Startup Advice

There are different paths to success in the building of a startup, and it’s important to choose the one that aligns with your goals and values. Do you want to build the biggest business possible, or do you want to build a business you’re proud of and want to continue working at?

To find happiness in your career and life, embrace the philosophy of playing infinite games, where the goal is to keep playing rather than reach an end goal.

Fundraising Is A Tactic (Not A Goal)

When you’re an early stage startup, your most important job is to get clarity on what you’re building. When your product is buggy and low quality and the first mile of the product is ignored (the welcome/tour, the onboarding, the explanatory copy, the empty states), you won’t know if the poor retention numbers are due to a bad product or a bad... See more

• How valuable is what I’m doing?


• What makes this hard for others to do?


• Could this get dramatically easier because of what others launch or how the industry evolves?


• If this does get easier, do I have a “Plan B” to create differentiated value?
  
  Note: An early version of this post appeared in my personal blog (still a work in progress). Decided to

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For the past decade, our idolatry of startups and innovation has meant the focus has been: What can we disrupt? How fast can we grow? How big can we get? How much can we raise?

Founders are taught to possess enough faith that they can build something very big very fast. This creates a pressure cooker of responsibility that distorts reality to the... See more