BC STARTUPS
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👇 Thread. New deck getting published this week: "Consumer startups are awesome, and here's what I'm looking to invest in at Andreessen Horowitz." If you want to read it, subscribe to my newsletter here: https://t.co/262t8eh0wf

 1/ A lot of new consumer technologies have been introduced to US households in the last 100 years. But it's taken many of them - like the telephone - more than 50 years to get to the majority of the US. Why is that?
2/ We had to literally teach people how to use phone. Which end goes to your mouth, which goes to your ear. Say "hello" when people call. The motivation of consumers to talk to their friends has always been there, but we had to teach the behavior
3/ If you compare phones to the latest technologies, there's been a huge shift. Things are being picked up much faster.
4/ Even while there's been all this innovation recently, physically speaking, we are still the same human beings from 100,000 years ago.
5/ We are the same humans who painted on cave walls because we love creativity. We are the same humans who built theaters because we love to be entertained. We took selfies as soon as the technology allowed. And we've always loved scooters.
6/ Technology changes, but people stay the same. And at the intersection of that, when startups find growth hacks that get them going with a killer product, something magical can happen.
7/ I have a bunch of case studies. First, the car industry in the 1900s, and the Michelin Guide. Second, the US postal service and the first chain letters. And third, the invention of toothpaste, CPGs, and how to solve the chicken and egg.
8/ (I'll unpack these in the actual essay. But here are some cool pictures)
9/ And for these historical case studies, I talk about their modern antecedents - what does modern content marketing look like, for Michelin? Chain letters are kind of like referral programs in their mechanics. And how do you think about bootstrapping marketplaces today?
10/ Ultimately, it's all about tying all of these ideas today. 1) A killer new product enabled by an emerging technology or platform. 2) Pre-existing consumer motivations. 3) An insight on growth to kick it off
11/ I run through a bunch of emerging platforms/tech that's interesting to me, and then deep dive on two areas where I'm in particular excited. (Again, actual details in the thing I'll publish)
12/ Two visuals I want to share from the section of the deep dive though - which fascinate me and where I'm digging in...
13/ First, check out this amazing graph on the number of live viewers of Riot's @LeagueOfLegends (100M+!) versus Wimbledon (9.4M). Wow.
14/ Second, check out this amazing photo of tens of thousands of people at a Pokemon Go event walking around, looking to catch them all.
15/ Hope you enjoy the deck - will be publishing it shortly! As I mentioned, please subscribe to my newsletter here to make sure you get it: https://t.co/tzmBSVaMDd
PS. Worth mentioning that this is kind of the qualitative mirror of the quantitative approach that I published here - "The red flags and magic numbers that investors look for in your startup’s metrics": https://t.co/CGR2Mf3mX5
Ultimately you have to believe there's a breakthrough, an insight, a story about why a particular new startup is going to succeed. And so the deck I'm publishing this week is about some of those soft factors that come into play when looking at a new product
However, once you get interested, then you use metrics and frameworks to check that your intuition is in the right place. There are plenty of new products that have a great story, but have terrible metrics. You want to really make sure you understand what's up
That's why analyzing things like acquisition channels becomes so important: https://t.co/5f0m5qZI7B. If a product is supposedly so cool everyone's telling their friends, but 80% of new users are coming from ads, that's a problem
Ultimately you need both. A great story and vision for the business. And metrics that are real. I think you can probably invest in a company if you have one of those two things, but if you have both of those things, it's magical.
UPDATE: It's been published! Here it is: https://t.co/q4ONJn8c8g

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We found 6 startups that are growing way faster than everyone else.

We figured out their unconventional growth tactics.

This thread walks you through how to repeat them for yourself.

1/6 Experiment with timing.

Here's a clever example:

@brooklinen "leaked" a time-bounded discount and had one of their *best* revenue days of the year.

Great startups experiment not only with copy/creative, but also framing.


2/6 Get people to FEEL the problem your startup solves.

Here’s how Muzzle (notification hiding tool) uses their site to visualize the problem:

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3/6 Poach potential customers from competitors:

• Create landing pages that compare you against them
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Then, when people search for you versus your competitors, you'll show up on the Google results page.


4/6 Improve your attribution.

It's often unclear what drives a purchase.

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• Add a post-purchase survey asking customers how they found you
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Just finished @ryanckulp’s new course “How to Buy, Grow, and Sell Small Companies”

https://t.co/wcX0zFXHgL

Here are some main takeaways + my verdict 👇

(1) Acquisition is the easiest path to entrepreneurship

Don’t have an idea? You don’t have to have one. Buy one.

Don’t know how to code? You don’t have to. Use revenue to outsource development.

Don’t have money? You don’t have to have any. Bring in an equity partner. Leverage a debt from family/friends, tech lender, or even the seller.

Capital is not an excuse.

(2) Acquiring has a few distinct advantages to building

Namely:
- Validated demand
- Leverage debt/equity partners
- Focus on going from 1-10, not 0-1

Validate demand:

Acquiring a business that has paying customers saves you the time and energy you would have spent trying to figure out if there was demand for it in the first place.

Acquiring skips that step altogether.
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Julian Shapiro
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14 steps for acquiring your startup's first customers:

1. Pay to interview people who've successfully grown a startup like yours. You can find them via LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

2. Ask them which 3 channels (ads, SEO, etc.) you should prioritize for acquiring customers.

3. Ask for examples of companies who run these channels well.

Some channels to ask about:

• PR
• Ads
• SEO
• Influencers
• Sponsorships
• Organic social
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• In-depth content
• Referral incentives
• Product-led invites (think Slack, Zoom, Dropbox)

4. Reverse-engineer how those companies run their channels well:

A. Map each step the customer takes between the channel and becoming a happy customer.

B. Study what makes each step great: its pitch, its design, and its user experience.

Here's an example of steps.

• Someone sees your Facebook ad ← Channel
• They visit your page
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(Tools like Ahrefs + FB Ad Library show you competitors' ads and landing pages!)
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Nobody talks about failure in Silicon Valley, yet 90% of startups fail.

Why?

3 yrs ago, @neerajberry and I shut down @Sprig, which raised $60M from @GreylockVC + @socialcapital & grew to $20m revenue.

Then, it all fell apart.

For an honest story about failure,

**Read on**

In 2013, I was @lyft, envious of how fast it was growing!

What about @lyft for food?

We looked @Postmates + thought:
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- it took forever (1hr)
- too expensive

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3 taps and $15 for a healthy meal delivered in 15 min

To make it possible, we had to run the restaurant ourselves; it would be expensive but worth it

We recruited @n8keller, Morgan Springer + @mattkent as founders

We launched and had immediate success. The buzz was unbelievable. Within months we were on track to do $1M revenue/year.

Our Series A was a hot round. I did 4 partner meetings on the same day. Raised $10M.

Great investors, great team, off to the races - @omal and @simonrothman

2 challenges arose:

1) Govt. SF health + planning made our lives hell. They didn't like our innovations. We had to bribe officials ("lobbying").

2) Gross Margins (GM). As we grew, our burn rate grew too. We were losing money on every meal. If only we could get to critical mass.
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Tell me why my feminism is wrong Grace.

Oh

Well, if anyone thought the Bell judgment was going to make TRAs reconsider making massively overblown claims with no evidence backed up with nothing but a thick wadge of emotional blackmail.... HAHAHA, no one thought that.


A high court in the UK made a delimited judgment about teenager's ability to consent to puberty blockers. This puts all trans people everywhere in the world at risk.

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