Part 1 : Ideas & Products

 

• Most great companies start with ideas , not pivots

• Idea : Size & growth of market , growth strategy , defensibility strategy etc.

• You need to build a business that is difficult to replicate

• Best companies are always mission oriented. People need an important mission to stay motivated including you. People outside will be more inclined to help you 

• (Check the market size of second-hand clothes)

• You need to get an idea about the wave that’s growing in the market that you are targeting and how will you be riding it

•  Why is this the perfect time to start this particular idea? Why now?

• Good startups are very easy to explain and very easy to understand. More than 1 sentence = very complicated

• Until you build a great product , nothing else happens

• Talk to users as much as possible and create something that they really love!

• Try to create something that a very small group of people really love instead of a large group of people like

• If you make something that people love , people will tell their friends about it

• Very few startups die of competition , most die because they can’t create something that users love

•  The initial users , you should go pick them by hand as they will be the ones to give you frequent feedback - Understand them extremely well , get close to them ,  ask them what they like & don’t like and watch them use it , ask them what they would recommend to their friends

• Need to have a system in the company that transforms feedback from users into product decisions.

• Early founders will need to do sales & customer support on their own

• Metrics : Focus on growth 

• #1 goal of a CEO is managing your own psychology

 

Part 2 : Team & Execution

 

Team

• Random founder = bad decision

• Technical co-founder is very important

• Less Employees > More Employees while starting out (Year 1)

• Cost of getting an early hire wrong is very high

• When hiring , you NEED to get the best people

• Spend 0 time hiring or 25% time 

• Mediocre engineers do not build great companies

• Best source for hiring is people who you know or whom your employees know ( Personal referrals )

• 3 Core Things to look for : Smart ? Get things done ? Want to spend alot of time with them?

  • 5 Extra things to look for : Communication , Determination , The Animal Test , Feel comfortable reporting to them if roles were reversed

• Work on a quick project with someone before hiring them

• Interview question : Ask what projects have people worked on?

• Employee Equity : 10% of the company -> 1st 10 employees . Be generous with employee equity

• Fight with investors to reduce the equity that they get

• You NEED to make sure your employees are happy and feel valued

• Let your team take all the credit for the good and you take the hit for the bad 

• Don’t micromanage , give people responsibilities

• Fire Fast when it’s not working out - Creating office politics or negative = fire 

Execution

• For a culture where people work hard , pay attention to details & customers , YOU need to set the bar

• CEO Job roles 

  • Set the vision

  • Raise money

  • Evangelize the company

  • Hiring MGT team

  • Make sure the entire company executes

    • Can you figure out what to do?

    • Can you get it done?

      • Focus - Critical : What are you spending your time and money on? FIGURE OUT THE 2-3 MOST IMPORTANT THINGS EVERY DAY AND GET THOSE DONE ( 100’s of things will be fighting for your attention)

      • Intensity : 

• What ever the founder thinks are key roles - the whole company focuses on

• Have the right metrics and GROW THOSE METRICS 

• Ways to keep momentum : 

  • Reviewing metrics and milestones weekly

  • Launching new features

 

Part 3 : Before the startup

 

• Cannot trust your intuition at all times in terms of the startup business aspect

• You can trust your intuition in terms of people though

• Work with people you genuinely like and respect 

• Need to understand users very well

 

Part 4 : How to be a great founder 

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• Great founders seek the networks that are vital to their problem & task 

• Go talk to every smart person you talk to and ask them what they think

• You should take Risks however think smartly in a way to minimize risks 

• When raising your current round of funding , you should already have thought of your next round

• Recognizing whether or not you are on track with your investment thesis is a core quality for great founders

• Collective problem solving & learning = secret sauce for a great team

 

Part 5 : Competition is for losers 

• ALWAYS aim for monopoly 

• How to build a monopoly ?

  • Go after a small market and monopolize 

  • For Wardo , if I start with a market for simply Wardrobe services and become the best at it : It will be a better stepping stone than to add selling right from the start. (Adding the AI Aspect , Styling Aspect , Disabilities Aspect)  

• Key selling point for Wardo : Proprietary Technology -> Adding clothes to the app ( It’s an order of magnitude better )

• Why will your company have the last big breakthrough for a long time & How will you keep innovating and keep people from catching up

 

 

Part 6 : Building product , Talking to users & growing

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• Pre-Requisites of startups - Have a lot of time on hand

• Noob approach for startups : 

  • Build product in secret

  • Exclusive press launch

  • Wait for users

  • Buy users

  • Give up

• Where to start ?

  • Learn alot , become an expert in your field 

    • Research all your competitors 

    • Read as much about your industry 

  • Identify customer segments

    • Starting with 1 customer segment 

    • Have a VERY VERY clear value proposition for your users 

    • First few users? - Social circle , online communities , local communities , niche influencers , cold

  • Storyboard the user experience

• Customer Feedback 

  • Interviews are much better than surveys - It seems like a slog but this is where the best feedback is going to come from 

    • Make it more of a conversation , you should have a personal connection with them so they open up and give you honest feedback

    • If someone is asking you to build a feature , figure out what’s the underlying need 

• What to do when trying to get alot of users 

  • Take one channel , execute on it for a week and if it works , keep working on it until it caps out INSTEAD of trying 5 different channels at once 

• Types of growth

  • Sticky - Trying to get existing users to come back and use you more

  • Viral - People talking about you 

    • Need to have a good referral program. 

      • Where are people learning that they can refer to other people? - Should ideally be put when the user is highly engaged 

      • Program mechanics : You invite a friend , you get $10 , they get $10

  • Paid - Works out if you have money to spend for getting users

• Alot of businesses crash because they start spending beyond their potential 

 

 

Part 7 : Doing things that don’t scale 

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• Do whatever it takes to bring in your first customers 

  • Sending 100 emails a day

  • Going through a network

  • Making phone calls everyday

• Don’t focus on ROI , focus on growth 

• How to make users advocate your product?

  • Delight them with an experience they will remember 

• Ways to talk to customers?

  • Run customer service as long as possible

  • Proactively reach out to current & churned customers 

• Optimize for SPEED over SCALABILITY/CLEAN CODE initially 

• What is your goal for press ? Who are you targeting ?

  • You should have a target audience ; investors , customers , industry 

• Types of stories for press (Before launching these , think about these objectively : will anyone actually want to read this?)

  • Launches

  • Fund raising

  • Milestones/Metrics - Revenue etc.

  • Business overviews 

  • Stunts

• When pitching your story to press , have a bunch of bullet points sequentially ready and ensure that you mention all of these points

 

Part 8 : Culture

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• Everyday (A) & (B) of each member of the team in pursuit of our company (C) 

  • A = Assumptions , beliefs , values 

  • B =   , Actions

  • C = Mission / Bhag (Big hairy audacious goals)

• Best practices for culture : 

  • Incorporate your mission to your values 

  • Performance = think harder , deeper & longer about your values 

  • Interview for culture fit 

  • Evaluate performance on culture as well 

  • Make it a daily habit 

• Build a team that is so talented that you are uncomfortable working with them 

• Phase 1 : Building product -> Phase 2 : Building company that builds a product

• You don’t want a diversity of values g