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How to think like a startup Loic 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 and care about improving 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 Janah LXMI 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 “We’re too slow and too old in this company” Jean-Jacques Borie 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. 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. - Henry Ford 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 Board of Directors No Usability Studies No Bus Dev Deals No Focus Groups No PR No Politics No Marketing Spend No Endless Debates 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 model Metromile charges insurance protection per mile Entrepreneurs constantly reinvent their business Uber selling data Tesla next? Thanks! Loic Le Meur More on my newsletter at leade.rs/loicnewsletter facebook.com/loic twitter.com/loic loic@leade.rs