Startup Systems
systems that power startups
Startup Systems
At a big company, you're trained to get it right and get it out. You can’t risk experimenting on your customer base. When you're at a small company, you don't have any product-market fit, so you have to get it out, then get it right.
How to Scale Yourself Down
Momentum is Everything
Most founders implicitly realize that in order to get a startup off the ground you need to will it into existence and keep momentum high.
This is good for the startup but it’s also essential for the founder — when momentum is high most founders feel more optimistic about what they’re building, which is obvious to anyone they’re... See more
Most founders implicitly realize that in order to get a startup off the ground you need to will it into existence and keep momentum high.
This is good for the startup but it’s also essential for the founder — when momentum is high most founders feel more optimistic about what they’re building, which is obvious to anyone they’re... See more
Superhuman
- Level one: Nascent product-market fit. Likely a pre-seed or seed-stage company. The goal in this stage is to find three to five customers with a problem worth solving, engage with them, deliver a solution, and validate that solution. [examples: Vanta,
Lenny Rachitsky • A framework for finding product-market fit | Todd Jackson (First Round Capital)
Little decisions compound and then anchor systems.
Our commitment to defending sunk costs keeps those systems long after they’re no longer serving a purpose.
Eight marketing maxims
- Trust is worth more than attention.
- Helping people get to where they seek to go is more effective than hustling people to persuade them to go where you’re going.
- Choose your customers, choose your future.
- Tell ten people. If they don’t tell the others, make a better product.
- Creating the conditions for the word to spread is the
Eight marketing maxims
When talking to people, look for two things: pain and pull . Pain tells you there’s an opportunity to solve a problem. Pull tells you that you’re actually solving the problem.
Here’s what pain and pull look like in practice:
Here’s what pain and pull look like in practice:
- People pay you money: Several people start to (or offer to) pay for your early product, ideally people you don’t have a direct