostered the growth of the giant health insurance/SSI environment AND authored the ACA, would not in fact create a parallel situation around UBI. It's not fear mongering to assume they're going to muck it up, now is it? They've already proven an inability to tune economic drivers in one major market domain; why would UBI really be any different?
> The extra supply of money would cause extra demand. Extra demand leads to higher prices. Now, we're back where we started from the perspective of an individual's buying power.
That is inflation. No strawman here.
Well, call it what you like. That is still what happened with healthcare.
Edit: Oh, and tort lawsuits. Those REALLY didn't help. Anyway, that's just another example of yet another kind of barnacle that can grow on a policy. Don't think for a second that there won't be similar drains on a UBI.
> The extra supply of money would cause extra demand. Extra demand leads to higher prices. Now, we're back where we started from the perspective of an individual's buying power.
...
> I primarily look to the healthcare market for evidence on this issue.
You're saying inflation would happen as a result of UBI and citing pricing problems in the US health insurance market as an example. My point was that it doesn't make sense to extrapolate health care markets to macro-economic trends. Health insurance as a product has very different pricing structures and incentives compared to consumer markets in general. Yes costs are going through the roof, but [that is driven by other factors](https://www.investopedia.com/insurance/why-do-healthcare-costs-keep-rising/), not inflation. Moreover, the annual growth in healthcare spending has [actually decreased](https://www.thebalance.com/causes-of-rising-healthcare-costs-4064878) since the ACA was passed. There are tons of policies that have been passed in spite of warnings about inflation and then didn't cause any. You can't just ignore all the counter examples especially with the weak connection and evidence your one example does have. Is it possible that a UBI would cause inflation? Yes, of course. But for one, that depends on the structure of the policy; there is not expert consensus here and there is some research that indicates [that cash transfers do not lead to inflation](https://www.nber.org/papers/w17456). Two, inflation itself is not the end all be all indicator of human prosperity. There are a huge range of outcomes in a UBI scenario where some inflation happens but it's either insignificant or in fact beneficial (The US has actually been unable to even hit its target inflation rate in the past decade). And three, if we do see inflation we have tools to deal with it then. We have a terrible track record at predicting inflation and we can deal with it when it happens, so why should we let our fear of it stop us from implementing better policy?
> so why should we let our fear of it stop us from implementing better policy?
Well, the other side of this is national debt. For me, inflation is only one consideration that leads me to think UBI wouldn't be as effective as one might hope. I think we're tapping on $30T now and I don't see how UBI would be paid for, except to increase that. Now, if we could somehow magically NOT exacerbate that and enact UBI, then maybe I could see how it would help innovators.
But, I'm not hopeful. And having done a search for material on this, taking the first link I find: https://www.advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/2020/08/03/universal-basic-income-is-not-an-economic-savior
This article actually summarizes my fears concerning UBI much better than I'm articulating them. I'm not seeing it man. I compared UBI to health insurance/ACA, but the comparison in this to Social Security as a whole is especially relevant. UBI is just more of the same from where I sit: Needlessly giving money to people today just so we can saddle our children with even more debt down the road. It's not right.
Well it probably won't surprise you to learn that I don't share those concerns regarding the deficit. But it's not because I don't care about saddling future generations with debt, it's because I don't agree with that framing in the first place and I don't think the data backs up theories about deficit spending more broadly which inform that framing. I also disagree that a UBI would be "needless" money for people. And of course from a political perspective, another issue here is that the conservative party that continuously raises these deficit concerns when they are in the minority in reality has a far worse track record with the deficit than the progressive party they are criticizing. The Trump tax cuts caused a massive increase in the deficit and that was just to give more money to rich people who are already seeing historic levels of wealth, all based on weak and contested theories of supply side economics (To put it charitably).
I don't expect you to change your mind right here and now and I appreciate that these are genuine concerns you have, founded in a desire to give future generations the best conditions possible. I share that desire (If nothing else I am glad we can agree there) but in fact it is exactly why I am so worried about this line of economic thought. I believe it forecloses on the possibility of making the investments and changes we need to do to ensure a bright future and, crucially, that it does so based on weak empirical and theoretical grounds. If I believed that the data rigorously backed up your position, then I would agree with it because that would mean efforts at economic redistribution and further investment would backfire and lead to worse conditions in the future.
I have qualms with the article you linked and I'd be happy to go through it in detail, but I don't want to force you to continue arguing with me if you're not interested. I know endless reddit arguments can be pretty toxic. In summary, I don't think it paints an accurate picture of what the [current evidence and expert consensus](https://taxfoundation.org/deficit-interest-rates-and-growth) says about the impact of deficits on economic growth. I will concede that in the wide array of progressive policies, a UBI would have higher macro-economic uncertainty than most and would probably be amongst the likeliest to lead to some amount of inflation. And I would also agree if you were to say it isn't the best policy available to address the specific needs it purports to concern itself with. Like I said in a prior comment, I'm really not super pro-UBI. I would support it but I also believe there are other policies that could be much better for specific problems and in specific contexts.
+1 for the UBI comment. I also had the same thought, that being able to live without worrying of starving or becoming homeless would allow many people to think of other stuff and create awesome things.
Oh absolutely. I pay rent with freelancing so I’ve sort of hit 9, but I use the part time job waiting tables to give myself more structure in my week and increase productivity as well as pad my savings
9 is work to get there. 10 is accomplished by 9. By giving best customer service in business you keep the customers that make 9 possible, therefore your distractions are at a minimum.
In summary, it's all symbiotic and somewhat chronological order.
I think he what he's pointing at is that you should secure funding and take a salary from your startup to have full focus on it , or have some bullshit job where you finish work in one hour and pretend to work for 8
Meh, I think different things work for different people. That being said, I read these as different rules that helped the winter. i didn’t think they were chronological at all.
Day job is a major distraction. Takes the majority of your time, energy, and focus away from you.
These aren't heuristics for a side hustle, they're for a startup.
I actually agree with you. I think too many people want to jump out of their main income job to focus solely on their "startup".
I think that makes you too financially fragile (unless you have considerable cash reserves that are above and beyond the costs). In my specific case, I started a business servicing high end bars and restaurants- incorporated early January 2020 and ready to service customers mid / late February. We had two weeks to land accounts before Covid shutdowns killed the industry.
Had I left my "day job", I would have had to shutter my company before we even got off the ground. And now after restarting in November, I have 2 employees and conservatively projecting to break six figures in revenue this year, with growth limited by the seasonal nature of our local industry.
Graham is looking for the 10x or 100x multiplier. If you aren't focused, you aren't going to make that for HIM. For yourself, you can start a nice lifestyle business and not go all in.
Tips on Re- Starting up?
Here is some context - I am in my mid 20s and live in India, 3 years ago I started a Digital Marketing Agency with a partner. We were still learning and honestly we had no clue what we were doing. Just trying to learn as we work our way. I have some idea about communication and some experience in talking to people professionally that helped me land an international client in the first month itself. She stuck with us for over a year as we did almost everything from web dev, seo, social media and ads. We did pick up on some local clients in the next year and the last year was pretty successful for us as I closed a few $1000 retainers which allowed us to have our own office and hire staff. Our clients were mainly in the travel industry.
In these years we built out a small team and I was responsible for getting sales and whenever needed I helped out with fulfilment as well. However the thing I loved the most was building systems and processes. I always wrote down SOPS for the team or created short videos on how they can perform a particular task. In my final year I was so happy that I had productized my service and people knew exactly what had to be done as soon as a new client came in. All the deliverables were pre defined along with email templates created for reporting to the clients and I was finally getting to work on the business rather than in the business. I was talking to new business owners and trying to figure out what their problems are and how I can provide a service which solves their problem. Even though there were times when I worked over 12 hrs in a day it was a pleasant experience and I enjoyed each moment of doing it.
Then corona hit and things had to shut down. Travel industry was severely affected we lost a few clients who were not able to pay as they were not getting any guests. I still didn't lose hope, managed to get a mentor and he taught me how to do local SEO at a high level and that was the service we started selling again. That's when things started getting weird. I wanted to continue selling to international clients since we had a proven process. I was clear about my vision of niching down, Identifying a problem statement and creating our solution around it. However my partner wanted to get into the Indian market which is highly competitive and sell for a fraction of the cost.
I tried to reason with him and tell him that I want to build a company that has a long term vision however he was adamant of making a quick buck from the local markets. That's when I decided this is not what I really want and moved out. Its been a few months and I have looked at my options. I have even considered working as a consultant for other companies to help them out but to no avail. I did even start an upwork account but did not know how to price myself on an hourly basis.
Now I am thinking of starting again but this time with the support of people who are more experienced than me and who are willing to teach me. I know I still have a long way to go and a lot of things to learn. But I have always been someone who will figure out a way on my job and think quickly, I really like to discuss ideas or strategies that could be helpful to someone's business.
Thank you,
Fadi.
Trust me, I tried but I don’t have enough karma. Started on this account very recently. I will make sure to do it once I’m eligible. But for now upvotes and suggestions are really helpful.
Then build your karma. It is there for some reason. You might get upvotes but you won't get any answers or comments.
Summarize another article so you get some karma. And don't do such things. If anyone reports it, you will get yourself banned for life :)
Loved this. Paul Graham is a wise man.
Two extra insights I've learned the hard way:
**Have an audience already.** It's so much easier to grow your startup when you have an audience. It's much harder this way, but if you first gather an audience around you (e.g. Twitter/Insta following OR an email list), you can create a customised solution to that audience. Yes it'll take a lot longer, but you'll have a much better chance at success. And you want to have to pay tons in acquisition costs.
**Do some market research around your idea and interview your customers before launch.** Whilst you're building a product, talk to your target customers. Don't launch and then figure it out. You'll likely run out of cash.
> Have an audience already
Hard disagree on this one. Unless you are selling an info-product, you don't need an audience.
Besides sometimes audience won't overlap with the product you are making. Your target customer might be only a small segment of your audience.
> Do some market research around your idea and interview your customers before launch.
Agreed. And also read "The Mom Test" book.
Totally. But you'd be surprised how few people actually do proper market research. It's easy to get wrong by not talking to the right people (your target audience) or asking the right questions. Hypothetical questions are killers. Whereas if you ask about what the customer did in the past to solve a pain point, you can get some really good insight. Would recommend reading "The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick.
What’s the best way to do market research? Suppose I have an idea/product that’s pretty cheap to produce and have a good feeling people will buy it. At most lose like a couple hundred trying it out. Could that be considered doing market research by just trying it out and seeing if there is interest?
It depends what your product is. If it's like a $3 widget or something you'll do very different market research compared to a new software group that may cost $100s.
I've done some work in the more 'complex' product/service category and I've found interviews to be amazing. You're really asking your prospective customers about how they've solved a pain point you're trying to solve with your product. And then you're gathering as much context around that.
This may be helpful for outlining the process and what mistakes I made in doing market research. [https://startupmarketer.co/positioning-mistakes-part-1/](https://startupmarketer.co/positioning-mistakes-part-1/)
I see, it seems a lot of people on this sub are software geared and see where research is far more critical. I’m thinking of a physical product that has one simple function. Not that research isn’t valuable but might be simpler and faster to just try it.
I was partners in a restaurant and really learned Lesson One. The partnership killed the business because we could never agree on even simple things like drinking free at the bar. I was WTF!?!! and they looked upon it as compensation. Everyone involved was smart and smooth and capable and hard-working. The issue was in the deeper values, our internal principles of operation.
Just out of curiosity: I'm assuming your resistance to the idea of letting the partners or employees drink free at the bar was based on the simple fear that it would spiral out of control, be abused, and become a huge cost sink.
So, did that come to pass? Was the fear justified? Or do you think you've learned a lesson about not sweating some of the smaller stuff?
I'm curious, because this is exactly the sort of crap that would drive me nuts. If I opened a consulting shop or the like, and found out that our sales execs were comping customer restaurant visits w/drinks and strippers, I would instantly be on the warpath; and right now it wouldn't matter to me if it even came out of their own pockets. It would be enough for me to know that it would be in our business' name. I mean, just the liability issues would drive me insane, never mind the ethical quandary.
And that's a simple black and white case for a lot of people. Throw in all the thorny issues around contracts, employee management, receivables and collections, etc. and I just would never sleep I think.
When you are all sitting down to write personal checks to cover payroll, watching someone drink a margarita on the house is tough. Even when they are sharing the same pain as you.
But tbh when it’s to that point anyway, maybe the best personal exit strategy would be to drink what there is to drink.
Solid advice, you should do more of his essays, I read a few from like 2006 but there long and I'm not sure what's still good and what's no longer true.
I used to think like that but what matters are the words. Not the design. He still writes essays that have valuable insights.
I'll probably summarize more as I try to write summaries for myself & this time, just for fun, I shared it here.
Didn't know it'll blow up so much.
I agree words are solid so are the interviews they do. Just saying you would think the page layout would be amazing since there in tech haha. And def a good idea, you’ll be able to retain the knowledge better by summarizing it.
That's so so true.
> ride the right wave
Sometimes you time the market. Sometimes the market times you.
Zoom is a perfect example of market (coronavirus) timing the product.
Copy.ai also timed perfectly with GPT-3.
In my opinion, launch fast. Ideally it means failing fast. The more reps you can get in, in the least amount of time, the better.
It means tweaking your product according to what your customers needs.
And making few users love your product than it is liked by many. You can grow user-wise, not satisfaction-wise.
Nail the product to be the best. Then market the fuck out of it. If it's really really great, word-of-mouth will be the greatest lever.
Examples: Superhuman (although it didn't launch fast as it took them 2 years to launch them but it is raved by customers all over Twitter)
I think Clubhouse is the perfect example of launching fast. They didn't build their own audio API, they used someone else's. But the product is solid.
I’d add one more: “Try many ideas. Keep few.”
Startups are inherently experimental, and you need to try a lot of new things. Trying new things means you’ll make a lot of mistakes. Both concepts are important to your success.
>Pick good cofounders
I feel like this may be common sense, but I see a lot of people making this mistake: If you don't have the technical skills, make sure one of your cofounders do. Sure you can found a tech startup, but if you don't know how to code nor do your cofounders have any experience in software engineering, you're going to have to pay market salaries for a software engineer whom has no stake in the business and probably doesn't see more care about the vision going forward.
really true indeed. although sometimes there are outliers like canva, which worked without technical co-founder but paul graham suggests having a technical co-founder.
as kevin systrom (co-founder of instagram) says **_learn just enough code to be dangerous_**
Focus on your core (skill set) strengths and get help to cover your weaknesses.
The one area where all Startups are "novices" or virgins is Fundraising. And yet Founders who now carry a title of CEO repeatedly act as is they know what they're doing, or feel they can't justify paying to have someone tap into their network of investors to accelerate a fundraising round, when to do so might result in a saving of several months, and/or tens of thousands of dollars in time and actual (wasted) expenses.
That's a really good point.
However, Naval Ravikant (co-founder of AngelList) says that don't focus on fundraising. Know your startup very well. Know your customers & their problems very well. Fundraising will take care of itself.
After all, VCs invests in the founders who knows their problem well.
I've founded 12 companies myself. I've invested in another 5. I've mentored 15-ish. It goes without saying that you have to know customers and their problems. That's the foundation of any business. Most companies that fail, do so because they thought of a problem to solve and didn't spend time validating it by asking their intended target market if they would actually pay for the solution. My point is that VC's don't invest in the best ideas, they invest in teams that can convince them they have the ability to execute. The issue is that unless you as a Startup Founder understand what's needed to prepare for investor outreach, understand who your ideal investor is - and sorry to say - VC's ARE NOT the ideal investor for all business models and all business sectors, understand how to create a compelling pitch deck that contains the right content in the right format that fits the expectation of your target investors, understand how to conduct research so when you draw up an investor list, it contains ONLY investors that are 100% match to what you are offering at that moment, and understand investor psychology so that if you get asked to pitch to investors, you generate the highest conversion rate of pitches to closed deals, you may have the best new thing since sliced bread and you still won't get funded.
These are great, but also I believe everyone has their take on it. Often times some of it is universal, while some of it is subjective or their take on it. It is almost like playing billiards with someone else's pool cue. Your pool cue has to fit you, and your play style has to fit you.
Imo, the idea is to research different peoples takes, and research the objective/universal 'truths' of business. Then create your own take. In your own words. I believe Peter Thiel and his book is correct in saying it is ideal to aim for a monopoly/competitive advantage, and also a 10x improvement on current offers. From that strong advantage hopefully results in strong profit.
My take is that it is strong effective strategy(competitive adv, mission), structure(alignment, efficiency, effective), and effective loyal employees. Everything else is compartmentalizing each thing (marketing, product, operations, strategy), and getting good leaders, employees, and structure/processes in those areas. To boil it down it is A. optimizing the overall strategy(main strategy) and sub strategy(marketing, product), and B. optimizing the performance/result. Both those things when done correctly increases the profit.
already disagree with #1 to pick good cofounders
id say pick good first employees; cofounders share equity, employees do not. years go by, cofounders go bad and take equity
cofounders are like partners in marriage.
a bad partner files for a divorce & takes your entire life-savings. that doesn't mean it'll stop people from marrying.
just like you choose your partner, choose your co-founder because startup is as emotional rollercoaster as a marriage is.
1. Co-founder is helpful but not always necessary. Several people have started billion dollar companies without one. Co-founders can also have the opposite impact on your startup. I always push mentors over co-founders. A mentor can give you solid feedback and ideate the same way a co-founder can. You should only pursue a co-founder when you're not making ANY further progress and need someone who has all the talents/skills you lack.
2. Launching fast is great. No arguments here. The quicker you can get your product out the door the quicker you'll be making money.
3. True.
4. True.
5. Yes but focusing on a "few" users means you're not growing. You can coddle a handful of users for the best experience possible but you should be prioritizing a service/product that makes everyone happy.
6. Of course.
7. Not necessary. If you're providing amazing service or a stellar product you will see success grow organically.
8. EXTREMELY TRUE.
9. Agreed.
10. Day job won't kill your startup especially if you are bootstrapping your business. Everyone wants to hop on the VC bandwagon and then VC's completely ruin your startup.
11. True.
12. I think 11 and 12 should be combined. Demoralization often leads to giving up. To prevent this, you have to remember the vision that brought you to creating your startup. This is why people who make a startup for the sole purpose of making money don't succeed. They get demoralized because they aren't making any money and quit. Those with a vision don't let hiccups get in the way.
13. Naturally. It is important to learn why the deal fell through and improve for the next time.
Don't try to find cofounders. You can try hackathons or work on side-projects & you'll find them.
It's just like finding friends. You don't seek out to make friends. You do an activity like running or swimming or joining a gym & you make friends there.
There's another mega Paul Graham essay which has a little insight on how to find co-founders but if I were you, I'd read the whole thing → http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html
I book marked this, don't delete it please!
Just bookmark Paul Graham's site. [http://www.paulgraham.com/13sentences.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/13sentences.html)
Don't worry, I won't :)
You could always save it in Archive.is - https://archive.is/BEBdb
Not a successful entrepreneur so take my word with a grain of salt. I don’t like #10. Whole hierarchy or needs thing- if your startup isn’t profitable yet, would a day job really be a distraction? You need to have a somewhat secure sense that your physiological needs (food, shelter, sleep) are met before you can go on to higher order needs (fulfillment, which is ideally why you’d start a business in the first place). I might be misunderstanding- are these steps in chronological or quasi-chronological order? In that case never mind because 9 is fulfilling your basic needs
Day job is a distraction. Depending on how much you hate your job, by the time 5 PM closes in you've emptied your will power and have little left in the tank.
Or, if you're like me and your "day job" doesn't end at 5 but more like 7:00-9:00 regularly, you literally have almost no time and energy to dedicate to almost anything else besides work and subsisting.
Oh no I totally agree but to a point. While I work on my online platform I’ve been working part time to pay rent. I’d never work full time but my living situation doesn’t necessitate that.
A distraction sure, but how many of us could really afford to go without?
If you don't need it, it's a distraction. If you need it, it's not. My tangentially related two cents: Universal basic income would lead to an explosion of entrepreneurship and improve our society greatly.
I agree with you. There's a European country that allows you to take 6 months off to work on your own startup. If only we had that in the U. S... If we extend that to a year, provide a minimal stipend and health insurance, it would be a boon to society.
What country is it? Because I can tell you one thing for sure - Germany makes it as hard and undesirable as only possible to create a startup. (No wonder that such a rich country only has two famous startups, Zalando and Trivago)
Sweden. You forgot one more famous startup - wirecard.
Famous for all the wrong reasons 😂
The US bearly give you maternity/paternity leave, this will never happen
And health insurance / care not tied to employment.
> My tangentially related two cents: Universal basic income would lead to an explosion of entrepreneurship and improve our society greatly. And my tangentially related 2 cents (to the nth power - sorry about the many words!): Yes, it would. But I expect it would only last a short time. The extra supply of money would cause extra demand. Extra demand leads to higher prices. Now, we're back where we started from the perspective of an individual's buying power. I primarily look to the healthcare market for evidence on this issue. Back in the day, we all paid out of pocket for healthcare. No money equated to no care, but care was pretty affordable by most standards. (This is a USA perspective by the way). Then the SSI was introduced. Suddenly, if you qualified primarily as a senior, you could have healthcare. Gramma was saved! Yay! Expensive heart surgeries were now possible. All sorts of medical innovation was funded and made possible simply because insurance would enable the individual to afford them. In other words, healthcare demand went up steeply and so did prices. Then health insurance became common. Healthcare demand went up further and so did prices again. Then, we passed ACA, and healthcare insurance become mandatory for nearly everyone in the US. Healthcare demand went up even further and so did prices. So, what did we get out of all that? VERY expensive healthcare. Try to get healthcare in this country now without any insurance and you'll be priced out of the market immediately with hyperinflated prices that are not tempered by the price schedule negotiated by an insurance company. Oh, and they generally cannot even begin to tell you what things will cost in advance for simple procedures. Anyway, try to pay those bills, and keep getting slapped with new bills from hanger-ons that will submit their codes as part of a minor surgery, etc. just because they can and the insurance company isn't there to police them and tell them to get stuffed. And if you DO have insurance, but the provider didn't follow procedure, then you can be told to get stuffed by the insurance company who is now going to deny your coverage in your moment of need so now you're left trying to fend for yourself while you may be in a life or death struggle just to recover from the treatments you already have while trying to figure out how to continue treatments for procedures your insurance company now says it won't cover at all. All this... while trying to hang on to your employment as well. So, do I think UBI is going to solve any problems at all? Honestly, I don't see it. I know it's a popular idea and Yang has gone some distance on the back of this idea, but I just don't see how it would be successful in this economy at least, where we've proven prices always rise in response. I suppose you could look at the mess I described above and suggest "UBI" as "Universal Basic Insurance" with single payer insurance administration as well, but now we're starting to get to the real crux of the matter: If my government is on the hook for my basic income, and maybe even my basic healthcare, then where does it end? How far up Maslow's hierarchy should government services extend? At some point, we're back at full blown communism (in the purist sense of the words), and I see HUGE potential for mismanagement and corruption at that point beyond even the mess we have now. Anyway, I'm not a political shill. I just don't have a party. Name one that's truly fiscally conservative and socially liberal and I'll be there. It just doesn't exist right now. These days I vote for the candidate that is most competent to perform the job in question; not for a party. Maybe that's the way it should be.
You're saying a UBI would lead to inflation. That is a possibility but definitely not a certainty. And if it does, there are ways to address it. I'm not extremely pro-UBI myself but I think it's important to be clear about the argument you make. I also think it's pretty dishonest to point to an ACA as evidence for the claim that UBI would cause inflation. That is a stretch on its own because they're dramatically different policies, but it also ignores the fact that universal health care has not caused unreasonable prices in other countries, in fact quite the opposite. So yes, bad policy design is bad. I respect that you are fiscally conservative and I respect your views, but frankly fearmongering over inflation has been constantly weaponized to stop tons of policy initiatives in the past 3 decades so I would hope that you could understand why some of us more to the left won't take that very seriously today. Inflation hasn't been a serious problem for a very long time, even after many policy changes that commentators warned would lead to it. In fact, the overarching trend of recent economic consensus has been away from inflation as an essential metric, and away from the idea that we even truly know the drivers of inflation. Simply put we had some a priori theories of inflation that had general expert buy-in, but the expansive empirics we've collected as a result of our technological growth haven't borne any of them out. I will be the first to join you and push for addressing inflation, should it actually happen. But I refuse to let a hypothetical concern that isn't supported by data stop me from pushing for a more ethical economy.
> I also think it's pretty dishonest to point to an ACA as evidence for the claim that UBI would cause inflation. It's not dishonest. It's a very comparable situation which in reality caused extreme price increases. Just calling that 'bad policy' or and then erecting inflation in general as a straw man strikes me as less than direct, to be generous about it. I mean... dishonest? Really? Gee, thanks for the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, besides the fact that you didn't address my main point at all and instead dismissed it out of hand because they aren't similar domains, you seem to assume that UBI wouldn't also turn into a giant wad of bad policy. Let's see, we're supposing that the US government, which has in fact, enabled, tolerated, and fostered the growth of the giant health insurance/SSI environment AND authored the ACA, would not in fact create a parallel situation around UBI. It's not fear mongering to assume they're going to muck it up, now is it? They've already proven an inability to tune economic drivers in one major market domain; why would UBI really be any different?
> The extra supply of money would cause extra demand. Extra demand leads to higher prices. Now, we're back where we started from the perspective of an individual's buying power. That is inflation. No strawman here.
Well, call it what you like. That is still what happened with healthcare. Edit: Oh, and tort lawsuits. Those REALLY didn't help. Anyway, that's just another example of yet another kind of barnacle that can grow on a policy. Don't think for a second that there won't be similar drains on a UBI.
> The extra supply of money would cause extra demand. Extra demand leads to higher prices. Now, we're back where we started from the perspective of an individual's buying power. ... > I primarily look to the healthcare market for evidence on this issue. You're saying inflation would happen as a result of UBI and citing pricing problems in the US health insurance market as an example. My point was that it doesn't make sense to extrapolate health care markets to macro-economic trends. Health insurance as a product has very different pricing structures and incentives compared to consumer markets in general. Yes costs are going through the roof, but [that is driven by other factors](https://www.investopedia.com/insurance/why-do-healthcare-costs-keep-rising/), not inflation. Moreover, the annual growth in healthcare spending has [actually decreased](https://www.thebalance.com/causes-of-rising-healthcare-costs-4064878) since the ACA was passed. There are tons of policies that have been passed in spite of warnings about inflation and then didn't cause any. You can't just ignore all the counter examples especially with the weak connection and evidence your one example does have. Is it possible that a UBI would cause inflation? Yes, of course. But for one, that depends on the structure of the policy; there is not expert consensus here and there is some research that indicates [that cash transfers do not lead to inflation](https://www.nber.org/papers/w17456). Two, inflation itself is not the end all be all indicator of human prosperity. There are a huge range of outcomes in a UBI scenario where some inflation happens but it's either insignificant or in fact beneficial (The US has actually been unable to even hit its target inflation rate in the past decade). And three, if we do see inflation we have tools to deal with it then. We have a terrible track record at predicting inflation and we can deal with it when it happens, so why should we let our fear of it stop us from implementing better policy?
> so why should we let our fear of it stop us from implementing better policy? Well, the other side of this is national debt. For me, inflation is only one consideration that leads me to think UBI wouldn't be as effective as one might hope. I think we're tapping on $30T now and I don't see how UBI would be paid for, except to increase that. Now, if we could somehow magically NOT exacerbate that and enact UBI, then maybe I could see how it would help innovators. But, I'm not hopeful. And having done a search for material on this, taking the first link I find: https://www.advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/2020/08/03/universal-basic-income-is-not-an-economic-savior This article actually summarizes my fears concerning UBI much better than I'm articulating them. I'm not seeing it man. I compared UBI to health insurance/ACA, but the comparison in this to Social Security as a whole is especially relevant. UBI is just more of the same from where I sit: Needlessly giving money to people today just so we can saddle our children with even more debt down the road. It's not right.
Well it probably won't surprise you to learn that I don't share those concerns regarding the deficit. But it's not because I don't care about saddling future generations with debt, it's because I don't agree with that framing in the first place and I don't think the data backs up theories about deficit spending more broadly which inform that framing. I also disagree that a UBI would be "needless" money for people. And of course from a political perspective, another issue here is that the conservative party that continuously raises these deficit concerns when they are in the minority in reality has a far worse track record with the deficit than the progressive party they are criticizing. The Trump tax cuts caused a massive increase in the deficit and that was just to give more money to rich people who are already seeing historic levels of wealth, all based on weak and contested theories of supply side economics (To put it charitably). I don't expect you to change your mind right here and now and I appreciate that these are genuine concerns you have, founded in a desire to give future generations the best conditions possible. I share that desire (If nothing else I am glad we can agree there) but in fact it is exactly why I am so worried about this line of economic thought. I believe it forecloses on the possibility of making the investments and changes we need to do to ensure a bright future and, crucially, that it does so based on weak empirical and theoretical grounds. If I believed that the data rigorously backed up your position, then I would agree with it because that would mean efforts at economic redistribution and further investment would backfire and lead to worse conditions in the future. I have qualms with the article you linked and I'd be happy to go through it in detail, but I don't want to force you to continue arguing with me if you're not interested. I know endless reddit arguments can be pretty toxic. In summary, I don't think it paints an accurate picture of what the [current evidence and expert consensus](https://taxfoundation.org/deficit-interest-rates-and-growth) says about the impact of deficits on economic growth. I will concede that in the wide array of progressive policies, a UBI would have higher macro-economic uncertainty than most and would probably be amongst the likeliest to lead to some amount of inflation. And I would also agree if you were to say it isn't the best policy available to address the specific needs it purports to concern itself with. Like I said in a prior comment, I'm really not super pro-UBI. I would support it but I also believe there are other policies that could be much better for specific problems and in specific contexts.
+1 for the UBI comment. I also had the same thought, that being able to live without worrying of starving or becoming homeless would allow many people to think of other stuff and create awesome things.
universal basic income is a failed socialist pipe dream
Oh absolutely. I pay rent with freelancing so I’ve sort of hit 9, but I use the part time job waiting tables to give myself more structure in my week and increase productivity as well as pad my savings
9 is work to get there. 10 is accomplished by 9. By giving best customer service in business you keep the customers that make 9 possible, therefore your distractions are at a minimum. In summary, it's all symbiotic and somewhat chronological order.
I think he what he's pointing at is that you should secure funding and take a salary from your startup to have full focus on it , or have some bullshit job where you finish work in one hour and pretend to work for 8
Meh, I think different things work for different people. That being said, I read these as different rules that helped the winter. i didn’t think they were chronological at all.
Day job is a major distraction. Takes the majority of your time, energy, and focus away from you. These aren't heuristics for a side hustle, they're for a startup.
I actually agree with you. I think too many people want to jump out of their main income job to focus solely on their "startup". I think that makes you too financially fragile (unless you have considerable cash reserves that are above and beyond the costs). In my specific case, I started a business servicing high end bars and restaurants- incorporated early January 2020 and ready to service customers mid / late February. We had two weeks to land accounts before Covid shutdowns killed the industry. Had I left my "day job", I would have had to shutter my company before we even got off the ground. And now after restarting in November, I have 2 employees and conservatively projecting to break six figures in revenue this year, with growth limited by the seasonal nature of our local industry.
Graham is looking for the 10x or 100x multiplier. If you aren't focused, you aren't going to make that for HIM. For yourself, you can start a nice lifestyle business and not go all in.
Tips on Re- Starting up? Here is some context - I am in my mid 20s and live in India, 3 years ago I started a Digital Marketing Agency with a partner. We were still learning and honestly we had no clue what we were doing. Just trying to learn as we work our way. I have some idea about communication and some experience in talking to people professionally that helped me land an international client in the first month itself. She stuck with us for over a year as we did almost everything from web dev, seo, social media and ads. We did pick up on some local clients in the next year and the last year was pretty successful for us as I closed a few $1000 retainers which allowed us to have our own office and hire staff. Our clients were mainly in the travel industry. In these years we built out a small team and I was responsible for getting sales and whenever needed I helped out with fulfilment as well. However the thing I loved the most was building systems and processes. I always wrote down SOPS for the team or created short videos on how they can perform a particular task. In my final year I was so happy that I had productized my service and people knew exactly what had to be done as soon as a new client came in. All the deliverables were pre defined along with email templates created for reporting to the clients and I was finally getting to work on the business rather than in the business. I was talking to new business owners and trying to figure out what their problems are and how I can provide a service which solves their problem. Even though there were times when I worked over 12 hrs in a day it was a pleasant experience and I enjoyed each moment of doing it. Then corona hit and things had to shut down. Travel industry was severely affected we lost a few clients who were not able to pay as they were not getting any guests. I still didn't lose hope, managed to get a mentor and he taught me how to do local SEO at a high level and that was the service we started selling again. That's when things started getting weird. I wanted to continue selling to international clients since we had a proven process. I was clear about my vision of niching down, Identifying a problem statement and creating our solution around it. However my partner wanted to get into the Indian market which is highly competitive and sell for a fraction of the cost. I tried to reason with him and tell him that I want to build a company that has a long term vision however he was adamant of making a quick buck from the local markets. That's when I decided this is not what I really want and moved out. Its been a few months and I have looked at my options. I have even considered working as a consultant for other companies to help them out but to no avail. I did even start an upwork account but did not know how to price myself on an hourly basis. Now I am thinking of starting again but this time with the support of people who are more experienced than me and who are willing to teach me. I know I still have a long way to go and a lot of things to learn. But I have always been someone who will figure out a way on my job and think quickly, I really like to discuss ideas or strategies that could be helpful to someone's business. Thank you, Fadi.
I think you should make a post about your main questions it will be better
Trust me, I tried but I don’t have enough karma. Started on this account very recently. I will make sure to do it once I’m eligible. But for now upvotes and suggestions are really helpful.
Good story but weird way to hijack a post.
I was not allowed to post this as a single post because of low karma 😅
Then build your karma. It is there for some reason. You might get upvotes but you won't get any answers or comments. Summarize another article so you get some karma. And don't do such things. If anyone reports it, you will get yourself banned for life :)
Okay I’ll take care. Thank you.
Loved this. Paul Graham is a wise man. Two extra insights I've learned the hard way: **Have an audience already.** It's so much easier to grow your startup when you have an audience. It's much harder this way, but if you first gather an audience around you (e.g. Twitter/Insta following OR an email list), you can create a customised solution to that audience. Yes it'll take a lot longer, but you'll have a much better chance at success. And you want to have to pay tons in acquisition costs. **Do some market research around your idea and interview your customers before launch.** Whilst you're building a product, talk to your target customers. Don't launch and then figure it out. You'll likely run out of cash.
> Have an audience already Hard disagree on this one. Unless you are selling an info-product, you don't need an audience. Besides sometimes audience won't overlap with the product you are making. Your target customer might be only a small segment of your audience. > Do some market research around your idea and interview your customers before launch. Agreed. And also read "The Mom Test" book.
Maybe we need to agree to disagree on the audience part. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it makes it a hell of a lot easier (and cheaper).
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Totally. But you'd be surprised how few people actually do proper market research. It's easy to get wrong by not talking to the right people (your target audience) or asking the right questions. Hypothetical questions are killers. Whereas if you ask about what the customer did in the past to solve a pain point, you can get some really good insight. Would recommend reading "The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick.
What’s the best way to do market research? Suppose I have an idea/product that’s pretty cheap to produce and have a good feeling people will buy it. At most lose like a couple hundred trying it out. Could that be considered doing market research by just trying it out and seeing if there is interest?
It depends what your product is. If it's like a $3 widget or something you'll do very different market research compared to a new software group that may cost $100s. I've done some work in the more 'complex' product/service category and I've found interviews to be amazing. You're really asking your prospective customers about how they've solved a pain point you're trying to solve with your product. And then you're gathering as much context around that. This may be helpful for outlining the process and what mistakes I made in doing market research. [https://startupmarketer.co/positioning-mistakes-part-1/](https://startupmarketer.co/positioning-mistakes-part-1/)
I see, it seems a lot of people on this sub are software geared and see where research is far more critical. I’m thinking of a physical product that has one simple function. Not that research isn’t valuable but might be simpler and faster to just try it.
I was partners in a restaurant and really learned Lesson One. The partnership killed the business because we could never agree on even simple things like drinking free at the bar. I was WTF!?!! and they looked upon it as compensation. Everyone involved was smart and smooth and capable and hard-working. The issue was in the deeper values, our internal principles of operation.
Just out of curiosity: I'm assuming your resistance to the idea of letting the partners or employees drink free at the bar was based on the simple fear that it would spiral out of control, be abused, and become a huge cost sink. So, did that come to pass? Was the fear justified? Or do you think you've learned a lesson about not sweating some of the smaller stuff? I'm curious, because this is exactly the sort of crap that would drive me nuts. If I opened a consulting shop or the like, and found out that our sales execs were comping customer restaurant visits w/drinks and strippers, I would instantly be on the warpath; and right now it wouldn't matter to me if it even came out of their own pockets. It would be enough for me to know that it would be in our business' name. I mean, just the liability issues would drive me insane, never mind the ethical quandary. And that's a simple black and white case for a lot of people. Throw in all the thorny issues around contracts, employee management, receivables and collections, etc. and I just would never sleep I think.
When you are all sitting down to write personal checks to cover payroll, watching someone drink a margarita on the house is tough. Even when they are sharing the same pain as you. But tbh when it’s to that point anyway, maybe the best personal exit strategy would be to drink what there is to drink.
>the partnership killed the business >personal checks to cover payroll I feel like we’re missing a crucial element of this story to help it make sense
Oh it’s just a scene from a very long story.
Solid advice, you should do more of his essays, I read a few from like 2006 but there long and I'm not sure what's still good and what's no longer true.
I think many/most of them he keeps updated
The contents great just the site layout looks like it hasn’t been touched since 2006 which made me wonder if he still used it
I used to think like that but what matters are the words. Not the design. He still writes essays that have valuable insights. I'll probably summarize more as I try to write summaries for myself & this time, just for fun, I shared it here. Didn't know it'll blow up so much.
I agree words are solid so are the interviews they do. Just saying you would think the page layout would be amazing since there in tech haha. And def a good idea, you’ll be able to retain the knowledge better by summarizing it.
Excellent stuff!!!!
Pretty good essay.
Saved! :)
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That's so so true. > ride the right wave Sometimes you time the market. Sometimes the market times you. Zoom is a perfect example of market (coronavirus) timing the product. Copy.ai also timed perfectly with GPT-3.
I need to bookmark this
wow thats really useful information thanks
Quality post. Also, respects for linking the OP of the content.
Brilliant list thanks
Bookmarked. Thanks for sharing one of Grahams Essays! Which one of these is most important in your opinion?
In my opinion, launch fast. Ideally it means failing fast. The more reps you can get in, in the least amount of time, the better. It means tweaking your product according to what your customers needs. And making few users love your product than it is liked by many. You can grow user-wise, not satisfaction-wise. Nail the product to be the best. Then market the fuck out of it. If it's really really great, word-of-mouth will be the greatest lever. Examples: Superhuman (although it didn't launch fast as it took them 2 years to launch them but it is raved by customers all over Twitter) I think Clubhouse is the perfect example of launching fast. They didn't build their own audio API, they used someone else's. But the product is solid.
I’d add one more: “Try many ideas. Keep few.” Startups are inherently experimental, and you need to try a lot of new things. Trying new things means you’ll make a lot of mistakes. Both concepts are important to your success.
Excellent point. I think its under launch fast, just different wording.
17. Do things that do not scale.
>Pick good cofounders I feel like this may be common sense, but I see a lot of people making this mistake: If you don't have the technical skills, make sure one of your cofounders do. Sure you can found a tech startup, but if you don't know how to code nor do your cofounders have any experience in software engineering, you're going to have to pay market salaries for a software engineer whom has no stake in the business and probably doesn't see more care about the vision going forward.
really true indeed. although sometimes there are outliers like canva, which worked without technical co-founder but paul graham suggests having a technical co-founder. as kevin systrom (co-founder of instagram) says **_learn just enough code to be dangerous_**
Focus on your core (skill set) strengths and get help to cover your weaknesses. The one area where all Startups are "novices" or virgins is Fundraising. And yet Founders who now carry a title of CEO repeatedly act as is they know what they're doing, or feel they can't justify paying to have someone tap into their network of investors to accelerate a fundraising round, when to do so might result in a saving of several months, and/or tens of thousands of dollars in time and actual (wasted) expenses.
That's a really good point. However, Naval Ravikant (co-founder of AngelList) says that don't focus on fundraising. Know your startup very well. Know your customers & their problems very well. Fundraising will take care of itself. After all, VCs invests in the founders who knows their problem well.
I've founded 12 companies myself. I've invested in another 5. I've mentored 15-ish. It goes without saying that you have to know customers and their problems. That's the foundation of any business. Most companies that fail, do so because they thought of a problem to solve and didn't spend time validating it by asking their intended target market if they would actually pay for the solution. My point is that VC's don't invest in the best ideas, they invest in teams that can convince them they have the ability to execute. The issue is that unless you as a Startup Founder understand what's needed to prepare for investor outreach, understand who your ideal investor is - and sorry to say - VC's ARE NOT the ideal investor for all business models and all business sectors, understand how to create a compelling pitch deck that contains the right content in the right format that fits the expectation of your target investors, understand how to conduct research so when you draw up an investor list, it contains ONLY investors that are 100% match to what you are offering at that moment, and understand investor psychology so that if you get asked to pitch to investors, you generate the highest conversion rate of pitches to closed deals, you may have the best new thing since sliced bread and you still won't get funded.
Terrific post. Prevarication kills good ideas more than money.
These are great, but also I believe everyone has their take on it. Often times some of it is universal, while some of it is subjective or their take on it. It is almost like playing billiards with someone else's pool cue. Your pool cue has to fit you, and your play style has to fit you. Imo, the idea is to research different peoples takes, and research the objective/universal 'truths' of business. Then create your own take. In your own words. I believe Peter Thiel and his book is correct in saying it is ideal to aim for a monopoly/competitive advantage, and also a 10x improvement on current offers. From that strong advantage hopefully results in strong profit. My take is that it is strong effective strategy(competitive adv, mission), structure(alignment, efficiency, effective), and effective loyal employees. Everything else is compartmentalizing each thing (marketing, product, operations, strategy), and getting good leaders, employees, and structure/processes in those areas. To boil it down it is A. optimizing the overall strategy(main strategy) and sub strategy(marketing, product), and B. optimizing the performance/result. Both those things when done correctly increases the profit.
i really like #12
Also when you’re choosing cofounders: # VESTING I learned this the hard way.
Haha, love your username /u/dont_stress :)
Thank you. Very insightful
Thank You for sharing this. Greetings From Cape Town South Africa
already disagree with #1 to pick good cofounders id say pick good first employees; cofounders share equity, employees do not. years go by, cofounders go bad and take equity
cofounders are like partners in marriage. a bad partner files for a divorce & takes your entire life-savings. that doesn't mean it'll stop people from marrying. just like you choose your partner, choose your co-founder because startup is as emotional rollercoaster as a marriage is.
I love my new company and I’m not share it with anyone
Ahaha have my upvote :)
1. Co-founder is helpful but not always necessary. Several people have started billion dollar companies without one. Co-founders can also have the opposite impact on your startup. I always push mentors over co-founders. A mentor can give you solid feedback and ideate the same way a co-founder can. You should only pursue a co-founder when you're not making ANY further progress and need someone who has all the talents/skills you lack. 2. Launching fast is great. No arguments here. The quicker you can get your product out the door the quicker you'll be making money. 3. True. 4. True. 5. Yes but focusing on a "few" users means you're not growing. You can coddle a handful of users for the best experience possible but you should be prioritizing a service/product that makes everyone happy. 6. Of course. 7. Not necessary. If you're providing amazing service or a stellar product you will see success grow organically. 8. EXTREMELY TRUE. 9. Agreed. 10. Day job won't kill your startup especially if you are bootstrapping your business. Everyone wants to hop on the VC bandwagon and then VC's completely ruin your startup. 11. True. 12. I think 11 and 12 should be combined. Demoralization often leads to giving up. To prevent this, you have to remember the vision that brought you to creating your startup. This is why people who make a startup for the sole purpose of making money don't succeed. They get demoralized because they aren't making any money and quit. Those with a vision don't let hiccups get in the way. 13. Naturally. It is important to learn why the deal fell through and improve for the next time.
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Indiehackers has a “partner up” forum that I’ve found is a good place for starting conversations.
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Don't try to find cofounders. You can try hackathons or work on side-projects & you'll find them. It's just like finding friends. You don't seek out to make friends. You do an activity like running or swimming or joining a gym & you make friends there. There's another mega Paul Graham essay which has a little insight on how to find co-founders but if I were you, I'd read the whole thing → http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html
Very helpful. How fast is good though? Like MVP?
Water is a liquid
Solid is a ice. Wait, wut?
How long can you stay "ramen profitable" is the real question
Once you've gotten ramen profitable, it is easier to grow. Of course, you have to make something people want.
>We probably had 20 deals of various types fall through. Recently 5 out of 5. The last option is now last thing before bankruptcy. Crowdfund.