#startups

Salespeople are only as good as the products they sell

A sales professional once earned around $600k yearly with a leading brand but dropped to about $150k after switching to a lesser-known venture.

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Does it matter how fast you get to $1 billion ARR?

There is minimal correlation between speed to $1B ARR and current market value.

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Triple, triple, double, double, double

Seven core phases guide SaaS revenue growth, starting from establishing product-market fit, then advancing in increments of millions in annual recurring revenue.

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Industrial policy for Australian startups

Is Australia destined to become a training ground for world-class founders and engineers, only to see them move to the US as their careers take off? This is not our destiny, but we need smarter, industry-friendly policy to build an alternative path, where startups start, thrive, and therefore stay in Australia. Let’s be the beneficiary of brain drain, not the victim.

· Startup advice  #advice #startups #society
The impact of wrongful discharge laws on VC investment

Markets with greater workforce mobility produce better startups and attract more investment: “Wrongful discharge laws (WDLs) provide limits to the employment-at-will doctrine, and thus impair operating flexibility… This impairment is detrimental to start-ups, leading to a decline in venture capital (VC) investment.”

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The impact of talent mobility on startup outcomes and innovation

Restructuring costs much higher in strict labor markets: “restructuring costs… are approximately 10 times higher in countries with high labor protection, such as in Western Europe, than in countries with low labor protection such as in the United States” … “this cost differential translates into lower returns on capital in tech industries”

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We’re selling outcomes now

Your software product today is a tool, and it might already be possible for you or a competitor to build an AI-first product that does the work for your customers without any ongoing effort on their part. If not, it’ll probably be possible soon. Either way, a level of disruption that was not possible a few years ago is now possible in almost every software category.

· Startup advice  #advice #startups #ai #highlights #strategy
All-in-one is the laziest early-stage product strategy

If you are the CEO or product leader currently stuck in a failing all-in-one strategy: pivot. The good thing about having a broad product is that you should have plenty of insights into what areas have the most opportunity for disruption and innovation. Find an area to double down, and a pathway towards deprecating some of the bloat. You’ll create a much more successful product that way.

· Startup advice  #advice #startups #product #strategy
Startup leadership is about saying no to good ideas

Great startup leadership is about saying no to the bad ideas, sure. But mostly, great startup leadership is about saying no to most of the good ideas too. The decisions that make a mediocre startup a generational company are the decisions to not pursue legitimately huge ideas in favour of even better ones.

· Startup advice  #advice #startups #highlights #strategy
Advice for startup employees

Working in an early-stage startup is different to working for a larger company: while many people fail to get anywhere in startups, others skip years or decades of career milestones. Granted, every startup is different. However, I have noticed a few common patterns across many startups that describe the most successful talent.

· Startup advice  #advice #startups #people
Facial similarity and venture capital allocation

Facial similarity between investors and entrepreneurs increases funding likelihood by 3.2 percentage points, even after controlling for race, gender, and age.

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Find a way to believe that you will win

Sufficiently down-to-earth founders will, by default, convince themselves that they won’t succeed. This is partly because down-to-earth people are rarely successful in anything grand. It’s partly because everything looks simultaneously harder and easier before you try it. And it’s partly because all good ideas sound like bad ideas until they come to fruition.

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Is AI essential?

Companies must leverage AI to remain competitive, as industry dynamics will shift dramatically over the next few years.

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One part of the funnel is always broken

Many founders burn out because they’re always praying for the problems to finally ease. And, sure, you will occasionally experience short periods where things seem to be going well. But it’s always only a matter of time before your success leads to more challenges.

· Startup advice  #advice #startups #strategy
Building a committed, motivated team

When an early stage employee can satisfy their own needs by simply succeeding in their role, you’ll achieve better results with less management overhead. When an employee needs more than you can give them, they will distract you from focusing on the most important things.

· Startup advice  #advice #startups #people
The making of Community Notes

The team behind X’s Community Notes developed a community-driven approach to combat misinformation, addressing challenges of speed, scale, and trust faced by traditional methods relying on internal teams or media partnerships.

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Zuckerberg's rapid moderation overhaul

Mark Zuckerberg led a swift, secretive six-week effort to alter Meta’s speech policies, bypassing the usual lengthy process involving employee and civic input.

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Quoting Jeff Bezos

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Disrupt and defend with platform envelopment

It can be difficult to convince a customer to adopt your product when they already have a solution they’re happy with. This is why disruptive products typically need to be radically better, radically cheaper, or both. However, thanks to platform envelopment, it’s actually possible for a notably worse app to disrupt superior incumbents.

· Startup advice  #advice #startups #strategy
Great startups lean into chaos

Most managers in early-stage startups think that chaos is inversely correlated with results. That is, they think that chaos breeds bad results and an unhealthy environment, while order breeds good results and a more harmonious environment. This perception is wrong.

· Startup advice  #advice #startups #operations #strategy
Salespeople need decisive decision makers

The best salespeople have great intuitions for which prospects are most decisive, and how to get access to better contacts. Everyone else wastes their time talking to people who will never buy, no matter how appealing they make it sound.

· Startup advice  #advice #startups #sales
The impact of GDPR

The study analysed data from 6,286 websites across 24 industries to assess the impact of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on online usage over time.

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People like surveillance capitalism

The widespread negative perception of surveillance capitalism is misguided; its dangers are exaggerated while its benefits are underappreciated.

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How YC handles visas

International founders often join the batch as business visitors under ESTA or a B-1 visa.

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Startups must work smart and hard

To win, startups need to lean into their advantages because they’re a decade away from the kinds of moats enjoyed by established corporations. This means they need to work smart (i.e., mostly do the right things) and work hard (i.e., execute at a pace and with intense risk tolerance).

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