Startup Advice
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Startup Advice
Jason Fried on Lenny Rachitsky’s podcast
“Everyone bifurcates the world into content and distribution,” Whaley told me. He has brown hair, is of average height, and was wearing a nondescript gray t-shirt and jeans when we talked. “From the beginning, we viewed those as the same thing. Each object gets better with more participation, and so does MSCHF. Scale is not the goal. Scale is a... See more
Evan Armstrong • The Art of Scaling Taste
The most successful web3 social apps are going to look completely different than web2 social (rather than building "decentralized Twitter/FB/X")
They'll lean into financial speculation & create new economic status games.
Li Jintwitter.comIs the situation actually complicated or is it really quite straightforward, but you're making it complicated because it requires a lot of courage to make the straightforward decision?
Superhuman
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.
I even pretend that my client’s business isn’t a business at all. Instead, I pretend it’s a book.
Whether you realize it or not, your business is indeed a lot like a book.
Like a book, it has a main idea. It’s “about” something. That main idea may be sharp and distinct, or it may be broad and commoditized. It may be easy for people to talk about, or... See more
Whether you realize it or not, your business is indeed a lot like a book.
Like a book, it has a main idea. It’s “about” something. That main idea may be sharp and distinct, or it may be broad and commoditized. It may be easy for people to talk about, or... See more
Look At Your Business As If It Were a Book – LEVY INNOVATION
Have been lucky to meet with or study hundreds of companies in 2021.
Here's an ongoing list of company attributes that I find interesting...
Patrick OShaughnessytwitter.com