Startup Advice

In this world, there is an abundance of products, and every industry becomes far more competitive.

How can a startup survive in this environment? The answer is deceptively simple: Have good taste.

No 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

The hardest transition as a founder is going from working directly on the product to not. There’s this joy that comes from sitting down to solve a problem and standing up when it’s done and good. Building a company or managing people is never just done.

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

Choose Your Reason and Season Wisely

Some entrepreneurs build businesses for a compelling, undeniable, passion-fueled reason regardless of their venture’s timeline. Others hop on a bandwagon or try to master a trend and either sink or swim in one short season. Rather than try to compete with a herd of rats who are already decades ahead of you in an... See more

We are in an age of noise.

The frameworks that got us here, of jobs-to-be-done or product-market fit, will be insufficient going forward. For founders to have extraordinary outcomes, they will have to find alpha in markets that aren’t easily understood.

Which is to say, technology alone won’t be enough. The other essential ingredient will be taste.... See more