There are many management rules … too many. This one is the most important, and one of the most difficult to consider on an on-going basis: Critical management decisions should be made with all impacted perspectives in mind.
YCombinator StartUp Series
Keith Rabois, Khoslas Ventures, on “How to Operate”
Building a company is harder than building a product. A good metaphor for what a leader does is editing. Generally, there are writers and editors – your job as a leader is to edit – to eliminate unnecessary things, simplify, and clarify.
Reid Hoffman on How to be a Great Founder
There is no one skillset for a great founder. Having the ability to learn and adapt and create networks around you “while crossing uneven ground in the fog” is useful. Collective learning makes great teams. And diverse teams help solve difficult problems.
How to Start a Startup Takeaways: Aaron Levie, Founder, Box, on “Building the Enterprise”
Keys to the enterprise startup:
1. Spot tech disruptions
2. Intentionally start small
3. Find asymmetries
4. Find the “mostly crazy, but still reasonable, outliers within the customer ecosystem”
5. Listen to your customers, but don’t always build what they want.
Startup Culture and Hiring
Culture is like gardening: you plant the seeds, you pull the weeds, and it grows. It takes constant attention.
Creating Culture at a Startup
Our favorite guidance from this session on creating culture was “Look for a diversity of backgrounds, but not values.”
Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway and Ben Silbermann on “How to Raise Money”
To raise money, have strong co-founders, bootstrap for as long as you can, make a great product, have a strong operating plan, and focus on reducing risk through funding and milestones.
Startup Takeaways: Doing Things That Don’t Scale, How to Get Started, and PR
Three entrepreneurs share their tips on how to get started and how to navigate PR, including “necessity will focus you – you will find a way to make it all work and do what is necessary” and “you don’t have to be original – just original enough.”
Kevin Hale on “How to Build Products Users Love”
Kevin Hale shares insights on how to develop strong relationships with your users, by approaching them like any other relationships we have with people.
Alex Schultz, VP Growth, Facebook, on “Growth” in How to Start a Startup
Growth is the key for a start-up. Retention is the key indicator of growth, as those are your fans / ambassadors / power users. You need to understand what number/metric is MOST important to drive retention of your users in your market for your product. That is your key metric or “North Star.”