My notes from Hackers & Painters by Paul Graham:
The way to create something beautiful is often to make subtle tweaks to something that already exists, or to combine existing ideas in a slightly new way.
There are only two things you have to know about business: build something users... See more
I was at Amzn early '00s when we lost 95% of our market cap. Later at FB I negotiated a down-round in '09, and then in '12 our stock dropped 50% post-IPO. I was on the board of a public company that went bankrupt (Borders) and a start-up that went under (Hello). Some lessons:
Startup strategic planning:
+ Set a goal for rev/traffic/x that is 3 mos out
+ Figure out the top 3-5 driver metrics (eg, leads, sales mtgs, churn) needed to hit the goal
+ Pick the top 3 activities w high confidence to achieve the driver... See more