The Tim Ferriss Show #248: The 10 Commandments of Startup Success with Reid Hoffman
Expect Rejection, Learn from No's
- Expect rejection as a founder and learn from every no.
- Big ideas are often contrarian, so initial rejections can be a good sign.
Identify "Squirmy No's"
- Discern truly bad ideas from those that just sound bad initially.
- Look for "squirmy no's" from investors—rejections with hesitation—as they indicate potential.
Prioritize Early Hiring
- Hire like your life depends on it, focusing on core values.
- Prioritize patience in early hiring, even if it seems slow.
On this special episode, we're going to share with you the "10 Commandments for Startup Success." They're drawn from the new podcast Masters of Scale, which is hosted by my friend and today's guest Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman). Reid has been on the show before, and you might remember him as the co-founder of LinkedIn, and the partner at Greylock who invested early in Facebook, Airbnb, Zynga, and a bunch of other startups that experience dramatic success. On this new podcast, Reid shares his theories on how companies scale from zero to a gazillion, and he tests them with famous founders like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Reed Hastings of Netflix. He and his team pulled together a special remix for us to use on today's show -- distilling the very best, most actionable advice from the first season of Masters of Scale into these 10 commandments. They've included a lot material that hasn't aired yet. So even if you're already a subscriber, you'll hear some new things here. Stick around after we count down the 10 commandments because Reid was kind enough to answer a few of my questions. Please enjoy! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. I reached out to these Finnish entrepreneurs after a very talented acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which blew my mind (in the best way possible). It is mushroom coffee featuring chaga. It tastes like coffee, but there are only 40 milligrams of caffeine, so it has less than half of what you would find in a regular cup of coffee. I do not get any jitters, acid reflux, or any type of stomach burn. It put me on fire for an entire day, and I only had half of the packet. People are always asking me what I use for cognitive enhancement right now -- this is the answer. You can try it right now by going to foursigmatic.com/tim and using the code Tim to get 20 percent off your first order. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you'll be disappointed. This podcast is also brought to you by Headspace, the world's most popular meditation app (with more than four million users). It's used in more than 150 countries, and many of my closest friends swear by it. Try Headspace's free Take10 program -- 10 minutes of guided meditation a day for 10 days. It's like a warm bath for your mind. Meditation doesn't need to be complicated or expensive, and it's had a huge impact on my life. Try Headspace for free for a few days and see what I mean.
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Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.
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