BC STARTUP
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I just gave a talk to the W2021 YC batch. It's my favorite startup audience to talk to. Here are some of the highlights:

 Finding product market fit is the critical thing to do in a startup.

Everything else: demo day, what investors you get, how much you raise, what press covers you -- it is all window dressing.
Many founders don’t want to talk to their customers because it makes them vulnerable, because it's hard work, because it's scary. Creating a tight feedback loop with customers is the one thing that will help you discover PMF.
If a customer isn't one of your cofounders, try to create a customer panel that allows as tight of a loop as possible. Call them daily. Put them in your Slack.
My Twitch cofounder Emmett Shear has a great analogy on PMF here: it's like rolling a boulder downhill. https://t.co/WEORUcnB4c
At Atrium, I confused myself on whether we had PMF because I was really good at sales. Basically, I was really strong and could roll the boulder uphill more easily. But it was still uphill.
It is often very unclear from the outside who is doing well or not in Silicon Valley. Example: people thought https://t.co/JQ2skuQnoc sucked, but Atrium was super successful. If you read the outside narrative you would be confused.
The outside narrative is irrelevant to your startup. Only focus on PMF. Just talk to your customers and build your product. Fuck the outside world.
You should be willing to toil on PMF in obscurity for as long as it takes. The best companies start with a narrow wedge of PMF and it turns out that many people want it.
Most founders start motivated extrinsically (money, success, security) but the best founders shift to being motivated intrinsically (they are doing things that give them joy). Intrinsic motivation will keep you working when extrinsic motivation will not.
It is ok to have extrinsic motivation - even if some of those desires aren’t the most attractive things to admit to yourself.
You can find investors without YC. You can raise money without YC.

YC is really an accountability framework for you to make fast progress in finding PMF. No one wants to be the person that shows up during office hours and reports that nothing got done the last two weeks.
Work is a kind of habit. If you want to be productive, set up the frameworks for yourself to improve your work habit. Make it easy, make it accessible, make it rewarding.
Example: I used to eat pizza every day for lunch, and then would take a nap. I thought I was just a tired motherfucker. But it turns out if I change my work diet, I am more productive.
On balancing ruthlessness vs compassion/kindness in a startup:

You should outline your values up front. Then make decisions in accordance with your values. I can’t tell you what they should be (and no one else can).
How to create a great cofounder team dynamic:

Start with values. Values will keep you together when you face stressful decision points (selling the company, shutting down, pivoting).
Make sure there are clear cofounder roles and a clear decision making structure. Have this conversation up front even if it is uncomfortable.

With your cofounders, build trust through vulnerability, clear communication, clear areas of responsibility.
Everyone wants famous investors to invest. Famous investors won’t make your company. Finding PMF will.
When you are successful, everyone will want to help you out, whether they invested or not. When you are failing, no one will want to help you, whether they invested or not.
Getting rich won’t solve your problems. You will still experience stress. Yes, this may be sound ridiculous. True equanimity can only come from getting right with your inner work.
More knowledge drops and summaries from my podcast The Quest on my free newsletter: https://t.co/U09RoOa8HI
One other thing I forgot: work with people who put a smile on your face. Life is short!

More from Justin Kan

Justin Kan
Justin Kan
@justinkan
10 months ago we shut down Atrium after raising $75m in venture capital. Anyone hearing that knows I made tons of mistakes along the way. Someone asked me today what my biggest lessons learned were. Here they are:

Start with the mission
.

It is very hard to write the mission after the fact. You should start with a clear reason to exist and filter early hires for believers.

Start remote. SFBA is over for startups: the cost of housing and rent gives you much worse operating leverage. Many talented people choose jobs they want to be flexible re: location. Remote is better at this time in the market.

I wrote that before COVID, now it's extra true.

There is no skipping of the R&D phase of a company - if you try to skip this you miss the part where you are forced to develop something differentiated. Very hard to solve this with money.

Don’t build a services company. It’s more work to manage everyone and the reward isn’t there at the end of the day.
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Justin Kan
Justin Kan
@justinkan
Just got a tip that Citadel reloaded their shorts before they told Robinhood to stop trading $GME.

If this is true, Ken Griffin and the Robinhood founders should be in jail.

This is class warfare.

@aoc there should be a congressional hearing
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Justin Kan
Justin Kan
@justinkan
1/ Silicon Valley has changed a lot over the past 13 years since I started my first company (an AJAX calendar called Kiko that was funded in the first batch of YC).

2/ Tech has gone from an industry no one cared about, to every random person I knew in college rushing to be part of it, to the evil industry destroying the fabric of society

3/ Starting a startup is easier than ever. Lots of resources: YC, more financing at the seed stage, much more information online. Starting a company is no longer a risky path.

4/ New businesses in every industry are now being built with methodologies that used to be just for tech startups (fast iteration, access to venture capital). Applies to D2C companies like Allbirds, full stack companies like Atrium, etc.

5/ Personally, I’ve felt recently that the overall risk appetite of the people working in tech has changed. People used to want to join frontier companies building something fun / cool; now everyone seems to be optimizing for salary / career stability.
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Justin Kan
Justin Kan
@justinkan
With @ycombinator #demoday kicking off, @atrium gathered advice from past YC founders.

.@jaltma from @latticeHQ says “Don’t confuse investor interest with product-market fit. You’re about to be on the receiving end of a lot of hype and FOMO - use it to your advantage by taking the money and then keep your burn and ego low.”

.@typesfast from @flexport says “I like to remind myself that even Bruce Springsteen still gets nervous before his concerts. Remember that, and then try to focus on what investors want: First, not to be bored. Second, to get rich(er).”

.@collinmathilde from @frontapp says “Leverage your data to tell a story about what the business has achieved and where it is going. Metrics are necessary, but they are too often shared without a narrative arc.”

.@drusenko from @weebly says “Make it relevant. Investors can live in their own world, so try to find an angle that they can relate to.”
STARTUPS
Justin Kan
Justin Kan
@justinkan
1/ Throughout my startup career, I’ve seen many founders have an aversion to sales. This is a mistake that can kill your startup.

2/ Sales is often viewed as either a saving grace or proof that the product isn’t good enough (because it should sell itself). Neither are ever true. Some common mistakes that result in...

3/ Mistake 1: Hire a sales rep before reaching product/market fit to get your initial batch of customers. This is a mistake because founders need to work through their MVP with early adopters to truly understand what it is they’re selling.

4/ Mistake 2: Reach product/market fit, need to scale, and rely entirely on self-serve. For enterprise products that require big commitments and internal shifts, almost no product is self-explanatory enough to sell itself.

5/ Mistake 3: Make a first sales hire who isn’t scrappy enough to help mold the sales process from scratch. Some salespeople are amazing at their jobs, but not cut out to establish the processes that others end up following. This skillset is what @rdedatta calls a “sales ninja”.
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Atharva Kharbade
Atharva Kharbade
@athrvakhrbde
Startup Bharat: @naval & @balajis

The full Clubhouse session in text

Thread Continued

1/

Naval: The Boston ecosystem has always regretting that they've sort of lost these companies.

India has to make sure it doesn't lose as entrepreneurs. And the way to do that is to give them the freedom to innovate. Everyone should be an entrepreneur.

2/

Everyone has a phone should be able to get a job through the phone. There's one level beyond that, that comes after that, which is everyone has a phone, should be a creator for the phone. And that's what platforms are enabling.

3/

There's the old, famous New Yorker cartoon with a dog on the internet, on the computer and it says on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog. Well, yeah, on the internet, nobody knows who you are or where you are or what you are. All they care about is your output

4/

And that is incredibly liberating for a country that's so large and has such a good English speaking population, India can win, it just has to remove shackles.
STARTUP
Growth Tactics
Growth Tactics
@GrowthTactics
Here’s how to double conversion on your startup’s homepage.

(From rewriting over 1,000 websites.)

A thread 👇

1/ Your "above the fold" (ATF) section is the part of your site that's immediately visible before scrolling.

When visitors see this, they decide to either keep scrolling or bounce.

In seconds, they attempt to assess:

• What you do.
• Whether you're a fit for them.

2/ If your ATF is confusing or uninteresting, visitors bounce.

This happens because of:

1. Weak messaging: Your product's purpose is unclear, uninteresting, or irrelevant.

2. Weak design: Your design is unprofessional or outdated.

3/ There are 3 things you can change on your ATF.

1. Header
2. Subheader
3. Design

Let's dive into each.

4/ Headers need to:

1. Identify how users get value from your product.

2. Include a hook—to get them to keep reading.

3. Speak directly to your customer personas.
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Frank Rotman
Frank Rotman
@fintechjunkie
1/23: One #startup trap to avoid (founders and VCs) is to fall in love with a value prop that can’t be delivered IRL now. Good diligence will surface disconnects but they’re often brushed under the rug by #VCs who believe fixing delivery over time will be fine. Unpacked:


2/23: The foundational reason why this matters from day 1 is that building a franchise of loyal customers is difficult for any #startup to pull off but the challenge is amplified if the #startup has to rebuild its franchise as it scales.

3/23: Broken or unfulfilled promises lead to customer behaviors that have real consequences. Poor ratings and reviews. High customer service costs. High complaint volume. Low engagement. High attrition/returns/cancelations. Low organic growth.

4/23: Undoing damage takes time and sometimes is nearly impossible. Convincing inactive customers to “retry” your product isn’t easy. Overcoming bad reviews can be a Herculean task. And resources will be thrown at fixing past sins at the expense of new functionality.

5/23: And guess what happens when #VCs dig into questionable early performance numbers? These conversations tend to revolve around caveats, apologies and synthetic analysis that bakes in significant improvements (many of which are still “unknown” in nature).
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Alex Brogan
Alex Brogan
@_alexbrogan
Most people have only just seen the opening scene of the internet.

But behind the curtains there’s pure gold.

Here are 10 of the most useful websites in existence:

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See all of your newsletters in one place and unsubscribe from them with a single click.


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Examine lets you cut through the noise on Nutrition and supplement information.

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Elizabeth Yin
Elizabeth Yin
@dunkhippo33
A thread on employee equity in early stage startups -- what are the compensation norms? What every early employee should ask? Some thoughts on whether the structure is fair.

Read on >>

1) First, there are NO NORMS! Hah. I have literally seen everything from giving early employees no equity to giving employee #1s near co-founder level of shares.

But what is more common than not?

2) In the Silicon Valley, if you're hiring your 1st employee, & you've raised NO $$ & are paying very little (e.g $0-$10k / yr or thereabouts), your first employee is basically a co-founder.

And the equity tranche for employee 1 should be closer to a co-founder level.

3) For ex, a friend of mine gave his employee #1 10% (vesting over 4 yrs of course) of the business. This employee was only getting his housing paid for. And this was 10 yrs ago, so it was during the bust.

4) On the flip side, if you have raised some $$ & are paying employee #1 near mkt rate, typically I see around here ppl get 1-5% (w/ vesting).

Caveat - near mkt rate doesn't mean compared to Google or FB salary rates. I mean compared to "normal big cos"
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Anu Satheesh 🇮🇳...
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Srikanteshwara Temple,
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Srikanteshwara Temple or
Nanjundeshwara Temple is a famous Shiva Temple located in Karnataka at the bank of river  Kapila. Temple is also called Varanasi of South. Nanjunda means one who has consumed poison.


Story is  related to the Samudra Mathanam when Paramashiva had to consume halahala.

Parashurama worshipped Mahadeva here to relieve himself from the curse of Mathru Hatya. While clearing the place to do poojas Parashurama's  axe hit the Shivalingam and it began bleeding, that


mark is still visible even today. Thus
it is also believed that Parashurama did Shiva Prathishta here

Sthala Puranam says that, once there was a demon named Keshi who disturbed the people in the area, after  getting blessing from Brahma Deva  and Mahavishnu. Mahadeva appeared


here and killed demon Keshi and blessed this place as Papa Vinashini. Whoever praying to Srikanteshwara or Nanjundeshwara, after bathing in the  Kabini River will be relieved from all sins.

Nanjundeshwaraya Namah
🙏🕉🙏
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Surkanda devi mandir is a famous shrine of Hindus located near Kaddukhal distt of Uttarakhand, 11 Km from the town of Dhanaulti and 35 Km from Mussoorie.
The Temple is one of the 51 Shakti Peethas spread all over Indian Subcontinent and is dedicated to Goddess Surkanda.


Nestled on a Hill at an Altitude of 2700 m approx, the place offers a splendid view of the snow capped mountains, the picturesque scenic beauty that offers an experience of the lifetime.
The Temple build in the traditional Garhwal style exuberates the Architectural splendour.


The origins of the Surkanda Mata Mandir is attributed to Goddess Sati, consort of Bhagwan Shiv who in a rage immolated herself in her arrogant Father Daksha's Yajna Kund bcoz he didn't invite Bhagwan Shiv in the Yajna.


Devastated by the death of Sati Shiva wandered all over the cosmos performing Tandava-The Dance of Cosmic Destruction.Fearing the total annihilation of cosmos, Gods requested Bhagwan Vishnu to pacify Shiva.Bhagwan Vishnu then used his discuss to destroy the burning corps of Sati.


The pieces of Sati Mata's body then got scattered all over the region which were later established as Shakti Peethas by Bhagwan Shiva himself.Its believed that the head of Sati fell here and it was called Sirkhanda Mata Temple before, but with passage of time it became Surkanda.
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It’s underremarked upon that stablecoins accomplish basically all of the original design goals for Bitcoin qua a transactional mechanism (instant free value transfer anywhere), but that nobody cares about this because nobody ever cared about that part of the pitch.

“Why do people care about stablecoins then?”

A mix of “they encourage dollar-denominated liquidity in the cryptocurrency ecosystem and discourage withdrawal of the same” and “they’re good for money laundering.”

“But they make value transfer between exchanges much faster!”

This was a solved problem in traditional finance, too, mostly through the extension of credit. (It doesn’t matter how long settlement takes if there is sufficient trust to enable credit.)

The Bitcoin ecosystem is *positively allergic* to credit, so you have to call it a coin for them to accept it. And after you call it a coin they ignore everything the world has learned about credit, like risk management.

“Stablecoins aren’t credit!”

They’re pretty much exactly credit? A tether is a zero-coupon Bitfinex bond with a non-functioning call option. I
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2/ Trump fired Sessions on Wednesday, replacing him with human dildo/Putin collaborator Matt Whitaker. Sessions had asked to stay until Friday and was told to leave immediately. So there was clearly some urgency to install the dildo...er, puppet.

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Payyanur Sri Subramanya Swami Temple 🚩
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Temple, constructed by Parasurama is known as the 'Pazhani' of Kerala.The place got its name from 'Payyante Ooru' where Payyan is another name by which Subramanya was called.


There are references about this temple in Brahmanda purana. Muni Garga mentions this temple and the place to  the Pandavas when they were in Vanavasa. Temple was destroyed two times, once due to fire and then during the attack of Tipu Sultan.


Important tradition here is wearing of Pavithram by the temple priest. Pavithram is a sort of  ring worn during performing Vedic rituals or during the "pithrubali". Usually worn while performing Tarpana or Shradham. The traditional Pavitram is usually made of Dharbha grass
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