There are 2 paths to success:

1. Be Top 1% in the world at 1 thing
2. Be Top 25% in the world at 3 things

Top 25% is achievable by most people.

The problem is most people focus on being Top 1%.

Work on combining “3 pretty goods” and stay at it.

It’ll pay off big.

More from Romeen Sheth

0/ Nothing pisses me off more than Lawyers ripping Founders off when putting investment docs together.

The worst part is most Investors aren’t helpful - 85% push the bill to Founders.

As an ex-lawyer, I saw all the inside tricks.

Here's how to reduce your legal bill by 90%:

1/ First, it’s important to understand how lawyers make $.

A legal bill has nothing to do with the end deliverable.

Wait what? That’s right. Lawyers make money via the billable hour.

Regardless of quality, you get charged based on how many hours the lawyer(s) spent with you

2/ The second cost variable is hourly rate.

Hourly Rate is a function of seniority of the lawyer you are working with.

Why is this important? Because the hourly rates go up FAST at top law firms.

Junior Associates = ~$400/hr
Senior Associates = ~$1000/hr
Partners = $1000+

3/ Most financings are very routine.

This was obvious at Seed (hence YC Safe), but it's also the case at A.

The problem is, as a Founder:

(a) You don't know what you don't know
(b) You don't want to mess it up
(c) You want to close fast
(d) You want to move on to your biz

4/ And that’s how you get trapped.

If you let the lawyers run it, a financing process will easily cost you $150k+.

You need to do 2 things: (1) pick the Lawyer and (2) establish the ground rules.

Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth

0/ If you’re an SMB operator and want to increase the value of your business, focus on 2 things above all else.

1. EBITDA: how much $ do you make
2. Risk: how reliable is the $ you make

Enough has been written about #1. Here are 5 things you can do to tackle #2:

[THREAD]

1/ All 5 of these tactics are a function of the same guiding principle:

Spend more time working ON the business, not IN the business.

Your job as CEO is to consistently:

- Identify opportunity
- Execute once
- Set process
- Delegate
- Fire yourself

With that said…

2/ Establish your focus

Most SMBs survive in the early days through 1-2 key customers.

If you do a good job, they'll give you more business.

That's the trap.

If it's not in your core focus, resist the urge.

If you don't you'll become a consulting firm for 1 customer.

3/ Eliminate Key Man Risk

SMBs are overly reliant on a small handful of individuals to run the operation.

Implication: Most knowledge about the business sits in the heads of a few people.

Take the time to develop strong Tier 2 management - this creates redundancy in the org

4/ Institute Operating Process

Strong Tier 2 management isn't good enough. You need knowledge to live in docs and systems, not just in brains.

Every dept should have a stand alone playbook.

An easy test: "how quickly can somebody that knows nothing about the dept. plug in?"

Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth

Early career years are painful.

You feel like an idiot 98% of the time - lost, confused and insecure.

I wish I had a playbook on principles for my first job.

So I put one together.

Here are 9 threads packed with lessons about building a career I wish I knew sooner:

1. First and most important - have a clear mind.

Without clarity of thought, nothing else matters.

Here are the most common types of distortions I’ve observed over the years.

Self awareness has helped me catch myself before falling into a trap.

The world's most valuable skill:

Clarity of thought.

The problem? There's no school for this.

It takes time, patience and a lot of early career fumbling.

Here are 10 cognitive distortions I faced early in my career and an insight for you to break through each one \U0001f447\U0001f447\U0001f447
— Romeen Sheth (@RomeenSheth) September 22, 2021

2. Enter the side door

Most people enter the “front door” in their careers.

The problem is - when you do what most people do, you get the results most people get.

If you want a n-of-1 career, don’t take the 1-of-n path.

The ultimate hack to 10x your career:

Enter the Side Door.

Let's break it down \U0001f447\U0001f447\U0001f447
— Romeen Sheth (@RomeenSheth) November 2, 2021

3. Adversity is inevitable

Any journey that’s worthwhile is filled with adversity.

If it was so easy...everybody would do it.

Here’s the way I’ve worked through dealing with the road blocks that are part of every entrepreneur’s journey.

15 timeless principles on how to deal with adversity \U0001f447
— Romeen Sheth (@RomeenSheth) November 16, 2021

4. Learn from the world's best

I love talking to world class people - CEOs, Founders, Execs, Athletes.

There's a lot of commonality in world class success.

Unpacking how these people got to where they are is always inspiring.

I interviewed 100 legendary investors, founders and executives.

Collectively, they have created over $1 trillion of value for the world.

Here are 20 practical career lessons they shared with me \U0001f447\U0001f447\U0001f447
— Romeen Sheth (@RomeenSheth) September 24, 2021

Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth

The cold hard truth:

Why do companies like Quibi raise billions, while companies like Peloton get nothing?

Because fundraising is a GAME

And the insiders keep the rules to themselves.

Here are 100 tips the insiders don’t want you to see but will help you win the game:

1. You can’t play the game without nailing the basics.

There are 5 core ingredients to a startup pitch.

Most have 2.
Good ones have 4.
The best have all 5.

There\u2019s a lot of bad advice out there on how to pitch your startup.

Last year, I invested $1M+ and heard 200 companies pitch.

Every great pitch I've heard nails 5 ingredients.

In this thread, we'll go through each to help maximize your chances when fundraising

Let's dig in\U0001f447 pic.twitter.com/FBaUUWHz8L
— Romeen Sheth (@RomeenSheth) April 10, 2021

2. Now that you have a grasp of the basics, it’s time to level up.

Good news - most founders make the same mistakes as each other.

Bad news - these mistakes are really easy to make.

Here's what not to do:

0/ After evaluating 200+ startups this year, I've been in some awesome and not so awesome pitches.

Here are the top 10 mistakes I see Founders make that routinely derail fundraising \U0001f447\U0001f447\U0001f447
— Romeen Sheth (@RomeenSheth) December 28, 2020

3. Ok so you told me what not to do.

So what should I do?

Read below.

0/ Last night I tweeted about the top 10 things Founders do that derail fundraising. It struck a chord. 2,500+ liked the tweet.

I got a ton of DMs asking the opposite question: \u201cWhat are the top things Founders do well when fundraising?\u201d

Here's my top 10 \U0001f447\U0001f447\U0001f447
— Romeen Sheth (@RomeenSheth) December 30, 2020

4. We’re in a really unique fundraising environment right now.

It’s important to contextualize all these tips in the “here and now” of what’s going on in the landscape.

Raising money for startups is wild right now. I\u2019ve never seen anything like it.

Lots of Founders are wondering how to approach it and who they should partner with.

Here are 10 observations / practical tips I've shared with 100+ Founders in the last few months \U0001f447\U0001f447\U0001f447
— Romeen Sheth (@RomeenSheth) May 5, 2021

Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth

The ultimate hack to 10x your career:

Enter the Side Door.

Let's break it down 👇👇👇

Let’s set the stage. Imagine you’re in college and it’s Friday night.

It’s been a long week and it’s the party of the year at the local bar.

Awesome - you’re all set to go.

You get there and run into a huge problem.

There’s a massive line outside.

You do what most people do.

You stand in line in the freezing cold for an hour.

You’re tense and starting to worry.

You frantically call a friend of yours who managed to get in.

- Is there room inside?
- Any way you can talk to the bouncer for me?
- Is my (questionable...at best) ID going to get me in?

You leave your destiny up to the fate of the universe.

This is what most people do with their careers.

They take the front door AKA they do what everyone else is doing.

And what happens?

Well they get the same results as most people.

It’s hard to stand out and get the job you want.

More from Personal growth

Radhika Gupta
@iRadhikaGupta

The quality of covering letters has come such a long way. Awesome to see the ambition and aspiration.

Sahil Bloom
@SahilBloom

Razors are rules that simplify decisions.

THREAD: 20+ powerful razors (to help you cut through life’s noise):

The Steve Jobs Quality Razor

When building, take pride in carrying the quality all the way through.

Would you be proud for your work to be seen from every angle and perspective?

If not, keep working.

The ELI5 Razor

Complexity and jargon are often used to mask a lack of true understanding.

If you can’t explain it to a 5-year-old, you don’t really understand it.

If someone uses a lot of complexity and jargon to explain something to you, they probably don’t understand it.

Munger’s Rule of Opinions

“I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.” - Charlie Munger

Opinions aren’t free. You have to work to earn the right to have them.

The Bezos Regret Minimization Framework

The goal is to minimize the number of regrets in life.

When faced with a difficult decision:
(1) Project yourself into the future
(2) Look back on the decision
(3) Ask "Will I regret not doing this?"
(4) Take action

The @JeffBezos Regret Minimization Framework is a simple yet powerful mental model for making important decisions and unlocking growth in your career, startup, business, relationships, or life.

A short thread on how it works and how it can change your life... pic.twitter.com/krtr2CarxW
— Sahil Bloom (@SahilBloom) February 24, 2021