Startup Advice
sari and
Startup Advice
What is the “right” problem to solve?
uxdesign.cc
A better use of some of that capital is continued experimentation.
In a world with an emerging new class of startups, the Silicon Valley Small Business, thinking of investment capital specifically as a means to learn more about your users faster through experimentation is worth considering.
The more you learn, the more you’ll be able to iterate to... See more
In a world with an emerging new class of startups, the Silicon Valley Small Business, thinking of investment capital specifically as a means to learn more about your users faster through experimentation is worth considering.
The more you learn, the more you’ll be able to iterate to... See more
How Gamma Acquired 10 Million Users in 9 Months
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.
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”
Remember: you + your cofounder vs The Problem
“I encourage founding teams to do everything they possibly can to remember that their co-founders are on their side”
Amy Buechler, Founder Coach at YC
You can’t be a hoarder of power within an organization. Once you get to a point where you feel like something is ready for lots of scale, get comfortable with letting it go so you can move on to the next building challenge.
23 Tactical Company Building Lessons, Learned From Scaling Stripe & Notion
Founders that step away grow their startup; find a team to trust and then share the power to increase your scaling velocity.
