Startup Advice
sari and
Startup Advice
How to Write a Value Proposition
the idea here is not to eliminate risk—risk-free projects tend to be incremental. Instead, the goal is to name, quantify, and work steadily to chip away at risk. As a corollary, when presenting an idea for a new project or startup company, be candid about risk—it has the paradoxical effect of making your case more convincing.
Problem choice and decision trees in science and engineering: Cell
Say you have 100,000 DAUs and a retention rate of 80%, and for every five users, one of them tells a friend each day to download your app (and they do it). You get 20k new users per day just from word of mouth. In this equation, Xn is the number of DAUs today and Xn+1 is the number of DAUs tomorrow:
If you start... See more
X n+1 = (X n * 80%) + (X n * (1⁄5))
If you start... See more
Sean Colombo • The Secret to Duolingo’s Growth
One of the best ways to introduce a sense of urgency is to create a series of forcing functions: deadlines, milestones and goals with clearly-defined objectives,” Palan writes in a Medium article about the experience. “TechCrunch Disrupt was just the forcing function we needed. It forced us to tackle many of the things we’d been postponing. We... See more
Productboard’s Path to Product-Market Fit
There’s wisdom to not talking about our goals. See Derek Sivers TED Talk. It could make you feel closer to your achievement than you are. But a spoken goal, the big one you feel in your bones, the one you’re afraid to say out loud because to not achieve it would be crushing. That takes courage. We reward courage by rooting for you. Some people call... See more
Kyle Thiermann • How can people root for you?
I’m not one to build in public, but there’s utility in making sure it’s known how people can root for you.
Job descriptions are never exhaustive, even from the beginning. They represent a set of needs for a specific context and time, which after a few months no longer reflects reality. Yet companies hire people based on their ability to match that fixed job description. They hire for the short-term.
Why start from something so specific? Instead, find... See more
Why start from something so specific? Instead, find... See more
Sharan Bal • Hiring Humans, Not Resources
“Hire for soul, not role”
Exploring the problem space: a guide to building the right solution
culture.entelect.co.za
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
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