BC STARTUPS
Saved by @vasantsri_

I just interviewed the man who invented Amazon Prime.

He started a business worth $40 billion today and served on Amazon's board for 15 yrs.

Here are lessons from Bing Gordon that'll save you years of mistakes:

 When you have a business idea, take action now before it dies.

• Write 1 paragraph about the idea

• Write a 4 slide business plan

• Write your 1st line of code
When you start a job, ask your boss 2 questions:

1) Who is the best boss you've ever had and what does that mean for me?

2) What does top 10% performance look like?
Hold yourself accountable for high achievement.

If you're a cab driver, drive the most miles

if you're a fisherman, get on the best boat.
How to succeed

• Be a learning machine.
• Find a way to maintain high energy
In college, you don't take classes for content.

You take classes for great professors.

Same with your job.

Pick a company for a great boss.
The best interview question:

"What's your strategy for learning?"
How to set goals:

1) Clear and unambiguous

2) Stretch, but not impossible

3) Under your personal control

4) Time sensitive + context relevant
Don't invite someone to be on your board that you wouldn't pay to have dinner with.
When pitching your startup, your goal is to share 1 insight to investors that they didn't know before.
If you want to help the next generation of business builders, retweet the first tweet below!

https://t.co/IfjYJJnl48
for more top-secret insights, follow me @chrishlad
if you really like this, check out my newsletter where I share frameworks, systems for success and wild business stories:

https://t.co/VxEW9G1YnK

More from Chris Hladczuk

Chris Hladczuk
Chris Hladczuk
@chrishlad
If you build a great product and no one knows, did it happen?

@mkobach
@JunaeBrown
@AmandaMGoetz
@JuiceboxCA
@KyleTibbitts
@jenalyson
@tobydoyhowell
@ThatChristinaG
@markritson
@TheCoolestCool

10 LESSONS from 10 of the BEST Marketers👇🧵


1/ Understand Culture First

"Marketing is effective when it’s a reflection of culture. Have to understand culture and society to understand marketing"

@mkobach

2/ Four Keys

• Make your audience feel like they know u— inside look into lifestyle or clear buyer persona

• Create shareable content—audience promos for u

• Authenticity

• Interactive strategies since everything is digital. Create EXPERIENCES

@JunaeBrown

3/ Pillars of Content

Every piece of content have 3 things:

- PURPOSE
- GOAL
- DISTRIBUTION STRATEGY

@AmandaMGoetz

4/ Clear Value Prop

"If you can’t describe in one tweet why someone should follow your brand on social, you can bet the average social user can’t find the reason either."

@JuiceboxCA
MARKETING
Chris Hladczuk
Chris Hladczuk
@chrishlad
Bill Gates got lucky.

With an IBM deal he signs in 1980.

Here's the hidden truth about the rise of Microsoft:

So we all know the Bill Gates story.

A brilliant kid who loves computers.

Drops out of Harvard in 1975 to start Microsoft with his childhood friend, Paul Allen.

Gates and Allen originally sell code interpreters to companies like MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry System).

In 1976, their revenue is $16,000.

By 1978, Microsoft hits $1 million in revenue.

But they were far from taking over the world.

Until...

In 1980, IBM asks Gates to build them an operating system for their new personal computers.

He had never done this.

So Gates directs them to his friend Gary Kildall from Digital Research.

The IBM-Digital Research meeting goes poorly.

The two parties argue over non-disclosure agreements and other legal issues.

Eventually, IBM offers Digital Research $250,000 to build the operating system.

They refuse.

"We will only do royalties."
BUSINESS
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Chris Hladczuk
Chris Hladczuk
@chrishlad
Can't get a job at Facebook?

You can always sell your startup to Zuckerberg for $19 billion.

Here's the crazy story of WhatsApp👇

Jan Koum met Brian Acton in 1998.

They spent 9 years working together at Yahoo and became good friends.

But in 2007, they both left Yahoo with some cash and no plans.

At first Acton and Koum applied to Facebook

...and failed

they were proud members of the "Facebook reject club"

In January 2009, Jan Koum bought an iPhone and thought,

"Wow, this new App Store could be huge."

At the time, the App Store was 7 months old.

So he met with a friend named Alex Fishman to brainstorm app ideas.

Koum thought it would be fun to put statuses next to friends' names in your address book.

So he went to RentACoder..com to hire a guy to build the 1st version.
NETWORKEFFECTS
Chris Hladczuk
Chris Hladczuk
@chrishlad
If you use it right, Google is the most powerful tool in the world.

But the truth is most people suck at it.

Here are 8 Googling tips that you probably don't know👇

"Quotation markets"

Put quotes around search terms to let you search exactly for that word.

All results will have your terms in it.

Example: "James Clear"

Gives you all James Clear search results without just "James" or just "Clear".

- Dashes

If you want to exclude a term from your search, include a hyphen before that word.

Example: dolphins-football

You just want dolphins the animal not dolphins the professional football team.

~ Tilde

Use tilde when you want synonyms to appear in the result.

Example: music ~classes

Here you only get music classes, lessons, coaching, etc.

Site:

Use this to search within a specific website only.

Example: Kevin Ryan site:chrishlad..com

This searches for Kevin Ryan mentions on my website (chrishlad dot com).
ALL
Chris Hladczuk
Chris Hladczuk
@chrishlad
I've interviewed 5 founders of billion dollar startups.

Here's what I learned:

CTFU

"Catch the F*ck Up"

Startups are about speed.

If you don’t have urgency, you lose.

Successful people don't find hard things easy to do.

Instead, they've trained themselves to be better at hard things.

Create habits so small that they are painless.

h/t @JamesClear

Be short and to the point with important people.

Co-founders aren't people you meet at networking sessions.

They're your friends.

Get your smartest, hardest working friends and convince them to start a company with you.
ALL

More from Startups

Hiten Shah
Hiten Shah
@hnshah
Startup life can be summed up in three steps:

1. Find problem
2. Fix problem
3. Go back to step 1

Works for every thing you need to do in a startup.

Growth is determined by a combination of how fast you can go through the steps successfully and how long you can keep at it.

Finding the right problem to solve starts with understanding your customers.

Nobody says I wish I talked to less customers.

There aren’t any hacks or shortcuts to this.

Go talk to your customers.

Fixing problems in a startup isn’t usually straightforward.

You don’t have time, money or people to throw at the problem.

You have to go deep, dig for the details and think very creatively about solutions.

Then experiment like there is no tomorrow.

You can’t grow a startup without a fundamental understanding of how to problem solve really fast.

This skill comes from practicing jumping into the unknown.

You don’t usually get time to prepare for what’s coming next.

You’ll have to learn how to figure it out along the way.

Startup people have to become comfortable with the discomfort of uncertainty and the unknown.

This is why I say, nobody knows what they are doing.

We’re all just jumping from problem to problem expecting to figure things out.

Hopefully our past helps us not crash and burn.
STARTUPS
Andrew Chen
Andrew Chen
@andrewchen
👇Thread.

Published a new essay: The red flags and magic numbers that investors look for in your startup’s metrics – 80 slide deck included!


This was a deck that I created on my (longish) interview process with @a16z. It was a long path, starting with meeting folks at the firm 10 years ago. But the purpose of the deck was to explain how I would use my superpower in an investing context

Here's what I explain in the deck. As investors (whether angel or VC) we're often confronted with an up-and-to-the-right graph. Is it going to go up? Or down?


One solution to forecast these growth curves is the Growth Accounting Framework, where you add up New+Reactivated and subtract churned users. In each time period that gives you the difference in monthly actives.


The problem with this is that it's a lagging metric, not a leading one. We need to go one level deeper and look at the underlying loops that drive these numbers, to understand the quality.
STARTUPS
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Jon Yongfook
Jon Yongfook
@yongfook
Candid and potentially controversial series of tweets coming up... (I hear twitter is good for that sort of thing 😅) read 👇🏻

Here’s what it feels like to launch something to the indie maker community:

Launching a free, open source tool:
“This is awesome! You’re awesome!”

Launching a commercial tool:
“TWO DOLLARS? You are literally Hitler”

I’m exaggerating for comedic effect of course. But there’s a lesson here...

I knew before I started working on Promomatic to be very wary of building a utility tool for makers. Makers are by definition problem solvers and their favorite hobby is finding a better / faster / cheaper way to do what your product does.

It’s so tempting to build things for makers because they seem accessible (thanks to PH, IH, Reddit etc) and you get an immediate feedback loop.
STARTUPS
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
Exploding Topics
Exploding Topics
@explodingtopics
10 fast-growing companies you've (probably) never heard of.

Thread 👇

1/ @Cubii

Ultra-portable elliptical trainer.

Why the 📈?

-Part of growing workout @ home trend
-Super small (fits under a desk or table)
-Proprietary tracking app
-Smart "fit while you sit" branding
-Sizable community of Cubii users


2/ @undraw_co

Open source illustration library.

Why the 📈?

-1000s pro-level illustrations
-As illustrations replace stock photos, demand for illustrations=📈
-Part of growing open source media libraries (music, images and icons)trend


@unDraw_co 3/ @flodeskinc

Email service provider that focuses on design.

Why the 📈?

-No-frills UI
-Appeals to Shopify stores
-Attractive email templates
-Designed for ecommerce marketing


@unDraw_co @flodeskinc 4/ @pushpay

Venmo for church donations.

Why the 📈?

-7900+ churches use it
-Disrupting cash donation baskets
-Taps into cashless payments meta trend
STARTUPS

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Jijo Sunny
Jijo Sunny
@JijoSunny
1/ 👋 Excited to share what we’ve been building at https://t.co/GOQJ7LjQ2t + we are going to tweetstorm our progress every week!

Week 1 highlights: getting shortlisted for YC W2019🤞, acquiring a premium domain💰, meeting Substack's @hamishmckenzie and Stripe CEO @patrickc 🤩

2/ So what is Brew?

brew / bru : / to make (beer, coffee etc.) / verb: begin to develop 🌱

A place for you to enjoy premium content while supporting your favorite creators. Sort of like a ‘Consumer-facing Patreon’ cc @jackconte

(we’re still working on the pitch)

3/ So, why be so transparent? Two words: launch strategy.

jk 😅 a) I loooove doing something consistently for a long period of time b) limited downside and infinite upside (feedback, accountability, reach).
cc @altimor, @pmarca


4/ https://t.co/GOQJ7LjQ2t domain 🍻

It started with a cold email. Guess what? He was using BuyMeACoffee on his blog, and was excited to hear about what we're building next. Within 2w, we signed the deal at @Escrowcom's SF office. You’re a pleasure to work with @MichaelCyger!

5/ @ycombinator's invite for the in-person interview arrived that evening. Quite a day!

Thanks @patio11 for the thoughtful feedback on our YC application, and @gabhubert for your directions on positioning the product — set the tone for our pitch!
TECH
Gal Gur \U0001f1ee\U0001f1f1
Gal Gur 🇮🇱...
@GalGur_
1/
Hello, my name is Gal,
I am an Israeli citizen, and I want to convey this urgent message to the world: Contrary to what you are told, Israel has not "returned to normal" in any way >>

2/ Moreover, despite the desire to create a setting as if there was a full and normal routine here - the Israeli Ministry of Health JUST RECOMMENDED TODAY TO EXTENT THE DECLARATION OF A “STATE OF EMERGENCY” in Israel >>

3/ to which is the foundation for coercion, violation of basic rights, severe discrimination under a "green mark (pass)", prolonged closure (Of about 5 months overall) and a lot of undemocratic and not “routine" restrictions. >

4/ If the situation in Israel had "returned to routine thanks to the astounding success of vaccines" then the "state of emergency" would not have continued.

5/ In fact, since the beginning of the "vaccination project" there has been only more intimidation and in many ways - even though the closure has been lifted, much more coercion.
TYRANNY
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Hermann Peterscheck
Hermann Peterscheck
@petershk
For fun I made a Robinhood account. It took me 5 minutes to sign up, get approved and transfer funds for trading...

Here's some details... Read on.

...it took me another 5 minutes to get qualified for options.

If I share a sign up I get "free shares" and I can share as much as I want up to 500$ worth.

The main UI has a prepopulated "list" of stocks/crypto to watch and links to news.


Clicking a stock opens a "trade" button that looks like this.

Notice options is first, buy second.

Options took me to an approval process (which took about a minute) and now away I go trading Baba options.


Buying stock looks like this. It emphasizes fractional shares.
TRADING
Quinn Cummings
Quinn Cummings
@quinncy
Gather round, Gentle Readers. It is time I tell the story of the worst decision I ever made in an office. Some of you have heard this. Some have not. Whatever you do in your office today, this week, the rest of this year, you can console yourself by recalling this tale.

A long time ago, I was a talent agent. I worked for a woman named Susan Smith, who had her own small boutique agency. She was known for three things:

1. She had fantastic taste in clients. If there is someone you admire, odds are good that at some point, she was their agent,

2. She could negotiate a deal like few who have ever trod the earth. Casting would give her all the money they had budgeted for that part, plus a little more, plus promising to get her dog Barnaby groomed. She was magnificent to watch.

3. She was insane.

I'm sure you're thinking, "Quinn, it's the entertainment industry, they are all insane." Yes, many are. So consider this; if you told someone you worked for Susan, people who worked for insane people would look and you and whisper, "I hear she's insane."
LIFE
Conviction | Patience
Conviction | Patience
@unseenvalue
H was always unseen in S2NL :)

Those who exited at 1500 needed money. They can always come back near 969. Those who exited at 230 also needed money. They can come back near 95.

Those who sold L @ 660 can always come back at 360. Those who sold S last week can be back @ 301
UVLEARNINGS