Dharmesh’s 2008 Startup School Takeaways
Great advice from thought leaders of several different verticals of the startup world. Of the advice below, I think the three most important are: Jack Sheridan (get legal topics sorted out correctly from the get go), Greg McAdoo (back great entrepreneurs that know the market) and Marc Andresson (become indispensable and don’t give up)
It would be interesting to see others thoughts - reblog with what you think are the 3 most important topics.
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David Lawee, VP Corporate Development, Google; founder, XFire.Main take-away:Hurry Up. David emphasized the role of speed in a startup, and how the modern timetable is considerably shorter than a more traditional “2 years until product launch” strategy. Your ability to turn on a dime and do things quickly is highlighted as a major advantage for the startup.
Sam Altman, Founder, Loopt.
Main take-away: If you can avoid having to raise money, then don’t do it. If you do need to raise money, get it out of the way and get back to work; many startups have been sidetracked by the money-raising process, even fizzling out along the way.
Jack Sheridan, Lawyer, Wilson Sonsini.
Main take-away: Some legal decisions that you may make early on never go away; pay close attention to these sorts of issues.Know:
* Who owns the company
* Who owns the technology (IP)
* Who controls the company
* Who gets what in a liquidity event (sale, IPO, etc.)
Paul Graham; Founder, ViaWeb, YCombinator.Main take-away: Build something people want + Don’t worry too much about money = Non-profit. Doing “good” is a strategy. The “Tamagotchi” effect — making something that attracts users and a community gives you something to take care of; this can be a powerful motivator.
Greg McAdoo, Partner, Sequoia Capital.
Main take-away: Greg’s wave & surfer metaphor. It takes a great surfer (entrepreneur) to ride a great wave (business/social/technology trend). The surfer has to pick the wave, but can’t control the wave.
Know your market; as much about it as possible.
Have a market “whose hair is on fire” — who needs your product badly, now.David Heinemeier Hansson, creator, Ruby on Rails, partner, 37Signals:
Main take-away: Your odds are better to not try to be the next Facebook/YouTube/billion dollar acquisition. You can do very well just creating a great product and charging money (gasp!) for that product. Don’t be in such a hurry, don’t try to be so big, don’t look for a wave.
Paul Buchheit: creator, Gmail, founder, FriendFeed.Main take-away: On listening to users; listen != obey. Listening to your users, you don’t necessarily do exactly what they tell you they want; interpret their feedback to try to determine what the real problem is. Then find a solution to that problem.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon.
Main take-away: Cloud computing will be increasingly important, and doesn’t need to be an industry with a single winner. Unfortunately, aside from this, his talk was largely a commercial for Amazon Web Services. The insight into why cloud computing could be important was more interesting than the commercial; would have been nice to have more of that, or more practical entrepreneurial advice.
Mike Arrington, blogger, TechCrunch.
Main take-away: Getting press for your startup: have a compelling story. Stand out; stand out in a different way than other people have stood out (used Seth Godin’s purple cow analogy).
Marc Andreesson, Founder, Netscape, Ning, etc.
Main take-away: Be so good they can’t ignore you (via Steve Martin).
Be prepared for everything to look like it will fail… and nearly doing so. Don’t quit.
Have a business model that doesn’t depend on a great economy (especially right now).Peter Norvig, Director of research, Google.
Main take-away: Start small, go fast, iterate rapidly. Leverage data; especially other people’s data. A challenge: anyone can go out onto the web and get 1.7 billion words. Go get them and do something (analysis, algorithms, searching, etc.) with them.
