BC STARTUPS

Saved by @vasantsri_

Chris Hladczuk
@chrishlad 5 years, 5 months ago 966 views

Save to PDF Share See On Twitter

I just interviewed the man who invented Amazon Prime.

He started a business worth $40 billion today and served on Amazon's board for 15 yrs.

Here are lessons from Bing Gordon that'll save you years of mistakes:

When you have a business idea, take action now before it dies.

• Write 1 paragraph about the idea

• Write a 4 slide business plan

• Write your 1st line of code

When you start a job, ask your boss 2 questions:

1) Who is the best boss you've ever had and what does that mean for me?

2) What does top 10% performance look like?

Hold yourself accountable for high achievement.

If you're a cab driver, drive the most miles

if you're a fisherman, get on the best boat.

How to succeed

• Be a learning machine.
• Find a way to maintain high energy

In college, you don't take classes for content.

You take classes for great professors.

Same with your job.

Pick a company for a great boss.

The best interview question:

"What's your strategy for learning?"

How to set goals:

1) Clear and unambiguous

2) Stretch, but not impossible

3) Under your personal control

4) Time sensitive + context relevant

Don't invite someone to be on your board that you wouldn't pay to have dinner with.

When pitching your startup, your goal is to share 1 insight to investors that they didn't know before.

If you want to help the next generation of business builders, retweet the first tweet below!

https://t.co/IfjYJJnl48

I just interviewed the man who invented Amazon Prime.

He started a business worth $40 billion today and served on Amazon's board for 15 yrs.

Here are lessons from Bing Gordon that'll save you years of mistakes: pic.twitter.com/NatY4K3zlK
— Chris Hladczuk (@chrishlad) May 14, 2021

for more top-secret insights, follow me @chrishlad

if you really like this, check out my newsletter where I share frameworks, systems for success and wild business stories:

https://t.co/VxEW9G1YnK

More from Chris Hladczuk

Chris Hladczuk
@chrishlad

Bill Gates got lucky.

With an IBM deal he signs in 1980.

Here's the hidden truth about the rise of Microsoft:

So we all know the Bill Gates story.

A brilliant kid who loves computers.

Drops out of Harvard in 1975 to start Microsoft with his childhood friend, Paul Allen.

Gates and Allen originally sell code interpreters to companies like MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry System).

In 1976, their revenue is $16,000.

By 1978, Microsoft hits $1 million in revenue.

But they were far from taking over the world.

Until...

In 1980, IBM asks Gates to build them an operating system for their new personal computers.

He had never done this.

So Gates directs them to his friend Gary Kildall from Digital Research.

The IBM-Digital Research meeting goes poorly.

The two parties argue over non-disclosure agreements and other legal issues.

Eventually, IBM offers Digital Research $250,000 to build the operating system.

They refuse.

"We will only do royalties."

Chris Hladczuk
@chrishlad

Improve by comparing small.

“To improve, compare little things

• marketing strategies
• exercise technique
• writing tactics

To be miserable, compare big things

• career path
• marriage
• net worth

Comparison is a teacher only when applied narrowly.”

@JamesClear

Advertisement

Chris Hladczuk
@chrishlad

I've interviewed 5 founders of billion dollar startups.

Here's what I learned:

CTFU

"Catch the F*ck Up"

Startups are about speed.

If you don’t have urgency, you lose.

Successful people don't find hard things easy to do.

Instead, they've trained themselves to be better at hard things.

Create habits so small that they are painless.

h/t @JamesClear

Be short and to the point with important people.

Co-founders aren't people you meet at networking sessions.

They're your friends.

Get your smartest, hardest working friends and convince them to start a company with you.

Chris Hladczuk
@chrishlad

What if you could avoid competition forever?

How to Build a Personal Monopoly with @david_perell + @jackbutcher

THREAD👇

1/ What is a personal monopoly?

The intersection of...

• Curiosity: What do you care about?

• Competence: What are you good at?

• Character: Who are you?

These combinations SHRINK the area of competition.

"Competition is for losers."
@peterthiel

2/ Where to Start

"You can't connect the dots looking forward: you can only connect them looking backwards."
-- Steve Jobs

Trust your curiosity and intuition.

Only curiosity creates uniqueness.

3/ BUTCHER'S FRAMEWORK

DICE = Diverge, Converge, Emerge

DIVERGE (Collect Dots): Pursue things you're interested in

CONVERGE (Connect Dots): Find the connections among interesting things

EMERGE: You've found where to start. Now attack it everyday.

4/ "Make a single decision to eliminate 1,000 decisions."
-- @tferriss

For @visualizevalue + @jackbutcher: How do you visualize something to make it simpler?

Eliminate anything that doesn't compound towards achieving that goal.

Chris Hladczuk
@chrishlad

Can't get a job at Facebook?

You can always sell your startup to Zuckerberg for $19 billion.

Here's the crazy story of WhatsApp👇

Jan Koum met Brian Acton in 1998.

They spent 9 years working together at Yahoo and became good friends.

But in 2007, they both left Yahoo with some cash and no plans.

At first Acton and Koum applied to Facebook

...and failed

they were proud members of the "Facebook reject club"

In January 2009, Jan Koum bought an iPhone and thought,

"Wow, this new App Store could be huge."

At the time, the App Store was 7 months old.

So he met with a friend named Alex Fishman to brainstorm app ideas.

Koum thought it would be fun to put statuses next to friends' names in your address book.

So he went to RentACoder..com to hire a guy to build the 1st version.

More from Startups

$Corey Haines \U0001f4a1$

Corey Haines 💡...
@coreyhainesco

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.

Shekhar Kirani
@skirani

Lots of startups get stuck
before they get to Product-Market-Fit.

What would be the reasons?

Here are some, I see on a daily basis. They are related to issues with founders or market (in no particular order):

1) Founders haven't studied or trained on basic things of startups: idea validation, market validation, customer value-proposition, team-building, product building, basic finance, and total money required to do few iterations.
A: Work for a startup for a few years and learn.

2) Founders are solving a problem that they face in their daily life at home or work and start solving for themselves before checking whether there are others who care about the same problem. After building the product, they realize the market issue.
A: Idea validation failure

3) Too headstrong and think every potential customer can't imagine the value unless they experience the product. Hence, start building the product.
A: If you are deep and know you are at the same league as in Steve Jobs, this makes sense

4) Founders talk to few friends and colleagues and start building a product. After building the product, they realize there is no high demand for the product.
A: Spend month(s) on the problem and not on the solution.

Advertisement

Ryan Caldbeck
@ryan_caldbeck

1/ Tuesday was my last day as CEO of @CircleUp. I’ve been CEO since starting the co. in 2011 with my co-founder @roryeakin.

This is a thread about what happened, why and my emotions about it. For more detail:

https://t.co/vYImcm1bTM

Much of this I have never talked about.

2/ My goals: I hope it helps founders feel less lonely than I did. Little public content about the challenges of transitioning exists, but I longed for it. I’m not here to provide a playbook- just to share my experience. Hope it might build greater empathy.

Here goes….

3/ Why: When I tell people that I’m transitioning to an Exec Chairman role their first question is always: “why?” Short answer: co. pivot + fertility issues + health issues + a false sense that grit was always the answer = burnout. Long answer: is longer so hang in there with me

4/ Over a 12-18 month period that ended in late 2017 I ran my tank far beyond empty for far too long. You know that sound your car makes when it’s sputtering for more gas? It was like that. Worst year of my life. Since then it has felt like bone on bone.

5/ Here is what happened:

Professionally: pivoting a Series C company was a living hell in and of itself, as I’ve talked about before.

1/ We Pivoted a few yrs ago. This is the story- mostly my feelings. It has never been told publicly.

This will be rambly and represents the chaos in my head at the time. There is [hopefully] no advice here. I don\u2019t know if we did it right.
— Ryan Caldbeck (@ryan_caldbeck) April 16, 2019

$Corey Haines \U0001f4a1$

Corey Haines 💡...
@coreyhainesco

A couple months ago, I got an email out of the blue from someone I had never met or heard about.

Today, that person co-hosted a webinar with me that had over 470+ registered and 130+ live

👇 Quick lesson on how to successfully pitch partnerships and co-marketing opportunities

How did he get in contact with me?

He sent a cold email, but not just any email. It was clearly personal, relevant, and conversational.

Lesson: Notice the language he used and how he tied it back to previous webinars.

Not only was it well written, but I could also easily judge if he'd be a good fit based on the article he wrote and linked to.

It's SUPER well-written and proved that he knew what he was talking about.

Lesson: Make your "ask" as easy as possible to consider.

There were three things that made the webinar a big success:

1. Tyler sent the webinar to his email list and did a lot of promotion.

2. He prepared ahead of time and put a lot of work into the deck, even incorporating some Baremetrics assets and references.

3. He had fun

Super appreciate all the work @TylerHakes put into today's "SEO for SaaS"

If you missed it, here's the recording:

$Paul Metcalfe \U0001f3a7$

Paul Metcalfe 🎧...
@pauldm

New startup does $150K in 12 months but still doesn’t have a landing page 🤔

Listened to Jeremy Thiessen explaining how and why, on the Sales for Founders podcast

3 takeaways...

1/ When you build a landing page, you’re putting all your assumptions out there. In the early stages of a business you need facts. To do that, you’re better off talking to a prospect. Instead of making wrong assumptions, in a place where you can’t control the conversation. 🤷‍♂️

Later, when you’ve got facts, build the landing page

2/ Figure out who you’re serving and where they are. Then start calling. Need to have one person who wants this “thing” other than you 📱

3/ When cold calling get to the point. Don’t sell. Ask good, authentic questions. Show that you want to help 🎯

You May Also Like

Anu Satheesh
@AnuSatheesh5

Puthucode Annapoorneshwari Temple,
Palakkad, Kerala 🚩
#keralatemples
अन्नपूर्णे सदापूर्णे शङ्करप्राणवल्लभे
ज्ञानवैराग्यसिद्ध्यर्थं भिक्षां देहि च पार्वति

Temple is also called Puthukode Bhaghavathy Kshetram
Parasurama did Prathishta of Devi here. Temple is one amoung 👇

108 Durga temples
Navarathri festival is celebrated in a grant manner here. Annadanam is done daily on these days. The Idichu pizhinja payasam/ Chathachatayam is the main nivedyam in Annapoorneswari temple during Navarathri.
In the mornings, Devi Mahatmyam and Sundarakandam are

recited here daily.
Sri Godavarma Raja gifted lots of rice fields for the maintenance of the temple.
Annapoorneshwari holds Shanku and Chakra in her hands. Puthucode Annapoorneswari Temple is managed by the Naduvil Madom Devaswom.
🙏🕉🙏

Chris Herd
@chris_herd

I've spoken to 1,500+ people about remote work in the last 9 months

A few predictions of what is likely to emerge before 2030

[ a thread ] 💻🏠🌍

🚜 Rural Living: World-class people will move to smaller cities, have a lower cost of living & higher quality of life

These regions must innovate quickly to attract that wealth. Better schools, faster internet connections are a must

⏰Asynchronous Work: Offices are instantaneous gratification distraction factories where synchronous work makes it impossible to get stuff done

Tools that enable asynchronous work are the most important thing globally remote teams need. A lot of startups will try to tackle this

⚽️Hobbie Renaissance: Remote working will lead to a rise in people participating in hobbies and activities which link them to people in their local community

This will lead to deeper, more meaningful relationships which overcome societal issues of loneliness and issolation

🌍Diversity & Inclusion: The most diverse and inclusive teams in history will emerge rapidly

Companies who embrace it have a first-mover advantage to attract great talent globally. Companies who don't will lose their best people to their biggest competitors

Advertisement

AKASH
@AKASHBH95801446

THE SCIENCE BEHIND YAJNA

Fire is, of course, one of the greatest discovery of mankind. Our control over the fire dramatically changed the entire human habits; earlier it was used to cook food, protection from animals and to stay warm.

Among the many applications of fire, one is Yajna (यज्ञ, yajña); also called as Havana (हवन) or Agnihotra (अग्निहोत्र).
Yajna is elaborately described in Yajurveda. In Yajurveda, Yajna is the greatest among all works (Karman). One can purify his /her soul by performing Yajna.

In Vedic culture, it is thought that the holy fire is the mediator between Gods and us; when the offerings are made to Yajna with chanting mantras, it directly reaches the Gods, who bless the people with rains, food, health, and good luck.

According to Apastamba Sutra, the definition of Yajna is Vedic sacrifice; an act by which we surrender something for gods e.g. grains (Anna), pulse, milk and milk product (ghee, butter, curd) fruits, plant juice (soma), etc.

As we said; Yajna is the contact medium for gods and

to seek their blessings.

There are many types of Yajna performed by Hindus for e.g.,

1. Rajsuya Yajna
2. Ashwamedha Yajna
3. Chaaturmasya Yajna
4. Vaajpey Yajna
5. Purushmedha Yajna
6. Sarvamedha Yajna

Loren Brichter
@lorenb

So it turns out that Google Chrome was making everything on my computer slow *even when it wasn’t running*, because it installs something called Keystone which is basically malware.

I made a website because this shouldn’t

Wired first reported on how bad Keystone was 11 years ago when they put it into Google Earth (they seem to put it in all their popular

The fact that Keystone hides itself in Activity Monitor is bizarre. (The only sign of it was excessive CPU usage of WindowServer which is a system process).

I don’t know if Google was doing something nefarious with Keystone, or a third party figured out how to (which Wired warned about). But either way, I’m not inclined to give Google-the-organization the benefit of the doubt (despite the many good people who work on Chrome)...

...since it's been a decade+ and this still hasn't been "fixed".

There is no reason for auto-update software to need to do what Chrome/Keystone was doing. It also has a long history of crashing Macs.

$Elon Musk\u2019s Meme \U0001f171\ufe0fot$

Elon Musk’s Meme 🅱️ot...
@theMemesBot

why do I hear boss music