Startup Advice
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Startup Advice
Here are (some) steps founders can take to get reporters to write about their companies (a thread). (Caveat: this thread is not exhaustive and really applies only to me)
✡️ Jon Shieber ✡️twitter.comNo more building. Just talk to customers. “We decided we weren’t allowed to build anything at all. We had to just talk to people—and talk to them until we had a lot of confidence and a mental model of customers, their jobs, the problems they might have and how we might solve them.” (For more here, check out Cacioppo’s write-up on some of her... See more
Vanta's Path to Product-Market Fit — Solve the Customer’s Problem, Then Write Code
Is 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
The Levels of Delegation
An easy way to become a better delegator is to identify what will unlock more leverage for yourself. Jonathan broke it down into 5 levels, with one more that he’s building at Athena.
#1 — Novice: Delegation by Task
Jonathan has seen thousands of delegators start their journey and, without help from Athena’s delegation... See more
An easy way to become a better delegator is to identify what will unlock more leverage for yourself. Jonathan broke it down into 5 levels, with one more that he’s building at Athena.
#1 — Novice: Delegation by Task
Jonathan has seen thousands of delegators start their journey and, without help from Athena’s delegation... See more
Michael Houck • World Class Delegation (from a Unicorn Founder)
The 5 Levels of Delegation
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.
- To create a product that grows organically, you need to “surprise and delight” your customers. You can’t do that by simply meeting a user’s expectations, you have to surpass them. And doing that takes time. (h/t Scott Belsky)