Startup Advice
sari and
Startup Advice
Move faster. Slowness anywhere justifies slowness everywhere.
2021 instead of 2022. This week instead of next week. Today instead of tomorrow.
Moving fast compounds so much more than people realize.
Sam Altmantwitter.comHome - BELONG: Find Your People, Create Community, and Live a More Connected Life
Radha Agrawal • 3 highlights
belongbook.comYour chances of fixing the company are significantly greater if you take care of yourself first and make sure you’re in the right headspace before making sudden decisions.
Amy Buechler, Founder Coach at YC
Think about distribution from day one
If you’re going to build a product, you want people to use it. But far too often, founders get drawn to the building and tinkering side of the business, forgoing the go-to-market piece until they’re actually ready to get out and sell.
That’s a mistake, says Foster. “I think one of the biggest things that... See more
If you’re going to build a product, you want people to use it. But far too often, founders get drawn to the building and tinkering side of the business, forgoing the go-to-market piece until they’re actually ready to get out and sell.
That’s a mistake, says Foster. “I think one of the biggest things that... See more
The Not So Cookie-Cutter Approach to Company Building — 8 Lessons from Zapier
“The only way to be a painter is to make paintings. That means not doing other stuff.”
Kieran O‘Hare • Following the ‘White-hot Fire Inside of You’
sam altman: “honestly, i feel so bad about the advice i gave while running YC i’ve been thinking about deleting my entire blog” https://t.co/Ag94dLXUoL
morgan —twitter.com
On building “Flavored” startups
Enterprise software is (mostly) not flavor-based. Sure, there are enterprise fads like the metaverse, but generally speaking, large companies only sign contracts when it feels like there is an obvious commercial advantage to doing so.
Networks are (mostly) not flavor-based. If you’re using an app because of the content created by its other users, it’s not necessarily a guarantee for success, but at least if it fails it probably won’t be because it hit a flavor-based asymptote. For instance, BeReal leveraged a unique flavor of photo sharing to build a network, but people are still using it because they like the way it helps them stay in touch with their friends. If it were just a single-player utility, it would not have scaled in the same way. Another historical example is Instagram versus Hipstamatic. Both had a cool new flavor called “photo filters,” but one had a network and the other did not. Here’s a more recent example: the network is what sets Substack stands apart from its flavor-based competition.
Tech-enabled services are not flavor-based. If you act like a tech company but really do grocery delivery, banking, education, housing, healthcare, or any other real-world service, your competition is mostly not flavor-based because starting this type of business involves a lot of cost and complexity. (Also, some, like ride hailing and delivery, are networks.) The downside is that your cost structure is probably not as great as pure tech companies, but the upside is that you have less competition.
All of these types of products can involve some flavoring to help them get off the ground. The point is not that flavoring is bad. It’s good! But it has a very specific role. Flavor provides an initial product wedge. It’s helpful for standing out initially but doesn’t provide long-term differentiation or durable advantage.