BC STARTUPS

Saved by @zmbnski

Justin Jackson
@mijustin 5 years, 9 months ago 1220 views

Save to PDF Share See On Twitter

You can't pull the market towards your solution.

Markets move towards desired solutions naturally.

(Like folks lining up for ice cream on a hot summer's day).

Our ability to influence the market is much lower than you think.

It's better to build your product to conform to the direction the market is moving.

Before folks start mentioning Steve Jobs and the iPhone ("Steve built a product we didn't even know we needed!")

Nope.

Steve recognized the market's existing momentum and saw an opportunity.

"Everyone has a cell phone." (momentum)
"But nobody likes it." (opportunity)

Markets move towards solutions on their own; founders can't pull markets over to their solution.

If you're struggling to gain traction, you likely have a problem in your:

- market
- product
- channels

(or all three)

If you're looking for a product idea, start with the market!

Look for existing momentum.

Then look for opportunities.

Here's an example of market momentum, and the opportunity within it:

🌬️ Momentum: more and more folks are starting Shopify stores.
💡 Opportunity: build an app in the Shopify app store in an area that's being underserved.

I just summarized all of this here: https://t.co/OFetIkVujQ

Actually, just had a bike ride, and I'm revisiting my thinking. 🤔

Maybe it's better to think about the demand for individual product categories.

For example:

"From roughly 2007 until 2013, the smartphone market grew at an astonishing pace, posting double-digit growth year after year, even during a global recession."

Ref: https://t.co/jJ8VqhZ2xo

Consumers demanded smartphones, which brought them to the category.

There, they were faced with a choice:

"Which smartphone do I want to buy?"

Here, the marketing, product, and positioning decisions of companies *did* have sway.

For example: "If you're this type of person, you'll want an iPhone."

More from Startups

Suhail
@Suhail

1/ The first 18 months of starting a company is often life or death. I must've made 5 different companies that each failed within 9 mo. 😭 Each time the company failed I figured out what I could do better. Eventually startup #6 got to $40K/mo by month 18. Here’s what I learned...

2/ Stay focused! Ignore things that are a waste of time: meetups & conferences, meetings with no clear agenda, fundraising if you're not fundraising, reading lots of tech media articles, etc. Every week should feel like significant progress in the first year.

3/ Your first 5 hires will be the difference between life or death. Choose carefully. Be picky. Many of the things we do at the company still are a result of those early hires' legacy. Have fun as a tight knit team. It will change & evolve as you get bigger so enjoy this moment.

4/ Growth may be flat for the first 9 months. It's gonna be okay. Almost every company has experienced this: Airbnb had to sell cereal in-between, Slack failed as a gaming company first, Tesla sold only 147 cars after 6 years! You probably won't be an overnight success either.

5/ In the beginning, do customer support yourself. You will learn a lot about why your product sucks. I did 5,000+ support tickets when it was the two of us. Delight customers & fix things fast while you learn. It will help you build an amazing intuition about your customers.

GREG ISENBERG
@gregisenberg

10 reasons why I think now is the greatest time to launch a startup

You should probably consider starting something

Just listen to this:

You can start with the community

I’ve identified ~8000 communities that could be unbundled from Reddit

- They are thriving
- They could make you ~$1m/year of revenue
- You often need $400 max to build MVP to tap that untapped value
- It's fun

Sounds like a dream job to me

People in Silicon Valley don’t have an edge on you

SF held the monopoly on startups for decades. Now, being in SF doesn’t matter for 99% of businesses

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise

The world is flat and is staying flat

Hell yeah. That feels good to say

You have 10x the amount of funding sources

You used to have to rely on VCs. Not anymore

To name a few:

- Fund via your community
- Fund via NFTs
- Fund via pre-sales
- Fund via tokens
- Fund via accelerators all over the world
- Etc

All of a sudden, you have 10x the options

Niche businesses can be worth billions

People used to laugh at niche. Why “go small” when you could “go big”?

The way to go big right now IS to go small

Large tech companies can’t be everything to everyone

Advertisement

Gagan Biyani
@gaganbiyani

Nobody talks about failure in Silicon Valley, yet 90% of startups fail.

Why?

3 yrs ago, @neerajberry and I shut down @Sprig, which raised $60M from @GreylockVC + @socialcapital & grew to $20m revenue.

Then, it all fell apart.

For an honest story about failure,

**Read on**

In 2013, I was @lyft, envious of how fast it was growing!

What about @lyft for food?

We looked @Postmates + thought:
- the food arrived sloppy / restaurants don't care about delivery
- it took forever (1hr)
- too expensive

We struggled through product iterations until we found "magic":

3 taps and $15 for a healthy meal delivered in 15 min

To make it possible, we had to run the restaurant ourselves; it would be expensive but worth it

We recruited @n8keller, Morgan Springer + @mattkent as founders

We launched and had immediate success. The buzz was unbelievable. Within months we were on track to do $1M revenue/year.

Our Series A was a hot round. I did 4 partner meetings on the same day. Raised $10M.

Great investors, great team, off to the races - @omal and @simonrothman

2 challenges arose:

1) Govt. SF health + planning made our lives hell. They didn't like our innovations. We had to bribe officials ("lobbying").

2) Gross Margins (GM). As we grew, our burn rate grew too. We were losing money on every meal. If only we could get to critical mass.

Mac the VC
@MacConwell

1/ I feel like breaking some rules today. Let's get transparent and have an open discussion about management fees in VC to help other emerging managers. The standard fee structure is 2% the size of the fund every year for 10 years or the life of the fund.

#vc #startups #funding

2/ This means if you are an emerging manager raising a micro/nano fund of let's say $10M, then you get $200K a year for operations. That $200K pays for legal, fund admin, accounting, expenses, and your salary. basically that 2% doesn't go very far

#vc #startups #funding

3/ This is in contrast to a larger fund, let's say $100M fund where 2% is $2M a year. This is why some LPs (those who invest in funds) are looking for smaller management fee which is unreasonable for micro funds which many diverse managers are raising

#vc #startups #funding

4/ Now at RareBreed Ventures we structured our fees to be 2.5% for the first 5 years and 1.5% for the last 5 years. This comes out to the standard 2% but front-loaded in earlier years

#vc #startups #funding

5/ This means when we hit our target of $10M (if you want to be an LP our min investment is 10K and you can go to https://t.co/dm6ywrNFnU). We'll have 250K for the first 5 years giving a little more cushion for operations and allowing me to bring on a hire

#vc #startups #funding

Saira Ashraf
@sairaxashraf

I’m 18, currently working on my own startup (TBA)

To all the founders out there...

What “startup advice” would you give yourself at 18?

The stuff nobody tells you

You May Also Like

Noah Smith
@Noahpinion

Met a Brazilian-American Lyft driver from San Diego who passionately attacked the racism of Republicans, then switched to passionately defending Bolsonaro.

If I were Thomas Friedman, I could tell you what this means.

Met a Haitian-American in a restaurant who said he'd always vote for Democrats because of the immigration issue, but that he has conservative beliefs too. "I don't want to pay for someone's abortion!", he declared.

Met a Latino Lyft driver from San Jose who said that while he was liberal, California was getting too liberal for him and he was considering moving to San Antonio.

Again, not being Tom Friedman, I am unable to offer any commentary on the political and policy implications of these conversations.

I guess my only thought is that political opinions are pretty complex and multidimensional, out there in the real world.

(end)

Suhas S. Hardutt
@HarduttSuhas

THE BATTLE OF PRATAPGARH (10 Nov, 1659)

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj's impeccable military genius and matchless courage humbled the Adil Shahi Sultanate.

The beginning of what was to come later for the M0ghuls from one of the most indefatigable defenders of Dharma!

(Thread)

Shivaji’s growing influence in Maval region, made him a threat to the Adil Shahi ruler of Bijapur who sought to restrain him. The man who was given the responsibility of this mission, was their commander, Afzal Khan. Afzal was a formidable warrior known for his ruthlessness.(1)

His strategy was to bring Shivaji out into the plains, where he held an advantage, compared to the rocky Deccan terrain. Afzal attacked the holy town of Pandharpur, and later demolished the temple of Bhavani at Tuljapur to instigate Shivaji in a bid to bring him out.(2)

Shivaji was angry but remained patient. Knowing that he could not defeat Bijapuri Sultanate in an open battle, Shivaji moved to Pratapgarh fort, located on rocky heights, surrounded by thick forests of Jawali.(3)

This set the pattern for future Maratha attacks, using guerrilla warfare against larger invading armies rendering them ineffective in unfavorable terrain.(4)

Advertisement

$XVIII Airborne Corps\U0001f409$

XVIII Airborne Corps🐉...
@18airbornecorps

1 of 16: WE ARE ALL JEWS HERE: THE STORY OF RODDIE EDMONDS

One of the most moving and relevant stories of the Battle of the Bulge, or any American Soldier in any war, is that of Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, a Knoxville, Tennessee native, who served with the 106th Infantry.

2 of 16:

Roddie was captured early on in the Battle of the Bulge, on December 19th, when Panzer forces plowed through his unit.

He, along with almost his entire regiment, was forced to surrender.

3 of 16:

The men were transported to the Stalag IX-A POW camp in Ziegenhain, Germany.

Roddie was the senior enlisted American Soldier at the site. As such, he was the conduit between all American Soldiers and their German captors.

4 of 16:

In late January, the camp’s commandant, Major Siegmann [pictured here], ordered Roddie, a Christian, to identify all Jewish Soldiers and order them to stand in formation by themselves the next day.

[Jewish Soldiers were a minority within American units]

5 of 16:

Throughout WWII, captured Jewish Soldiers were often tortured and then killed by their German captors.

In fact, Jewish Soldiers had been told to bury their dog tags before capture. The dog tag identified Jews with the letter “H” for Hebrew.

Jaya_Upadhyaya
@Jayalko1

KANAKA DURGAMMA, VIJAYWADA (AP)
#bharatmandir

Ma Kanakadurgeswari is the supreme Goddess of Andhra Pradesh, seated atop the Indrakilaparvatha at Vijayawada.
This area is called Bezawada as Shiva made a bejjam (hole) in the rocks so that Krishna river could flow freely.

Once, a Rishi Indra Keela prayed to Devi and asked her to reside on his head forever. Devi told him to wait in the form of a mountain in the holy plains of River Krishna.
Later, when Devi killed all demons, she settled on Keeladri as Mahishasura Mardini and fulfilled his wish.

In this place, Arjuna performed penance and fought with Shiva, who had appeared in the guise of Kiratha to win Pasupathastra, the most powerful weapon. So this place is also called phalguna theertha and Vijaywada on account of Arjun’s victory.

Adi Sankaracharya visited this shrine and worshipped the Devi. He installed SRICHAKRAM at the feet of Sri Kanaka Durga.

Adjacent to the Kanakadurga shrine is the shrine of the divine consort-Sri Malleswara Swamy on the Indrakeeladri.

Kavita
@Kavitastocks

There are many strategies in market 📉and it's possible to get monthly 4% return consistently if you master 💪in one strategy .
One of those strategies which I like is Iron Fly✈️

Few important points on Iron fly stategy

This is fixed loss🔴 defined stategy ,so you are aware of your losses . You know your risk ⚠️and breakeven points to exit the positions.
Risk is defined , so at psychological🧠 level you are at peace🙋‍♀️

How to implement
1. Should be done on Tuesday or Wednesday for next week expiry after 1-2 pm
2. Take view of the market ,looking at daily chart
3. Then do weekly iron fly.
4. No need to hold this till expiry day .

5.Exit it one day before expiry or when you see more than 2% within the week.
5. High vix is preferred for iron fly
6. Can be executed with less capital of 3-5 lakhs .
https://t.co/MYDgWkjYo8 have R:2R so over all it should be good.

8. If you are able to get 6% return monthly ,it means close to 100% return on your capital per annum.