Startup Advice

Complicated problems have a solution, and the solution can often be found by breaking the complicated portions into smaller pieces.

And complicated problems often have an emotional component, because there are parts of the problem we don’t want to look at closely, or deal with personally.

If you’re lucky enough to be handed a complicated problem,... See more

People act like having a startup fail is the worst thing that can happen to you. And man, that's not even in the top 10. It's bad, I've done it, it's awful. It's really bad, but far worse is to be in a company that won't die, a zombie, undead company that you hate, but you can't leave. Oof, have I met people like that, and we're having a mental... See more

Sam Altman on why you shouldn’t track absolute user growth in the early days of a startup “Nothing but a great product will save you; you can get everything else right and it still won’t work.” He points out that almost all startup founders get the following... See more

The result of this garage-centered approach to entrepreneurship was a business paradigm that looks liked this:

In the above model, notice how the product is at the center of the company, and all the work and effort of building the actual business is focused on marketing the product.

Constraints breed creativity.

By running your startup with the stated goal of being cashflow positive, you force your team to take ownership of every dollar just a bit more and consider outside-the-box solutions earlier. It also can influence team members to be willing to go beyond their stated areas of ownership to get things done.

Steve Jobs gave one of his best interviews about building products back in 1995. Anyone who wants to craft amazing products should watch it. Here are 9 quotes from Jobs that really resonated with me: