Paul Graham
Paul asked founders who he funded about what have surprised them the most:
Emotional roller-coasters are much more extreme
Persistence is key
Think Long term
Lots of little things
Start with something minimal: over-engineering is poison
Engage users
Determination with flexibility: Fast iteration is key
Don’t worry about competitors
Expect the worst with deals
Investors are clueless
You may have to play games
Luck is a big factor
The Value of community
You get no respect
Things change as you grow: Roles of founders
Don’t expect startup is like a job
Greg Mcadoo (Sequoia partner)
Economy doesn’t really affect the determination of entrepreneurs
Horrible economy headlines instead create innovation
- willing to try new things
- Often without choice
- especially trying to save money
- competition is less irrational
- landlords are ready to deal
- Everything is at fair price
- Recession rewards much more discipline
- Cash register Ringers: earn revenue early
- Committed Crew
Jason Fried (Founder of 37signals)
Bootstrapping- Day 1 bootstrapped company looks to make money, funded company looks to spend money
Practice making money, learn the art early
Funding is crap and an addiction
You can be as successful as you want to be on your own, don’t need others to anoint you
Best way to get feedback is to price it
Planning is Guessing
Useful > Innovative
Software has no edges
You can’t make just one thing
Apologize the right way: say sorry
Failure is not a rite of passage
Summary: Like last year, 37signals tries to debunk many glorious myths of being an entrepreneur. They are also big proponents of selling products for a price.
Chris Anderson (Chief Editor of Wired Magazine)
Freemium:
- Minority subsidize the majority
- Freeloaders cost little
- Free samples are the best marketing
- Multiple tiers of products
- Market segmentation
- Conversion = loyalty
Games: people will pay to save time, lower risk, things they love, status, if you make them
Feature Limited, Capacity Limited, Seat limited, Customer class limited
Summary: Talked about his freemium theory which is essentially different pricing structure with a free version for people to experiment. Quite applicable to the iphone platform and is what we're practicing with our PURI!
Paul Buchheit (founder of Friendfeed and gmail)
Limited life experience + Overgeneralization = Advice
Shared delusions in organizations if one works too long in it
Don’t be too comfortable
Way of internalizing knowledge is by trying and doing
Summary: Paul is obviously a brilliant entrepreneur. He had all the characteristics since he was young and his advice is to just do it and try things out because there isn't a formula to success and everyone has different background and circumstances.
Twitter (Evan Williams and Biz Stone)
So what if it’s just fun and not useful (think ice cream)?
The team likes the product and engages with it.
Engineering: Don’t go overly-clever
Make real effort of communication. Don’t assume you know what others are working on.
Advice they took is gut-checking
API is huge
Summary: Nothing too interesting here. They are probably hiding a lot of things that they couldn't share.
Mark Zuckerberg
Build an incentive structure to share information
Learnt from watching how people use the site
Went after the least receptive audience
A lot of mistakes could be overcome if you’re building something valuable
Management team has steadily evolved and improved
Focusing on technology culture
Google has a more academic culture
Facebook prides on building things fast, keeping a good engineer-user ratio etc.
Biggest risk you can take is to take no risk.
Be measured about doing things that are bold
He’s big on trends on openness and transparency
What tradeoffs are you willing to have to set the direction and values of the company?
Summary: First time listening to Mark speaking and I was impressed by his responses to most questions. He focused a lot on talking about Facebook culture and how it's different from that of Google. He's also big fan of iterating on both products and the management team.
Tony Hsieh (founder and CEO of Zappos)
Two books he recommended: Good to great, Tribal Leadership
Most parts of the talk are similar to the pitch that he gave at Stanford which I blogged some months ago.
What’s the larger vision and greater purpose in their work beyond money or profits?
Difference between Inspiration and Motivation
Don’t keep making compromises regarding hiring
Alignment: It doesn’t matter what your core values are…as long as you commit to them.
Vision and culture can inspire passion and purpose
Happiness: Perceived Control, Perceived Progress, Connectedness, Vision/Meaning
Types of Happiness: Pleasure/Rock Star (Chasing the next high), Passion/flow (Engagement- time flies), Higher purpose/Meaning (Being part of something bigger than yourself)
Summary: As usual, Tony loves talking about culture, vision and how Zappos could deliver Happiness to customers. This time, he has a little more analysis on Happiness and how we could break it down and analyze them.
Mark Pincus
- Control your destiny
- Aspire to be a great CEO
