91–100 of 119 posts
It's got more to do with a weak back, actually. Folk with strong backs can lift very heavy weights safely.
In terms of the analogy, I dunno what I'm saying. Just fulfilling my HN nitpick quota.
It makes perfect sense to me why investors would want to know who else is investing, for a number of reasons. For one, standing on the sidelines knowing that most startups will fail is not a reasonable strategy. This is because some startups, no matter how unlikely, will succeed, and some VC will, despite our better judgment, have invested in them. If other VC deliver higher value for their clients than we do for ours because we cautiously and prudently stand on the sidelines, then we stand to lose the confidence of our clients.
But I do not understand why anyone would rely on the statements of founders to determine who else may or may not be on board as investors.
"Founders think of startups as ideas, but investors think of them as markets. If there are x number of customers who'd pay an average of $y per year for what you're making, then the total addressable market, or TAM, of your company is $xy. Investors don't expect you to collect all that money, but it's an upper bound on how big you can get." I would really love some more color on this. What about a product that addres…
Genuinely new markets are really rare. They do happen -- VMWare was a great example. But they are few and far between. This is why lack of competition is often scary to potential investors -- paradoxically -- they ask themselves, how attractive can this supposed new market be if there are no other companies going after it? The advanced way to do market analysis -- which only the most experienced entrepreneurs ever ac…
Identify value to the customer first.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
understand that even the best investors have to pay heed to the Pattern because it tells you when things are different. it is very, very hard to evaluate, from scratch, every opportunity that comes your way. (I myself have been pitched a thousand+ times. Augh.) the Pattern is helpful because it is the differences that make companies succeed or fail; bad investors automatically think that differences from the Pattern…
Virtually all of the breakthrough conceptual innovators in any field (music and art, to name two) also have comprehensive knowledge of all of the creative work that came before them. It's really rare to get the big breakthrough out of someone who isn't obsessively steeped in the field.
"Why do founders persist in trying to convince investors of things they're not convinced of themselves?" This line hit home with me. Applies perfectly to job interviews.
"Inexperienced founders... try to convince with their pitch. Most would be better off if they let their startup do the work—if they started by understanding why their startup is worth investing in, then simply explained this well to investors." This advice applies to many things in life -- getting a job, proposing marriage, networking in general. For instance, I've occasionally met people who obsess about crafting th…
I feel like this may be a tech-centric phenomenon, unfortunately. In a lot of industries, omitting the right keyword from your CV will exclude you from interviews.
My man on the inside said that it wasn't so much that this one thing killed the prospects, but that it caused enough uncertainty that the decision was delayed... during which time they decided to go another way.
I wrote something similar today, only I called it "When the Sh-t Hits the Fan with Your Startup": http://www.erica.biz/2013/startup/ In the post, I wrote: I firmly believe no outside problem (running out of money; struggling to pay bills) can’t be fixed by looking inside yourself and becoming a better, stronger person. That may sound sort of cheesy and "self-help-y", but for me it was transformative. I had to have in…
PG's advice reminds me of a story from Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! . Feynman relates how his first (!) scientific talk (as a graduate student at Princeton) was attended by such luminaries as Eugene Wigner, Wolfgang Pauli, Albert Einstein, and John von Neumann. We was terrifically nervous, but discovered that as soon as he started giving the talk his nervousness melted away—he was too focused on the physics to…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like this may be a tech-centric phenomenon, unfortunately. In a lot of industries, omitting the right keyword from your CV will exclude you from interviews. Thing is, past the first N years of your career, your CV / resume doesn't (or shouldn't) matter much. Ideally, you are connected to important people in your industry, who know what your work (or portfolio) is, and what you are best suited to do. In such a…
Some people do great work but aren't connected to others. They don't immerse themselves in their field, they aren't vocal publishers or active members of organizations.