This one is absolutely phenomenal. There is a clarity and precision of thinking about things that too often are very vague and ambiguous.
Lecture 6: How to Start a Startup
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Re: Lecture 6: How to Start a Startup
#32Enjoyed the talk. Key takeaway for me was the need for explicit sequencing of product market fit and growth hacking (i.e, don’t bother with growth hacking if you don’t have PM fit). I suppose it is obvious intuitively, but demonstrating PM fit via retention metrics (“make sure your retention flat lines at the appropriate level”) was an interesting take. It can be easy to create work and activity doing growth hacking…
Obvious as it seems, I never got a good answer like that from "experts" about how to define PM fit.
There were those guys talking about lean startup, measure everything and stuff; but when come to this crutial question they were all "well, you will know when you have PM fit" or an arbitrary question with an arbitrary answer "ask your clients how disappointed they would be if your startup would shut down now; if 60% answer very disappointed, you have PM fit".
So, similar key takeaway for me: "It is easy to be wrong about having Porduct/Market fit. Make sure your retention flat lines at the appropriate level."
Re: Lecture 6: How to Start a Startup
#33A very very well delivered lecture. I love that YC is taking a stance against buzzwords like growth hacking, and getting startups to look maniacally at building a solid product that gets to product/market fit quickly. Seems pretty consistent across lectures from PG, Peter Thiel and now Alex as well.
And much like the other lectures, here are 24 quotes from Alex's lecture worth remembering: https://medium.com/how-to-start-a-startup/24-quotes-from-ale...
Re: Lecture 6: How to Start a Startup
#34This talk is quality. Honestly, the others seem to just be rehashed lectures about pg's essays or YC related essays from other partners.
Re: Lecture 6: How to Start a Startup
#35From my perspective what this series of very good lectures has triggered is a common introspective conversation, here in the comments section, that far outweighs the content of the lectures in value.
There is some very smart, intuitive and perceptive people hanging out here; I wish there was an even better algorithm to make these stand out.
Noise is the curse of a community (such as HN, slashdot, reddit -- any social circle come to think of it) as it get more popular; everyone has a different view of what is hacking, startups and noise, as the community broadens the focus dissolves.
This series has drawn out very good reflexion, IMHO.
Re: Lecture 6: How to Start a Startup
#36From my perspective what this series of very good lectures has triggered is a common introspective conversation, here in the comments section, that far outweighs the content of the lectures in value. There is some very smart, intuitive and perceptive people hanging out here; I wish there was an even better algorithm to make these stand out. Noise is the curse of a community (such as HN, slashdot, reddit -- any social…
I find HackerNews pretty good at highlighting the best content in non-flamewar articles. What I mean is that if the article isn't anything to do with the big tech companies we will get good discussions and people will up/downvote rationally. Whenever Apple/Google/Facebook etc. are mentioned the fanbois come out.
Re: Lecture 6: How to Start a Startup
#37I still haven't got my head around the 'growth' thing is how is it applicable to software/hardware startups that are NOT developing products for mass market.
For example, if someone in telecom industry creates a product that can only be sold to operators. The time it takes to convert an engagement can be upwards of 6 months. In such cases, what would be a good growth metric with which to measure your progress?
Now, we can chose not to call such companies startups but that doesn't solve the problem.
I am sure there are many knowledgeable people on this thread who can provide some insights here. Any pointers to read will also help.
Re: Lecture 6: How to Start a Startup
#38I still haven't got my head around the 'growth' thing is how is it applicable to software/hardware startups that are NOT developing products for mass market. For example, if someone in telecom industry creates a product that can only be sold to operators. The time it takes to convert an engagement can be upwards of 6 months. In such cases, what would be a good growth metric with which to measure your progress? Now, w…
backlog (can be applied to sales & implementation pipelines)
Re: Lecture 6: How to Start a Startup
#39I still haven't got my head around the 'growth' thing is how is it applicable to software/hardware startups that are NOT developing products for mass market. For example, if someone in telecom industry creates a product that can only be sold to operators. The time it takes to convert an engagement can be upwards of 6 months. In such cases, what would be a good growth metric with which to measure your progress? Now, w…
Its very different as you mention. "Growth" in the sense that its talked about here only really applies to products with many feedback cycles where iteration is possible (not hardware). For products with longer sales cycles its generally based on more traditional sales metrics, measuring where people are in your sales funnel and conversion between sales funnel steps.
Re: Lecture 6: How to Start a Startup
#40I still haven't got my head around the 'growth' thing is how is it applicable to software/hardware startups that are NOT developing products for mass market. For example, if someone in telecom industry creates a product that can only be sold to operators. The time it takes to convert an engagement can be upwards of 6 months. In such cases, what would be a good growth metric with which to measure your progress? Now, w…
I've been a manager working for telco companies so I know a bit about it. Usually the backlog is a good metric but it works from when you have already sold the product.
Usually to assess what happens before the sales team is asked to assess the probability of closing the deal and discount the deal size by that probability. An increase of the scope (and of the total value) or of the probability to close the deal represents your metric.
It is not very scientific but could be made pretty accurate. E.g: you know the price of your product and how much you are willing to give a discount in order to close the deal. Also, even if negotiation, especially with big companies, could be unpredictable, it is usually done in steps and each steps closer means an higher chance of success. A possible sequence of steps is:
- RFI received.
- RFI answered.
- Q&A and first meeting
- Follows Up
- RFP received
- RFP answered
- First round of Q&A/meetings
- Short Listed
- Second round of Q&A/meetings
- Product demo
- Final negotiation (usually price and conditions)
This is the process for RFI, there's a different one (and a little bit more complex) for "cold calls" that probably is more applicable to startups. Obviously some steps are optional and the names could changes but this is how it works.
Just a final note, though. If you are a startup in B2B avoid, at the beginning at least, big corporation as client if you can. They have a huge negotiation power, they will drive down your price like crazy and being your biggest client they will use their force to ask you a lot of extra work than the one negotiated. You will end up loosing a lot of money on the deal and also you will have little ability to follows other deals. Yes, they are useful to qualify for other clients and if you lock them in they could be quite profitable, but unless you have deep pocket they will crash your company.