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
...in order to understand how to get a yes, we first need to grasp why people typically say no.
The main reason says Kao, is that people don't see how the idea you're proposing is beneficial to them. She's right.
At least on some level, we're all selfish.
The solution is to present your request in a way that shows the benefit the other party will
if the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) gains traction, then the company will likely receive funding and a growth period will occur. Invariably, that means more people will join the team and the vision from the initial engineer needs to be shared.
Early on, when the team is small (2–15 people), typically processes are loose as the overhead in aligning... See more
Early on, when the team is small (2–15 people), typically processes are loose as the overhead in aligning... See more
Evolution of Monolithic Systems
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
First-principles thinking, or thinking from first principles, sounds a lot more complicated than it is. It’s simply a technique for approaching problems with a beginner’s mind. Instead of working within assumptions and what people around you “know” to be true, you do the hard work of figuring out what’s actually true and, thus, what’s truly... See more
Lenny Rachitsky • First-Principles Thinking
Replacing bad systems with bad systems
seths.blog
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.
Secular-to-secular swaps create marketplaces like Airbnb and Amazon. Money is exchanged for goods and services.
Secular-to-sacred swaps are most prominent via self-expression—everything from cosmetics in Fortnite to luxury goods from LVMH. Money is exchanged for subjective levels of social signaling.
Sacred-to-sacred swaps describe most... See more
Secular-to-sacred swaps are most prominent via self-expression—everything from cosmetics in Fortnite to luxury goods from LVMH. Money is exchanged for subjective levels of social signaling.
Sacred-to-sacred swaps describe most... See more
Chris Paik • Are You Selling the Secular or Sacred?
The thing about smart people is that they tend to think that if they think really hard about something, they might figure it out, when the truth is, in strategy (and life in general), there is never one right answer.... See more
Strategy requires making choices about a future that is not yet known. I’m one of those people that tends to over-intellectualize