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Startup Playbook

playbook.samaltman.com

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Re: Startup Playbook

#51

Post by libertymcateer »

jhchen wrote: post #47
CountdownGraph wrote: post #31

I have a really hard time buying a lot of this about how novelty and monopoly are keys to a successful company. If you look at the really successful startups, especially unicorns, almost none of them are actually monopolies or new ideas. The vast, vast majority are old products done right, and almost all of them have very substantial competition. This attitude is, in fact, encompassed in the near footnote-like sectio…

Novel does not mean no competition--there's always competition, even for breakthrough technologies. Even the telephone had to compete with telegraphs or snail mail. The novelty comes in the way an existing need is met. From your list, Uber competes against taxis to transport people short distances. Airbnb competes against hotels to provide short term housing to travelers. Dropbox competed against flash drive to trans…

You make a fair point, and I also do appreciate the definition used by Sam in his post, which was (the site is now down) about network effects compounding the bigger you get, and creative a positive feedback loop. I buy that definition, sure, and I get your comment. However, what I take issue with is funneling tons of smart minds into a quest for green-field or blue-ocean opportunities. There are tons of huge opportunities in existing businesses. I guess I don't understand how we got from "disruption" to "find a business with no competition."

Re: Startup Playbook

#52

Post by ska »

vdaniuk wrote: post #49
ska wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that, I mean product-based businesses with at most a few million in revenue, a 5ish person team, a solid sustainable market position, and no desire to revolutionize any unicorns. I believe this used to just be called "a small business". Not a terribly new idea, but being rediscovered perhaps by tech people?

A small business is fundamentally different from lifestyle tech business or a bootstrap. There could be hundreds and thousands of small businesses, say in a certain FMCG market in different local ares. A tech market with hundreds or thousands product businesses catering to a same target audience, probably, doesn't exist at all. Product companies tend to either grow or whither. Centralization is the norm. Building a l…

I was reacting to the definition of "lifestyle business" not the label.

I don't think passive income is needed at all, I think "lifestyle business" is a useful definition for making tradeoffs in your business decisions in favor of your lifestyle.

e.g. setting up a consulting business in a small coastal town because you like to surf every morning, even though it costs you potential business. To my mind, that's certainly a "lifestyle business".

Doing this with a product business is harder but not impossible.

Re: Startup Playbook

#54

Post by Bouncingsoul1 »

"One important counterintuitive reason for this is that it’s easier to do something new and hard than something derivative and easy. People will want to help you and join you if it’s the former; they will not if it’s the latter." So Google didn't invent the Internet Search it was a derivative but not easy. Facebook didn't invent the SocialNetwork and actually made it easier than e.g. MySpace. Amazon was not the first online retailer but made it better, more reliable. WhatsApp? we knew how to send textmessages for a while but well they made it more convient. So a good idea must not be something unique new but something which makes the product better than the rest.

Re: Startup Playbook

#55

Post by joshmlewis »

ilurk wrote: post #20
sama wrote: post #4

(This got published a little early because it got indexed. I'm still going through and fixing some typos and will maybe add a few other things.)

I'm just curious. Does the playbook have any game-changing ideas from what was told at the Startup Class videos? And BTW, thanks for all the info YC has been putting out there for free.

This seems to be most of the content found in the Startup Class videos in written form.

Re: Startup Playbook

#56

Post by drewrv »

m_fayer wrote: post #36

I wish there was a similar level and quality of resources for what I think are called lifestyle businesses. By that, I mean product-based businesses with at most a few million in revenue, a 5ish person team, a solid sustainable market position, and no desire to revolutionize any unicorns. I know a lot of people attempting this and they mostly seem to be flying under the radar, or at least have nowhere near the cachet…

You'd probably like "Start Small Stay Small" by Rob Walling.

http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching/...

Re: Startup Playbook

#57

Post by jhchen »

libertymcateer wrote: post #51
jhchen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Novel does not mean no competition--there's always competition, even for breakthrough technologies. Even the telephone had to compete with telegraphs or snail mail. The novelty comes in the way an existing need is met. From your list, Uber competes against taxis to transport people short distances. Airbnb competes against hotels to provide short term housing to travelers. Dropbox competed against flash drive to trans…

You make a fair point, and I also do appreciate the definition used by Sam in his post, which was (the site is now down) about network effects compounding the bigger you get, and creative a positive feedback loop. I buy that definition, sure, and I get your comment. However, what I take issue with is funneling tons of smart minds into a quest for green-field or blue-ocean opportunities. There are tons of huge opportu…

My thoughts on why is pure conjecture but I'll add that there are many such common misunderstandings. Chasing growth is another, which is why I'm very happy for this Startup Playbook. So many people do do not realize growth is STEP TWO AND YOU CANNOT SKIP STEP ONE:

"Your goal as a startup is to make something users love. If you do that, then you have to figure out how to get a lot more users. But this first part is critical—think about the really successful companies of today. They all started with a product that their early users loved so much they told other people about it. If you fail to do this, you will fail. If you deceive yourself and think your users love your product when they don’t, you will still fail.

The startup graveyard is littered with people who thought they could skip this step."

Re: Startup Playbook

#58

Post by joshmlewis »

sethd wrote: post #40
gkoberger wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Sam Altman – Y Combinator President * Paul Buchheit - YC Partner, Gmail founder * Erica Carpenter - Y Combinator * Brian Chesky - AirBnb * Adam D’Angelo – Quora, ex-CTO of FB * Drew Houston – Dropbox founder * Justin Kan – YC Partner, Twitch, Justin.tv, Socialcam * Matt Krisiloff – Y Combinator * Aaron Levie – Box founder * Gabriel Leydon – Machine Zone founder * Jessica Livingston – YC Founder * Dustin Moskovitz –…

"Gmail founder" sounds a little funny to me. If I am employed as a developer in a company on a new product, am I then a founder of that product? It just seems like the word founder just keeps being used more liberally as time goes on.

I think it's appropriate in this case. Paul started Gmail inside of Google as a side project. At first most people were not a supporter, including Marissa Mayer and other peers. He was scratching an itch though and eventually got Larry and Sergey on board which helped the cause and eventually grew into what it is today.

So with that, there are a lot of similarities into what we'd call a founder today. While financially there wasn't a big risk, it was still a product he was passionate about and created from nothing.

Re: Startup Playbook

#59

Post by IanMikutel »

revorad wrote: post #33
sama wrote: post #4

(This got published a little early because it got indexed. I'm still going through and fixing some typos and will maybe add a few other things.)

Can you please get the designer of this playbook and ycombinator.com to redesign HN too?

And Craigslist. And ReadMe.io.

Re: Startup Playbook

#60

Post by vonmoltke »

vdaniuk wrote: post #49
ska wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that, I mean product-based businesses with at most a few million in revenue, a 5ish person team, a solid sustainable market position, and no desire to revolutionize any unicorns. I believe this used to just be called "a small business". Not a terribly new idea, but being rediscovered perhaps by tech people?

A small business is fundamentally different from lifestyle tech business or a bootstrap. There could be hundreds and thousands of small businesses, say in a certain FMCG market in different local ares. A tech market with hundreds or thousands product businesses catering to a same target audience, probably, doesn't exist at all. Product companies tend to either grow or whither. Centralization is the norm. Building a l…

> There could be hundreds and thousands of small businesses, say in a certain FMCG market in different local ares. A tech market with hundreds or thousands product businesses catering to a same target audience, probably, doesn't exist at all. Product companies tend to either grow or whither. Centralization is the norm.

Each local area is a separate market. Those types of businesses have limited geographical range, and a given range can only support a handful in a specific segment. For a technology business, the market is usually not limited by geography. Fundamentally, it is the same principal: a given market can only support a limited number of players.

Now, the size of the market may preclude traditional small business growth models. It depends on how tied to locality a particular business idea is. I could see, for instance, something like Homejoy working on the scale of a single metro area. In fact, having dozens of metro-area-sized Homejoys might actually work better than a single, national incarnation.

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