Tren Griffin - A Dozen Lessons for Entrepreneurs
The only study of entrepreneurship you need beyond your own experiential education from doing it is to reconcile the insights you get from all angles so that you can triangulate your own approach to building a team, culture, and vision—and an enduring business that is both uniquely you and bigger than you
The best way to increase the odds that your team will see things you don’t is to assemble incredibly different incredible people
Outsized returns often come from betting against conventional wisdom, and conventional wisdom is usually right. Given a 10 percent chance of a one hundred–times payoff, you should take that bet every time. But you’re still going to be wrong nine times out of ten. We all know that if you swing for the fences, you’re going to strike out a lot, but you’re also going to hit some home runs. The difference between baseball and business, however, is that baseball has a truncated outcome distribution. When you swing, no matter how well you connect with the ball, the most runs you can get is four. In business, every once in a while, when you step up to the plate, you can score 1,000 runs. This long-tailed distribution of returns is why it’s important to be bold. Big winners pay for so many experiments
You have to be an independent thinker because you can’t make money agreeing with the consensus view, which is already embedded in the price. Whenever you’re betting against the consensus, there’s a significant probability you’re going to be wrong, so you have to be humble
A business is no longer a startup once it has a repeatable and scalable business model. Blank has said that that once a business is no longer a startup, it may begin to develop “antibodies,” which stifle the development of new products and services, as well as new business models. There is an inherent tension between the creation of new, repeatable, scalable business models and the optimal execution of an existing business model, because superior execution often involves eliminating anything not core to the mission of the existing model
of the best business books on what it is like to actually run a business is Shoe Dog, written by Phil Knight, which chronicles the story of Nike
One of the best business books on what it is like to actually run a business is Shoe Dog, written by Phil Knight, which chronicles the story of Nike
Blank has developed what he calls a Customer-Development Process, based on the idea that startups should apply the scientific method just as scientists do: Start with a hypothesis, test it, and prove it—or move on to further iterations of the hypothesis if it proves incorrect.
Tags: #biology #business #evolution
The best founders, CEOs, managers, and engineers spend massive amounts of time with their customers. They do so because they love their products and want to share this love with others
Founders see a vision, but then they manage to attract a set of world-class employees to help them create that vision.
My observation was that once a person actually completed a play or a novel, he was well on his way to getting it produced or published, as opposed to a vast majority of people who tell me their ambition is to write, but who strike out on the very first level and indeed never write the play or book. In the midst of the conversation, as I’m now trying to recall, I did say that 80 percent of success is showing up.
Nassim Taleb writes, “Most of you will fail, disrespected, impoverished, but we are grateful for the risks you are taking and the sacrifices you are making for the sake of the economic growth of the planet and pulling others out of poverty. You are the source of our antifragility. Our nation thanks you.” Being
Nassim Taleb writes, “Most of you will fail, disrespected, impoverished, but we are grateful for the risks you are taking and the sacrifices you are making for the sake of the economic growth of the planet and pulling others out of poverty. You are the source of our antifragility. Our nation thanks you.
Tags: #business
The background of the founders and CEO makes a huge difference in terms of which discipline is predominant in a given business. It is evident which discipline Campbell thinks should dominate: engineering
Great CEOs and managers today have many skills and are learning machines
Great salespeople in the modern era are consultants to the customer and help them first justify the purchase and then succeed with the product
best CEOs and founders have learned that trying to predict the future is vastly inferior to discovering what customers want by running experiments with real customers using methods based on the scientific method
The best CEOs and founders have learned that trying to predict the future is vastly inferior to discovering what customers want by running experiments with real customers using methods based on the scientific method
Great entrepreneurs are persistent, obsessive, and relentless, but the really great entrepreneurs also seem to have a gift for looking at the world from a customer’s viewpoint
The minimum viable product is that product which has just those features (and no more) that allow you to ship a product that resonates with early adopters, some of whom will pay you money or give you feedback. The lesson of the MVP is that any additional work beyond what was required to start learning is waste, no matter how important it might have seemed at the time.”
As you consider building your own minimum viable product, let this simple rule suffice: Remove any feature, process, or effort that does not contribute directly to the learning you seek. If you want to do minimum viable product, you have to be prepared to iterate. And so you have to have the courage to say, “Yeah, we’ll ship something, get negative feedback, and respond
The best companies are almost always mission oriented.
Tags: #wealth #business
Passion and a mission are more likely to exist if a business is providing solutions to problems that cause the founders personal pain. In other words, a deep understanding of a valuable customer problem and potential solutions to that problem is enhanced if the founders are themselves potential customers for the solution
the beginning, you should only hire when you have a desperate need to.
“At the beginning, you should only hire when you have a desperate need to.
Tags: #business
Experienced venture capitalists are looking for evidence that founders have strong sales skills. One early test of a these skills is how well a founder performs when making a fundraising pitch. The idea is simple: If the entrepreneur can’t sell the idea to a venture capitalist, how is he or she going to be able to recruit great people, sell the product, and find great distribution? The ability to sell the product to investors, sell the potential of the business to employees
Experienced venture capitalists are looking for evidence that founders have strong sales skills. One early test of a these skills is how well a founder performs when making a fundraising pitch. The idea is simple: If the entrepreneur can’t sell the idea to a venture capitalist, how is he or she going to be able to recruit great people, sell the product, and find great distribution? The ability to sell the product to investors, sell the potential of the business to employees, and then to sell the product to customers is core to any business
What founders should seek when their business is at seed stage is a lead professional investor who can add more than just capital. What do I mean by the professional investor? Professional investors are more than just wealthy, well-connected individuals. They can help founders solve real business problems, rather than just write checks
Ten years ago, you needed 70 and some coding skills.”
Too much money can distract a young business from focusing on what is necessary to become a successful company. Businesses do not die from starvation alone—they can just as easily die from indigestion
Find me a provocative topic, and I’ll show you something you don’t have to spend a lot of marketing dollars to launch. People like to be provoked, and if you are provoking with information that is on the side of the angels, on the side of the consumer, the louder the industry reacts. And they just can’t win. It’s the greatest way to market
Ideas are necessary but not sufficient for success with a startup. The idea itself will inevitably evolve as time passes and the environment changes. Barton is saying that executing is more difficult than generating a good idea. Establishing a team to build the product, finding the correct product–market fit, and scaling the business are all challenging tasks
are necessary but not sufficient for success with a startup. The idea itself will inevitably evolve as time passes and the environment changes. Barton is saying that executing is more difficult than generating a good idea. Establishing a team to build the product, finding the correct product–market fit, and scaling the business are all challenging tasks
Great leaders need three key attributes to successfully execute: brains, courage, and heart
Surround yourself with superstars. And not just the people you choose to work with. That’s really important. But the people you raise money from as well. Surround yourself with superstars, and everything else takes care of itself. Whenever in my career I’ve compromised because I’ve had a short-term itch I needed to scratch—and I just had to hire somebody—it’s been a mistake. And I’ve regretted it. It’s hard to get rid of the (poor) performers. Surround yourself with superstars. They hire superstars
Surround yourself with superstars. And not just the people you choose to work with. That’s really important. But the people you raise money from as well. Surround yourself with superstars, and everything else takes care of itself. Whenever in my career I’ve compromised because I’ve had a short-term itch I needed to scratch—and I just had to hire somebody—it’s been a mistake. And I’ve regretted it. It’s hard to get rid of the (poor) performers. Surround yourself with superstars
Rather than just raising cash as they grow their businesses, the smartest entrepreneurs select venture capitalists who can deliver valuable services. The best venture capitalists have access to the best networks, which further amplifies their value.
Tags: #business
The most successful companies tend to concentrate on serving a market where there is not a lot of competition or on inventing a new market. This allows the business to grow faster and to possibly generate a strong base from which to expand into adjacent markets. This is a variant of a “land-and-expand” strategy
suggests that it’s very often the case that the second or third mover ends up winning. Sometimes it pays to let someone else create a market and be the second or third entrant. That was true in the spreadsheet business with Lotus. That was true in the personal computing business with Dell, true in the router business with Cisco; and true in the operating system business with Microsoft
history of technology businesses, as well as many others, suggests that it’s very often the case that the second or third mover ends up winning. Sometimes it pays to let someone else create a market and be the second or third entrant. That was true in the spreadsheet business with Lotus. That was true in the personal computing business with Dell, true in the router business with Cisco; and true in the operating system business with Microsoft
The history of technology businesses, as well as many others, suggests that it’s very often the case that the second or third mover ends up winning. Sometimes it pays to let someone else create a market and be the second or third entrant. That was true in the spreadsheet business with Lotus. That was true in the personal computing business with Dell, true in the router business with Cisco.
The history of technology businesses, as well as many others, suggests that it’s very often the case that the second or third mover ends up winning. Sometimes it pays to let someone else create a market and be the second or third entrant. That was true in the spreadsheet business with Lotus. That was true in the personal computing business with Dell, true in the router business with Cisco; and true in the operating system business with Microsoft
The great entrepreneurs have found they need to find complements. If you look at yourself and reflect on your skills and your talents and your unique abilities, you’ll find that everybody has their gaps.
Tags: #personal growth #rationality #business #favorite
A lot of the entrepreneurs I work with, I encourage to get rid of the PowerPoint. A typical board meeting will have thirty to sixty PowerPoint slides. So, I ask entrepreneurs I work with to think about that as a Word document, and can you reduce it down to something we can read before the board meeting, so we don’t sit there looking at slides for three hours.