Building 0-1

The downside of lead generation businesses is that they can be a race to the bottom if they're in a crowded and competitive market. The barriers to entry are essentially aggregating supply (i.e. buyers of leads or businesses willing to pay for new customers) so there is little in the way of defensibility. The other downside is that they are very tr... See more

How to de-risk building a social network The components that have the most engineering scope tend to be wholly reusable—such as the friendfinder & invite system. The fastest way to arrive at an app that resonates is to run rapid experiments by only changing the interaction model

We are an exceptional software development team. But, we now also need be an excellent customer development team. That’s why, in the first section of this doc, I said “build a customer base” rather than “gain market share”: the nature of the task is different, and we will work together to understand, anticipate and better serve the people who trust... See more

The fact that there is a newthing has come to feel like a certainty, even as we cannot fully perceive it. This will spark a search for underlying structures, analogs, and ways of being that feel natural to this newthing.

Does the newthing exist in this context or some other one?

Is it a newthing that’s meant to run all the time or is it more seasonal... See more

💡 30 Ideas as we wrap @beondeck's 19th Cohort 💡 Here are 30 ideas about founders, startups, San Francisco, sales, fundraising, and more taken from the second half of the program — sourced from fellows, guests, and me (blame me for the ones you disagree with most vehemently… Show more

The best lead generation companies usually have some combination of a distinguished and highly trusted brand and a proprietary channel or value proposition they use to acquire customers that competitors cannot replicate. These companies typically have staying power and defensibility, are highly differentiated, and immensely more valuable than compe... See more