Real Founder Lessons

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Put simple rules around creativity

(at minute 22:09)

Founder Lesson
Even though startups are businesses, I’ve never thought of myself as a “businessman.” Like all college business majors, the Wall Street Journal was interesting to me for a few years after graduation, but I quickly realized that I was drawn to startups due to what happens with them during their earliest moments - when they . . .

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Resiliency is the most important founder trait

(at minute 18:22)

Founder Lesson
There’s a lot written about the importance of the resiliency of startup founders. I don’t like to write blog posts unless I can contribute something unique to the topic, so when I first heard the people on this podcast talk about resiliency, I was expecting the same old same old with nothing much blog-worthy here. But about . . .

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A good startup education for anyone

For this post, I decided to switch things up a bit to give a little backstory on where I get most of the content for my blog.

I frequently have coffee meetings with first-time founders where they ask for advice on how to learn the basics of startups.

Here are the best four ways to learn about startups...

1) Best way . . .

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Expect a new startup to take 18 months to find product-market fit

(at minute 8:25)

Common Founder Issue
I didn’t believe this when I started and this constantly surprises first-time founders, but a good general rule is that new startups will take about 18 months to find decent product-market fit. Sometimes it happens as quickly as 12 months and often (of course) it never happens, but 18 months is what I’d expect if I . . .

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A business is just a byproduct of solving a problem

(at minute 45:55)

Common Founder Issue
The very early stages of a startup look more like passion projects of the founders. Many times it’s just a single, small problem that they want to solve or just a general area of the world that needs some attention with no consideration for being a business. The addition of things like a company name, employees and . . .

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The best predictor of startup success is getting lots of small stuff done

(at minute 35:55)

Common Founder Issue
I tend to focus on startups that are very early stage. This typically means just a few passionate founders working 24/7 on an idea. Over the years I’ve struggled with how to identify the most promising teams before their businesses have had enough time to show traction.

Before even seeing this video, I . . .

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Archive

All Categories: all(113) podcast(102) process(88) focus(80) product(70) counterintuitive things(65) product market fit(64) business model validation(60) solving a problem(58) mvp(57) unique playbook(48) traction(43) founders(40) my favorites(36) execution(35) first principles(33) hustle(33) video(32) value proposition(32) this week in startups(30) jason calacanis(28) ycombinator(24) persistency(24) engagement(23) lean startup(20) resiliency(19) super fans(19) psychological friction(16) vision(16) customer discovery(15) niche products(15) purpose(15) stanford university(13) growth(13) vc(12) creativity(11) raising capital(11) aaron harris(10) micromanagement(10) marketing(10) michael sacca(9) financing(9) nextview ventures(9) scalability(9) pattern matching(9) matt goldman(9) jay acunzo(9) pivot(9) delusion(9) team(8) competition(8) sidenote(7) rocketship.fm(7) advisors(7) bootstrapping(7) mixergy(5) risk(5) how i built this(5) retention(5) wharton business radio(5) joelle steiniger(5) hypepotamus(4) joelle goldman(4) andrew warner(4) sam altman(4) focus groups(4) timing(4) a16z(4) culture(4) brand(4) kat manalac(3) 33voices(3) distribution(2) recode decode(2) domain expertise(2) product hunt radio(2) dorm room tycoon(2) eric ries(2) network effect(2) listen to entire podcast(2) masters of scale(2) kara swisher(2) startups for the rest of us(2) twenty minute vc(1) fred wilson(1) tim ferriss(1) chris sacca(1) loose threads(1) joshua reeves(1) mentoring(1) founder's journey(1) indie.vc(1) mentors(1) accelerators(1) time(1) optimal living daily(1) home

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