how to think like a startup (updated)

How to think like a startupLoic Le Meur

How do startup entrepreneurs find ideas?

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few”

- Shunryu Suzuki

Meditation and mindfulness is popular in Silicon Valley and now in Davos

Provide benefit to the customer - anything else is a waste

Learning to see waste and then systematically eliminate it

“I am still learning.”

- Michelangelo, at age 87

Airbnb started because of a shortage of hotel rooms in San Francisco

Uber started because of a shortage of cabs in Paris

Ryan Hoover, Product Hunt

Started just from an email list

Gathered a small community of people addicted to new products

Naval Ravikant, Angel List

Weekly email of curated angel investors

Craig Newmark, Craigslist

Request and Gives from Craig’s friends

Jamie Siminoff, Ring

Tried 3 different ideas in his garage

Struggled to find initial funding

Now approaching 1,000 employees

The Ring founding story

Create an environment for creativity - Further future

Create an environment for creativity

Create an environment for creativity

Create an environment for creativity

Create an environment for creativity

Millennials don’t want to own anything

Tom McLeod,OMNI

Stores everything that clutters your life

Millennials don’t want to plan anything and talk to anyone

Facebook “M”

Millennials want to change the world

Improve the world

“I just wanted more electric cars on the road”

- Elon Musk

“Make the world better”

“All business should make the world better”

- Leila JanahLXMI / Sama

If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will still fail above everyone else’s success

James Cameron (Avatar)

Copying fast is okay

They don’t care about copying ...and making it better

Instagram stories and Snapchat stories

Snap's Spectacles are the beginning of camera-first future

SV entrepreneurs surround themselves with investors who provide more than $

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”

SV entrepreneurs launch their product really fast

"If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late"

- Reid Hoffman

Entrepreneurs iterate quickly

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

Entrepreneurs make everything transparent

Even your own company is rated

Entrepreneurs acknowledge issues and respond quickly

Elon Musk turns a tweet into a company wide change in 6 days

Elon Musk turns a tweet into a company wide change in 6 days

#1 Advantage of a start up... Speed

“We’re going in full throttle. That ought to keep those fighters off our back.”

- Luke Skywalker

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)

Always keep momentum.

- 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.

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)

Twitter’s MVP

Linkedin’s MVP

Facebook’s MVP

Google’s MVP

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)

“At Google X, we embrace failure.”

- Astro Teller

Most Startups Fail

Entrepreneurs fail fast

And pivot

Startups ranked by number of years from founding to $1 billion valuation

Flickr should have built Instagram but they did not move fast enough

Entrepreneurs work with an ecosystem of developers

Twitter decided developers weren’t so important anymore

Entrepreneurs Embrace wikipedia style volunteer collaboration

Slush and their 2,200 volunteers

Entrepreneurs challenge the current players by re-inventing the modelMetromile charges insurance protection per mile

Entrepreneurs constantly reinvent their businessUber selling data

Tesla next?

See you in Paris April 11-12paris.leade.rsLoic Le Meur

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