What are the most common reasons for failure in this type of business that you've observed again and again?

Like you said, you examine the invention and then it tells you so much about the inventor. What that also tells me is if I were, instead of an investor at that moment at Y Combinator, if was trying to decide if I was going to go work there, that was going to be the way I could tell I wanted to work there

Number two, I think, would be picking markets that don't exist

Typically what the consumer founder is, typically they're really young, they're digital natives, and they've made observations about the state of the digital world that typically more senior workers with more experience don't make.

The shorthand is the three characteristics that the seekers and the Wizard of Oz were seeking. To follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City and have their wizard grant them. What did the cowardly lion want? Courage. All right, courage. That's number one. The scarecrow was seeking if I only had a brain, he was seeking wisdom. And perhaps the ... See more

The best models are ones that don't really rely much on paid acquisition. The best entrepreneurs have figured out hacks to get user demand at scale through a user proposition

Once you clear these five hurdles, however, there is more you can do to improve your probability of success at scale. You can design the right incentives, use marginal thinking to make the most of your resources, and stay lean and effective as you grow. You can make decisions based on the opportunity cost of your time, discover your comparative adv... See more

Chen talks about how Network effects aren’t one singular effect, but rather made up of three distinct forces:- The Acquisition Effect which allows products to tap into their network to drive growth in users more cheaply as the network grows- The Engagement Effect which involves user engagement going up as the network grows- The Economic Effect whic... See more

In a world where's there's infinite capital, the real scarcity is actually trust