blrgeek

Dude, this is awesome! Last year I did it manually line by line, and of course that didn't carry over to this year.

Tally rocks! Thank you.

For public companies, growing > 40%, ARR > $100Mn, NDR>125$ revenue multiples are sky-high ATM.

For private companies at around $1Mn-$3Mn ARR growing sub-20% YoY there are very few buyers in the first place.

Carnap vs Popper

Popper = create hypothesis and falsify

Carnap = see instances and use induction to create hypothesis

Everything else they say about the scientific method is the same.

Herbert Simon, in thinking of sciences of the artificial, used the Carnap method to create a ton of valuable science.

It's not that post-facto is bad - carnap showed otherwise.

It's about the quality of the science and the specificity of the recommendations, that lead to bs.

For instance you can mitigate for survivorship bias by studying the dead as well as the living, and driving deep into the differences. But that's a lot of work!

As a theory, effectuation studies the difference in decision making processes between expert entrepreneurs and corporate CEOs. The result, while similarly post-facto, is delightful. See effectuation.org - Vinod Khosla remarked it was the first useful study on entrepreneurship he had ever read.

For splitting Facebook into face babies, look at p&l lines, geographic lines, what could become api boundaries,different apps, and different apps within fb wall.

So one and more of

WhatsApp vs Instagram vs fb vs messenger

FB video vs FB ads vs fb news

FB EU vs US vs India vs...

FB identity vs fb communication vs fb ads

There was no precursor to regulating standard oil in the last century, and no precursor to regulating Google, FB, Amazon, this century.

Doesn't mean it's not warranted.

Actually both journalists and media are regulated. Perhaps you should address specifics of why regulation is not required in this case, rather than attack the messenger?

Check out effectuation.org - built networks of people who trust you/you trust, and solve problems for them. Keep solving problems, and you'll find, in 6-12m one or more problems that are worth solving at scale, because they are massive problems for large numbers of people. In this process, don't take funding, keep your runway as long as possible. This is the method used by expert entrepreneurs, when they take an idea and convert it into a business.

I missed the /sarcasm tag.

Writing off experience on the path to becoming an entrepreneur glorifies the unique challenges of being an entrepreneur, while underplaying the 99% of other work that makes a business successful in the real world.

Yes. Your post goes into the first point about serial entrepreneurs, but fails to see the value of learnable entrepreneurial skills, and the value of coming from a successful startup, or with deep domain expertise.

If you're addressing fresh grads, then telling them doing a startup vs learning about a startup vs working in a startup are of different value, would be better. Even Mark suster and Ben horowitz and Steve blank suggest working in a fast growing startup is very useful before doing your own. So there is a way to learn those skills without risk, with a good salary and some small upside potential. As one of them has it, a time to learn and a time to earn...

I guess I reacted a bit to the language which speaks about taking risk very lightly.

Right, entrepreneurship is the only field of human endeavor where amateurs can become the best in the field without any study or training whatsoever. Welcome to the mythologizing of the startup world.

For one counter narrative, you should understand why serial entrepreneurs are more successful, why almost the only correlation with success is how many startups a person has done before.

Another counter point is why there's a PayPal mafia and a whole host of successful founders coming out of specific startups.

Yet another counter point is how successful businesses built by people with experience in the same domain somehow don't get counted as 'startups' because they didn't take 'risk'.

Don't fall for the jargon and hype. Expert entrepreneurs have transferable skills that will reduce your risk of failure. It's your bravado and ego that's failing to recognize the difference.

Was in a very similar position a few years ago after two startups and 7years with zero returns.

More actionably, dev+fin+products = pm in a fintech company or bank. Or fin+products = evangelist for fintech api startup Or dev+fin = dev at fintech Or dev+prod = product manager anywhere. Or fin+startup = coo for an ops heavy startup at series b+ Check out pmarca archive on careers for support.

I spent my next 4 yrs at two of the big 4 sw companies as a product manager. Best choice ever, huge pay, lots of resources. got lots of shit done at a much faster pace than they are used to. Not stressful compared to startup life. Helped me get a new network, new perspectives, new resources.

Four years to the month, I quit, and now doing a startup again ,and this time it's going much better so far :)

So it ain't the end of the world, just a blip on your journey to eventually building something big.

Will it be your third or fourth or seventh startup that makes it big? Who knows?

The key is to survive that long and make each startup better and you sound like the kind of person who will.

May the force be with you!

Check out effectuation.org/learn

The idea is to start with who you know, what you know, and who you are. Then through conversations with people you know, ask them their problems that they are ready to pay to solve. Find common things that several of them are ready to pay for..

That's a great way to start, and will give you great problems that very few others might want to solve..

Read about the four types of luck.

By doing more & learning more & meeting more people, you essentially increase your luck surface area in 3 different ways, increasing the odds you'll get lucky.

Many founders I've seen 'got lucky' when they were on the way to the 100th trip to meet customers. Did they get lucky or did they make their luck?

I think the dichotomy is

A. Go to customer/user conferences? YES YES YES!

B. Go to startup or generic conferences? Not more than once or twice a year.

Everyone in this thread seems to be mixing up the two.

Now unless you're selling to other startups, her advice is crystal clear.