How to think like a startup
- 1. How to think like a startup Loic Le Meur
- 2. How do startup entrepreneurs find ideas?
- 3. “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few” - Shunryu Suzuki
- 4. Meditation and mindfulness is popular in Silicon Valley and now in Davos
- 5. Provide benefit to the customer - anything else is a waste Learning to see waste and then systematically eliminate it
- 6. “I am still learning.” - Michelangelo, at age 87
- 7. Airbnb started because of a shortage of hotel rooms in San Francisco
- 8. Uber started because of a shortage of cabs in Paris
- 9. Ryan Hoover, Product Hunt Started just from an email list Gathered a small community of people addicted to new products
- 10. Naval Ravikant, Angel List Weekly email of curated angel investors
- 11. Craig Newmark, Craigslist Request and Gives from Craig’s friends
- 12. Jamie Siminoff, Ring Tried 3 different ideas in his garage Struggled to find initial funding Now approaching 1,000 employees
- 13. The Ring founding story
- 14. Create an environment for creativity - Further future
- 15. Create an environment for creativity
- 16. Create an environment for creativity
- 17. Create an environment for creativity
- 18. Create an environment for creativity
- 19. Millennials don’t want to own anything and care about improving the world
- 20. Improve the world “I just wanted more electric cars on the road” - Elon Musk
- 21. “Make the world better” “All business should make the world better” - Leila Janah LXMI
- 22. They don’t care about copying ...and making it better
- 24. Snap's Spectacles are the beginning of camera-first future
- 25. SV entrepreneurs surround themselves with investors who provide more than $
- 26. Teams are remote, own the business and don’t feel like employees Mix of highly experimented professionals and very creative millennials Matthew Mansfield Dami Dina Kevin Wolf Jean-Jacques Borie “We’re too slow and too old in this company”
- 27. SV entrepreneurs launch their product really fast
- 28. "If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late" - Reid Hoffman
- 30. Entrepreneurs break the rules Travis Kalanick and Uber got sued non stop but kept going Uber and Airbnb were illegal from day one in many places but kept operating
- 31. Entrepreneurs make everything transparent
- 32. Even your own company is rated
- 33. Entrepreneurs acknowledge issues and respond quickly
- 34. Elon Musk turns a tweet into a company wide change in 6 days
- 35. Elon Musk turns a tweet into a company wide change in 6 days
- 36. #1 Advantage of a start up... Speed
- 37. “We’re going in full throttle. That ought to keep those fighters off our back.” - Luke Skywalker
- 38. Speed is the #1 competitive weapon Rapid product beats competition Rapid results builds team morale which leads to more success Rapid results generate more interest Rapid results increases valuation (NFX Guild)
- 40. - Henry Ford The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.
- 41. Set the time, not the output What product can I build in: 3 months? (Directhit, Xfire) 8 days? (Hot or Not) 30 days? (Jiff) 1 month? (Meerkat) (NFX Guild)
- 42. Twitter’s MVP
- 43. Linkedin’s MVP
- 44. Facebook’s MVP
- 45. Google’s MVP
- 46. How startups win No QA No Usability Studies No Focus Groups No Politics No Endless Debates No Board of Directors No Bus Dev Deals No PR No Marketing Spend No Budgeting Process (NFX Guild)
- 47. “At Google X, we embrace failure.” - Astro Teller
- 50. And pivot
- 51. Startups ranked by number of years from founding to $1 billion valuation
- 52. Flickr should have built Instagram but they did not move fast enough
- 53. Entrepreneurs work with an ecosystem of developers
- 54. Twitter decided developers weren’t so important anymore
- 55. Entrepreneurs Embrace wikipedia style volunteer collaboration Slush and their 2,200 volunteers
- 56. Entrepreneurs challenge the current players by re-inventing the model Metromile charges insurance protection per mile
- 57. Entrepreneurs constantly reinvent their business Uber selling data Tesla next?
- 58. Thanks! Loic Le Meur More on my newsletter at leade.rs/loicnewsletter facebook.com/loic twitter.com/loic loic@leade.rs
Editor's Notes
- I’m always paranoid (only the paranoid survives) and I’m always scared. Raise of meditation and mindfulness among the startups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshin Your mission is to always be learning - James Currier NFX
- I’m always paranoid (only the paranoid survives) and I’m always scared. Raise of meditation and mindfulness among the startups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshin Your mission is to always be learning - James Currier NFX
- The faster you launch the faster you know if customers will like the product The lean startup model: no waste
- Uber was focusing on high-end limousine rides while Lyft was mainstream
- Startup entrepreneurs work with Outside business angels and investors Which provide much more than $ Ideas Connections Force accountabilty I raised from 50+ business angels for my own startup Leade.rs
- The faster you launch the faster you know if customers will like the product The lean startup model: no waste
- iterate sometimes on a daily basis based on feedback and data
- the service rating your company by your employees https://www.glassdoor.com/facebook
- CEO sharing directly CEO interacting directly
- Ev Williams and Jack Dorsey were doing a podcasting service They did not believe in Twitter for months Stewart Butterfield designed a game before slack Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp decided to make Uber as they could not find a cab in Paris