Startup Systems
systems that power startups
Startup Systems
The mistake is thinking your startup idea is venture-scale and getting on the VC treadmill. Once you’re on the treadmill, here’s what changes:
- High growth expectations: VCs are looking for companies that grow big enough fast enough. If your business isn’t suited to this kind of rapid growth, it can lead to undue pressure and unrealistic
Lenny Rachitsky • Your startup idea probably isn’t venture-scale
Because big businesses aren’t built on gimmicks. You can blitz your way through Sand Hill Road and spike up the App Store charts on gimmicks, but you can’t actually use them to replace Gmail, or Salesforce, or Instagram, or Instagram, or Instagram, or Instagram. Even seemingly instant successes can’t become lasting companies without putting in the... See more
Benn Stancil • Why Are We Surprised That Startups Are So Freaking Hard?
“Most product and marketing teams are built to create or expand the core value provided to customers. Growth is connecting more people to the existing value.” —Casey Winters (ex Eventbrite, Pinterest)
Superhuman
Product-market fit always starts with the customer. And Dan Olsen’s PMF framework starts from the bottom up.
Michael Houck • Resilient Founders Always Have A Move
There are endless tasks to be done in starting a new venture. But most of the tasks are necessary but insufficient. You can’t begin without them, but by themselves, they won’t create enough impact for your work to make a change happen.
And every new project must create change, or else it fails.
We spend our time focusing on the tasks because the... See more
And every new project must create change, or else it fails.
We spend our time focusing on the tasks because the... See more
Customer traction is the hard part
Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation—anchored in understanding customer’s needs, prototyping, and generating creative ideas—to transform the way you develop products, services, processes, and organizations.
When using design thinking principles, you bring together what is desirable from a human point of view with what is... See more
When using design thinking principles, you bring together what is desirable from a human point of view with what is... See more
Systems Thinking vs Design Thinking, What’s the Difference?
The network effect is sticky and hard to overcome, and as we move the internet of things from our phones to just about everything we touch, it’s worth thinking about resilience, flexibility and the reason we need something in the first place.
Often, we end up compromising about our compromises, maximizing for the wrong outcomes and getting hooked on a new system that forgot what the original system was even for.
When a system is new, few are watching, so a handful of people with intent can design it and optimize it. As it gains in scale and impact, it calcifies at the same time that new tech arrives to codify the decisions that were made when the conditions were very different.
The result is a meta-market: because founders know what playbook their competition is running, they end up positioning themselves against moves their competitors will make in three years. Let’s say I run a newsletter software company, similar to Substack or Beehiiv. Since each company has a unique starting point, we’ll each have relative strengths.... See more
