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Lecture 13: How to Be a Great Founder

116 points by denismars 12y ago

staunch 12y ago
Haven't watched this one yet, but all the lectures have had at least one really great insight to learn from. Thanks for uploading them so quickly, it's really nice.
- denismars 12y ago
  Cool - my favorite part of Reid's lecture in this video is his clarification of what a contrarian founder really means. Don't miss that one!
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
bfwi 12y ago
This talk might have been brilliant, but I wasn't really able to take away any concrete lessons or advice from it. In my opinion it was far too vague. I've really enjoyed the other talks though.
tinco 12y ago
Did he say a panopticon of skills?
- brandonb 12y ago
  Don't you know? It's crucial for startup founders to have an 18th-century dystopian surveillance system of skills. In fact, if you play the video backward, you can actually hear Reid recite the entire text of Foucault's Discipline and Punish. (Seriously, I'd guess he meant "panoply.")
  - lmg643 12y ago
    Great guess. I was trying to imagine what sort of metaphor he was evoking with Panopticon - as though the super-founder can see every task that is required of him - works, but it's a stretch. Panoply is much better.
  - tinco 12y ago
    Nice, you went to a better school than Stanford ostensibly ;)
abalone 12y ago
I don't mean to be flippant but can someone separate out the concrete recommendations from the abstract motivational speaking? All I hear is a series of "X or Y?" slides, which sort of imply there's a decisive answer on the way, but when you peer through the verbiage it ends up being some form of "Do both!"
read 12y ago
Some of my takeaways: "Product distribution is more important than what the product is." It's not enough to be contrarian. You should also be right. "It's useful to be able to recognize whether you are on track or not. To have both that belief, but also paranoia, about am I tracking over my investment thesis." You need to be able to articulate the vision well. One of the founders needs to be able to build networks of people. What is my distribution edge? What is the hack that I know that other people don't know? Just as you spend 20+ hours with a possible CEO, go in depth in conversations with a potential co-founder to identify all the parameters and set expectations. Go over the parameters that might lead to a divorce.
- jlukanta 12y ago
  If I recall correctly, what he actually said was product distribution is next in line in importance after product idea.
ericglyman 12y ago
Great lecture - one of the best so far IMO. From the comments, it looks like a lot of people are struggling with this one because Reid Hoffman was (absolutely) lacking in specific, concrete advice. I think it's missing Reid's point -- everyone here is either (well, likely) thinking about founding something, or well on their way. When he poses his questions, I think that he's trying to help us reflect on where we are, and how we can tackle the hazy questions (flexible v. persistent, short term v. long term, etc.) that will drive our decisions. This midway course lecture isn't about giving lessons -- it's about helping us to reflect.
thegenius 12y ago
How to be a horrible founder: SPAM your users and raid their inboxes.
rajens 12y ago
For anyone that's looking for a handful of real takeaways- I've put together the 26 quotes that I found interesting from this lecture here: https://medium.com/how-to-start-a-startup/26-quotes-reid-hoffman-on-how-to-be-a-great-founder-ff99c713a199 https://medium.com/how-to-start-a-startup/26-quotes-reid-hof... I've left out a lot of the X or Y slideware related aspirational statements he made. I think his comments on being a contrarian these days and the need for an investment thesis was interesting.
tytytytyty 12y ago
More business graduates gravitating to the "tech" field full of useless piffy advice peddling themselves and their shoddy unoriginal offerings. When will these people realize they are like chefs who can't cook, nobody cares what they think. I know I'm in the belly of the beast here but you all need to hear it.
- Aeoxic 12y ago
  > More business graduates gravitating to the "tech" field full of useless piffy advice peddling themselves and their shoddy unoriginal offerings. Ah yes, the "self-made entrepreneurial IT consultants".
scobar 12y ago
I found it very interesting when he spoke about founders who've learned to mimic an attribute investors find important. He notes that ignoring a single investor's feedback is fine, but ignoring the world in general is usually disaster. I imagine the rise of this sort of mimicry leads investors who previously would consider investing in an idea and seemingly great founders to more strongly favor traction. I wonder if the YC partners keep track of the change in the percentage of startups accepted with an idea alone or complete a prototype just before an interview. I'm also curious about the percentage of successful (or surviving) YC startups that were accepted with no traction versus those accepted with a product that had a quickly growing number of users. This value may be misleading, though, because the sample size isn't enormous, and there are so many other variables that affect the survival of a startup.
- AndrewKemendo 12y ago
  >I imagine the rise of this sort of mimicry leads investors who previously would consider investing in an idea and seemingly great founders to more strongly favor traction. Not sure if you came to that conclusion inductively or deductively based on experience, but it is basically 100% the case. Every potential investor we have spoken with doesn't really seem to care about anything but traction.
  - scobar 12y ago
    I've just recently begun learning about the startup world, so I have almost no experience. Unfortunately, this result will restrict those who don't already know and cannot afford the time to learn how to build a prototype. Thankfully, the effort required to get a software prototype built has been dropping significantly.
    - AndrewKemendo 12y ago
      Prototypes /= traction so that almost won't help either. I had a prototype two years ago. Nobody cared. We had an MVP a year ago, nobody cared. Now we are out there actively selling and even then investors are saying: We want to see that you will have 1MM in revenue in the next 12 months before we decide. A rule of thumb in fundraising is this: "When you don't need money you will be able to get it."
jonalmeida 12y ago
Notes: http://jonalmeida.com/posts/2014/11/04/htsas-lec13/ http://jonalmeida.com/posts/2014/11/04/htsas-lec13/
rayalez 12y ago
Great lecture!! I have a question: Can somebody list the names of founders from the slide at [26:14]?
- sp332 12y ago
  Here's the slide for the curious https://imgur.com/yutx7vF https://imgur.com/yutx7vF
- jlukanta 12y ago
  From first row (left to right): Oprah Winfrey (The Oprah Winfrey Show), Jan Koum (WhatsApp), Jack Ma (Alibaba), Evan Williams (Twitter), Caterina Fake (Flickr), Hosain Rahman (Jawbone), Dustin Moskovitz (Facebook), Paul Graham (YC), Adora Cheung (Homejoy), Kevin Hale (Wufoo), Leah Busque (TaskRabbit), Brian Chesky (AirBnB), Patrick Collison (Stripe), Benjamin Franklin (USA)
shopinterest 12y ago
This one hurts because its true: “If I ever hear a founder talk about oh this is how I have a balanced life so on and so forth — they’re not committed to winning.” So that you know that the work-life balance in SV is not anyone's priority, no matter what we say or jazz hands or post in lovely medium blog posts.

116 points by denismars 12y ago

Haven't watched this one yet, but all the lectures have had at least one really great insight to learn from. Thanks for uploading them so quickly, it's really nice.

denismars 12y ago
Cool - my favorite part of Reid's lecture in this video is his clarification of what a contrarian founder really means. Don't miss that one!
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

bfwi 12y ago

This talk might have been brilliant, but I wasn't really able to take away any concrete lessons or advice from it. In my opinion it was far too vague. I've really enjoyed the other talks though.

tinco 12y ago

Did he say a panopticon of skills?

brandonb 12y ago
Don't you know? It's crucial for startup founders to have an 18th-century dystopian surveillance system of skills. In fact, if you play the video backward, you can actually hear Reid recite the entire text of Foucault's Discipline and Punish. (Seriously, I'd guess he meant "panoply.")
- lmg643 12y ago
  Great guess. I was trying to imagine what sort of metaphor he was evoking with Panopticon - as though the super-founder can see every task that is required of him - works, but it's a stretch. Panoply is much better.
- tinco 12y ago
  Nice, you went to a better school than Stanford ostensibly ;)

abalone 12y ago

I don't mean to be flippant but can someone separate out the concrete recommendations from the abstract motivational speaking? All I hear is a series of "X or Y?" slides, which sort of imply there's a decisive answer on the way, but when you peer through the verbiage it ends up being some form of "Do both!"

read 12y ago

Some of my takeaways: "Product distribution is more important than what the product is." It's not enough to be contrarian. You should also be right. "It's useful to be able to recognize whether you are on track or not. To have both that belief, but also paranoia, about am I tracking over my investment thesis." You need to be able to articulate the vision well. One of the founders needs to be able to build networks of people. What is my distribution edge? What is the hack that I know that other people don't know? Just as you spend 20+ hours with a possible CEO, go in depth in conversations with a potential co-founder to identify all the parameters and set expectations. Go over the parameters that might lead to a divorce.

jlukanta 12y ago
If I recall correctly, what he actually said was product distribution is next in line in importance after product idea.

ericglyman 12y ago

Great lecture - one of the best so far IMO. From the comments, it looks like a lot of people are struggling with this one because Reid Hoffman was (absolutely) lacking in specific, concrete advice. I think it's missing Reid's point -- everyone here is either (well, likely) thinking about founding something, or well on their way. When he poses his questions, I think that he's trying to help us reflect on where we are, and how we can tackle the hazy questions (flexible v. persistent, short term v. long term, etc.) that will drive our decisions. This midway course lecture isn't about giving lessons -- it's about helping us to reflect.

thegenius 12y ago

How to be a horrible founder: SPAM your users and raid their inboxes.

rajens 12y ago

For anyone that's looking for a handful of real takeaways- I've put together the 26 quotes that I found interesting from this lecture here: https://medium.com/how-to-start-a-startup/26-quotes-reid-hoffman-on-how-to-be-a-great-founder-ff99c713a199 https://medium.com/how-to-start-a-startup/26-quotes-reid-hof... I've left out a lot of the X or Y slideware related aspirational statements he made. I think his comments on being a contrarian these days and the need for an investment thesis was interesting.

tytytytyty 12y ago

More business graduates gravitating to the "tech" field full of useless piffy advice peddling themselves and their shoddy unoriginal offerings. When will these people realize they are like chefs who can't cook, nobody cares what they think. I know I'm in the belly of the beast here but you all need to hear it.

Aeoxic 12y ago
> More business graduates gravitating to the "tech" field full of useless piffy advice peddling themselves and their shoddy unoriginal offerings. Ah yes, the "self-made entrepreneurial IT consultants".

scobar 12y ago

I found it very interesting when he spoke about founders who've learned to mimic an attribute investors find important. He notes that ignoring a single investor's feedback is fine, but ignoring the world in general is usually disaster. I imagine the rise of this sort of mimicry leads investors who previously would consider investing in an idea and seemingly great founders to more strongly favor traction. I wonder if the YC partners keep track of the change in the percentage of startups accepted with an idea alone or complete a prototype just before an interview. I'm also curious about the percentage of successful (or surviving) YC startups that were accepted with no traction versus those accepted with a product that had a quickly growing number of users. This value may be misleading, though, because the sample size isn't enormous, and there are so many other variables that affect the survival of a startup.

AndrewKemendo 12y ago
>I imagine the rise of this sort of mimicry leads investors who previously would consider investing in an idea and seemingly great founders to more strongly favor traction. Not sure if you came to that conclusion inductively or deductively based on experience, but it is basically 100% the case. Every potential investor we have spoken with doesn't really seem to care about anything but traction.
- scobar 12y ago
  I've just recently begun learning about the startup world, so I have almost no experience. Unfortunately, this result will restrict those who don't already know and cannot afford the time to learn how to build a prototype. Thankfully, the effort required to get a software prototype built has been dropping significantly.
  - AndrewKemendo 12y ago
    Prototypes /= traction so that almost won't help either. I had a prototype two years ago. Nobody cared. We had an MVP a year ago, nobody cared. Now we are out there actively selling and even then investors are saying: We want to see that you will have 1MM in revenue in the next 12 months before we decide. A rule of thumb in fundraising is this: "When you don't need money you will be able to get it."

jonalmeida 12y ago

Notes: http://jonalmeida.com/posts/2014/11/04/htsas-lec13/ http://jonalmeida.com/posts/2014/11/04/htsas-lec13/

rayalez 12y ago

Great lecture!! I have a question: Can somebody list the names of founders from the slide at [26:14]?

sp332 12y ago
Here's the slide for the curious https://imgur.com/yutx7vF https://imgur.com/yutx7vF
jlukanta 12y ago
From first row (left to right): Oprah Winfrey (The Oprah Winfrey Show), Jan Koum (WhatsApp), Jack Ma (Alibaba), Evan Williams (Twitter), Caterina Fake (Flickr), Hosain Rahman (Jawbone), Dustin Moskovitz (Facebook), Paul Graham (YC), Adora Cheung (Homejoy), Kevin Hale (Wufoo), Leah Busque (TaskRabbit), Brian Chesky (AirBnB), Patrick Collison (Stripe), Benjamin Franklin (USA)

shopinterest 12y ago

This one hurts because its true: “If I ever hear a founder talk about oh this is how I have a balanced life so on and so forth — they’re not committed to winning.” So that you know that the work-life balance in SV is not anyone's priority, no matter what we say or jazz hands or post in lovely medium blog posts.