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It's a really great list. I've worked closely with M&A for Fortune 50 in a previous job: Here are some dark, somewhat cynical rules: 14) Get the CEO of a big

It's a really great list. I've worked closely with M&A for Fortune 50 in a previous job: Here are some dark, somewhat cynical rules: 14) Get the CEO of a big company to Angel in your company, hype you up, and use cash from his company to buy you for a ridiculous amount. You just need to build something that works, you don't need many customers. The conflict of interest for the CEO is positively crazy, and yet, somehow how they get away with spending company $ to make themselves a massive return. This 'dark skill' involves leveraging the relative powerlessness of public investors in a big company with a powerful CEO. Like Salesforce. Or Oracle. 15) Make your product 'cool to nerds'. Like HN readers. Techies are as trendy as any other social group, whether they have the self awareness to realize it or not. Sometimes I think the Valley is a bag of religious cults :) (Kidding.. almost). Being 'nerd hip' can differentiate you from the dozen or other equally good products that are made in far off countries in Poland that will never be able to generate any real buzz. 16) Work with influencer circles. Some people have 10000x more influence than others. Have you ever seen the first rev of Twitter? It's positively laughable. It's your teenage brothers first web-page bad. Twitter would have lasted 10 days if the founders didn't have access to 'influencer networks' and eventually the press, and since it was a press tool ... Twitter is one of those companies, were it not to have started in SV, LA, or NYC - it would never been. 17) The 'force it to happen' plan. Take any established online business model + $500 M in investment, and just make an unprofitable business based on a couple 'interesting key ingredients' or 'tweaks'. Operate reasonably effectively, distribute a lot of koolaid, and get your well connected investors to sell for a small multiple. Jet -> Wallmart. I could go on :)

hamhamed 10y ago
Except you make those ideas sound easy to execute. How am I supposed to get a CEO's attention and trust to invest in my startup with just email?
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  I'm not saying it's at all easy. I'm saying those are paths for those who have the power to pursue them. There are very few successful startups that came out of nowhere through grind and effort - at least not the fast impact kind. Being in the Valley and networking hard is one way to get yourself some 'zen' if you don't have Ivy League 'cred' and an influential network. A lot of those folks spent years at Google et. al. which gave them 'cred' and network. A lot of kids who get into Ivy League have been working pretty hard for a long time. Some of them are learning to be 'players' by the time the are 13, which is amazing and sad at the same time. So - they've been working at it for quite some time. For most of us, we have to play the regular long game.
  - hamhamed 10y ago
    Agreed, which is why getting into YC or something similar is very important.. that's how you'd get intro'ed to those CEOs for a round

hamhamed 10y ago

Except you make those ideas sound easy to execute. How am I supposed to get a CEO's attention and trust to invest in my startup with just email?

jomamaxx 10y ago
I'm not saying it's at all easy. I'm saying those are paths for those who have the power to pursue them. There are very few successful startups that came out of nowhere through grind and effort - at least not the fast impact kind. Being in the Valley and networking hard is one way to get yourself some 'zen' if you don't have Ivy League 'cred' and an influential network. A lot of those folks spent years at Google et. al. which gave them 'cred' and network. A lot of kids who get into Ivy League have been working pretty hard for a long time. Some of them are learning to be 'players' by the time the are 13, which is amazing and sad at the same time. So - they've been working at it for quite some time. For most of us, we have to play the regular long game.
- hamhamed 10y ago
  Agreed, which is why getting into YC or something similar is very important.. that's how you'd get intro'ed to those CEOs for a round