1/ Throughout my startup career, I’ve seen many founders have an aversion to sales. This is a mistake that can kill your startup.
More from Justin Kan
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.
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.
1/ What is \u201cproduct/market fit\u201d? I\u2019m not sure I can give you a definition. But maybe I can share what the subjective difference is in how it feels when you have it and when you don\u2019t. Founding a startup is deciding to take on the burden of Sisyphus: pushing a boulder up a hill.
— Emmett Shear (@eshear) July 27, 2019
More from Startups
if you are a software engineer, this is your call to arms 👇
when we put our Fast Checkout button on websites LOTS of people start using it to buy things
our goal is to put out Fast button on EVERY website in the world
the speed of our growth is primarily limited by our engineering resources
we already have some of the best in the world, our VP of engineering built much of Apples identity infrastructure before building Uber's new commerce stack
we engineers who have spent decades among the earliest engineers at LinkedIn, Nest, Google, Cisco, Lyft, Uber & more
our team have built identity, commerce and payment systems that support BILLIONS of people, and they are now building the next platform to do that: @fast
we have a chance to fix commerce, to fix the way the internet works, for BILLIONS of people
we need more help, we need your help
there is not often an opportunity as big as this, make the best career decision of your life and get ready for huge professional growth
reach out to us:
@domm @PeterGrassi1
[email protected]
[email protected]
let me pitch why you need to join 🚀
when we put our Fast Checkout button on websites LOTS of people start using it to buy things
our goal is to put out Fast button on EVERY website in the world
the speed of our growth is primarily limited by our engineering resources
we already have some of the best in the world, our VP of engineering built much of Apples identity infrastructure before building Uber's new commerce stack
we engineers who have spent decades among the earliest engineers at LinkedIn, Nest, Google, Cisco, Lyft, Uber & more
our team have built identity, commerce and payment systems that support BILLIONS of people, and they are now building the next platform to do that: @fast
we have a chance to fix commerce, to fix the way the internet works, for BILLIONS of people
we need more help, we need your help
there is not often an opportunity as big as this, make the best career decision of your life and get ready for huge professional growth
reach out to us:
@domm @PeterGrassi1
[email protected]
[email protected]
let me pitch why you need to join 🚀
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The entire discussion around Facebook’s disclosures of what happened in 2016 is very frustrating. No exec stopped any investigations, but there were a lot of heated discussions about what to publish and when.
In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.
In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.
This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.
In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.
The story doesn\u2019t say you were told not to... it says you did so without approval and they tried to obfuscate what you found. Is that true?
— Sarah Frier (@sarahfrier) November 15, 2018
In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.
In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.
This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.
In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.
