Advice that clicks
Sometimes we come across advice that clicks with us.
For me, this was Sam Altman’s “How to Succeed with a Startup” on YouTube.
While his talk is mostly limited toward founders of consumer-facing startups, I find his advice applicable for any endeavor, whether that be a startup or work/personal project.
Altman says the following.
- Build something so good, people spontaneously tell their friends about it
- You probably found out about YouTube, Facebook etc. because a friend told you about it
- Build something simple to explain and easy to understand
- Complex explanation indicates unclear thinking or a need that is not big enough
- Target a market that has started or will soon start to see exponential growth
- Investors often ask about growth rate, but for some reason people don’t apply this to markets
- Small revenue is fine if the market is growing very fast, don’t just look at TAM today
- Find markets that are going to grow each year and ride the elevator up
- Make bets on real trends, not fake trends
- Real trends are something that will actually happen
- Fake trends will not happen or will not happen soon
- Before making a big bet, make sure something is real. Here’s a trick:
- When a new technology comes along, early adopters use it obsessively and tell their friends about it spontaneously (sound familiar?)
- If people don’t use it enough, it’s a fake trend
- Real trend: With the iPhone, at first there weren’t many sales. But the people who used the iPhone used it for hours and loved it, and they told their friends to get one.
- Fake trend: Most people who own a VR headset don’t actually use it intensively enough and won’t tell their friends to get one spontaneously. It may be premature.
The rest of the talk is quite specific to founding and managing a startup, so I will spare those details here.
However, the above points are useful whenever you are trying to make anything successful, not just a startup.
If you prefer writings over video, then I also highly encourage you to check out Sam Altman’s blog, which I find fascinating.