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How to think like a startupLoic Le Meur
How do startup entrepreneurs find ideas?
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few”
- Shunryu Suzuki
Meditation and mindfulness is popular in Silicon Valley and now in Davos
Provide benefit to the customer - anything else is a waste
Learning to see waste and then systematically eliminate it
“I am still learning.”
- Michelangelo, at age 87
Airbnb started because of a shortage of hotel rooms in San Francisco
Uber started because of a shortage of cabs in Paris
Ryan Hoover, Product Hunt
Started just from an email list
Gathered a small community of people addicted to new products
Naval Ravikant, Angel List
Weekly email of curated angel investors
Craig Newmark, Craigslist
Request and Gives from Craig’s friends
Jamie Siminoff, Ring
Tried 3 different ideas in his garage
Struggled to find initial funding
Now approaching 1,000 employees
Create an environment for creativity - Further future
Create an environment for creativity
Create an environment for creativity
Create an environment for creativity
Create an environment for creativity
Millennials don’t want to own anything and care about improving the world
Improve the world
“I just wanted more electric cars on the road”
- Elon Musk
“Make the world better”
“All business should make the world better”
- Leila JanahLXMI
They don’t care about copying ...and making it better
Instagram stories and Snapchat stories
Snap's Spectacles are the beginning of camera-first future
SV entrepreneurs surround themselves with investors who provide more than $
Teams are remote, own the business and don’t feel like employees
Mix of highly experimented professionals and very creative millennials
Matthew Mansfield
Dami Dina
Kevin Wolf
Jean-Jacques Borie
“We’re too slow and too old in this company”
SV entrepreneurs launch their product really fast
"If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late"
- Reid Hoffman
Entrepreneurs iterate quickly
Entrepreneurs break the rules
Travis Kalanick and Uber got sued non stop but kept going
Uber and Airbnb were illegal from day one in many places but kept operating
Entrepreneurs make everything transparent
Even your own company is rated
Entrepreneurs acknowledge issues and respond quickly
Elon Musk turns a tweet into a company wide change in 6 days
Elon Musk turns a tweet into a company wide change in 6 days
#1 Advantage of a start up... Speed
“We’re going in full throttle. That ought to keep those fighters off our back.”
- Luke Skywalker
Speed is the #1 competitive weapon
Rapid product beats competition
Rapid results builds team morale which leads to more success
Rapid results generate more interest
Rapid results increases valuation
(NFX Guild)
Always keep momentum.
- Henry Ford
The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.
Set the time, not the output
What product can I build in:
3 months? (Directhit, Xfire)
8 days? (Hot or Not)
30 days? (Jiff)
1 month? (Meerkat)
(NFX Guild)
Twitter’s MVP
Linkedin’s MVP
Facebook’s MVP
Google’s MVP
How startups win
No QA
No Usability Studies
No Focus Groups
No Politics
No Endless Debates
No Board of Directors
No Bus Dev Deals
No PR
No Marketing Spend
No Budgeting Process
(NFX Guild)
“At Google X, we embrace failure.”
- Astro Teller
Most Startups Fail
Entrepreneurs fail fast
And pivot
Startups ranked by number of years from founding to $1 billion valuation
Flickr should have built Instagram but they did not move fast enough
Entrepreneurs work with an ecosystem of developers
Twitter decided developers weren’t so important anymore
Entrepreneurs Embrace wikipedia style volunteer collaboration
Slush and their 2,200 volunteers
Entrepreneurs challenge the current players by re-inventing the modelMetromile charges insurance protection per mile
Entrepreneurs constantly reinvent their businessUber selling data
Tesla next?
Thanks!Loic Le Meur
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