Founders
#275 Paul Graham
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
- Choosing the right co-founders based on character and commitment is crucial for startup success.
- Determination and resourcefulness are key qualities in successful founders.
- Starting a startup requires total immersion and a deep love for the work being done.
- Founders must be prepared for the all-encompassing nature of running a startup, devoting most of their waking hours to its success.
Deep dives
Be Careful with Co-founders
One of the key surprises for founders when starting a startup is the importance of choosing the right co-founders. It is crucial to pay attention to their character and commitment rather than just their abilities. The relationship between co-founders goes beyond mere friendship and becomes more like a marriage. The lesson is to pick co-founders who are determined and reliable, as the startup's success heavily relies on the strength and compatibility of its founders.
The Role of Determination and Resourcefulness
Determination and resourcefulness are key qualities in successful founders. Determination entails being willful, disciplined, and ambitious. It requires a balance between willfulness and discipline, where one's strong will is matched with the self-discipline to overcome obstacles. Resourcefulness is crucial in addressing external challenges and finding creative solutions. The stronger one's determination, the more important discipline becomes. Founders must maintain discipline to avoid giving in to temptations and distractions.
The Importance of Total Immersion and Loving the Work
Starting a startup requires total immersion and a deep love for the work being done. Founders should be prepared for their startup to become their life, consuming their thoughts and requiring continuous effort. However, when the work is fueled by passion and enjoyment, it never feels like a burden. This total immersion and love for the work provide the drive and energy needed to navigate the challenges and setbacks that come with building a successful startup.
Startups Take Over Your Life
Founders often underestimate the all-encompassing nature of running a startup. Unlike a traditional job or university experience, startups are a way of life that demands constant attention and commitment. Founders must be prepared for the startup to dominate most of their waking hours, as it becomes a fundamental part of their existence. While this may seem intense, it can also be exhilarating and fulfilling when fueled by passion and determination.
The Challenges of Starting and Running a Startup
Starting and running a startup can present various challenges and surprises. Founders often struggle with maintaining focus and avoiding distractions, such as conversations about current events or sports, as they remain deep in their work. The emotional rollercoaster ride is another common experience, with founders experiencing both highs and lows. Persistence is highlighted as a key trait for startup success, as founders often underestimate the determination and resilience required. Building a startup takes time, and founders are advised to think long-term and have realistic expectations about the timeline. Additionally, attention to detail and continuously iterating on ideas are essential in startup development, even though these tasks may seem cumbersome and unimportant at first.
Customer Engagement and Doing Things That Don't Scale
Founders are advised to focus on customer engagement and prioritize delighting individual users even in the early stages. This personal touch can set startups apart from larger companies and create a memorable experience for users. The concept of doing things that don't scale is emphasized, as founders are encouraged to put in extraordinary effort initially and manually recruit users one by one. This unscalable approach allows founders to intimately understand their customers' needs and build a strong foundation for growth. These initial efforts may seem laborious and inconsequential, but they lay the groundwork for long-term success and user acquisition.
The Importance of Learning, Adaptability, and Luck
Learning from mistakes and being adaptable are key elements in startup success. Founders should be open-minded, willing to change their ideas, and not overly focused on competition. It is advised to expect the worst in deals and always plan for potential obstacles. Luck is recognized as a significant factor in startup outcomes, and founders should be prepared to make the most of fortunate opportunities that arise. The value of community support and the importance of persistence and resourcefulness are also highlighted as crucial elements in a founder's journey.
What I learned from reading Paul Graham’s essays.
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[4:52] My father told me I could be whatever I wanted when I grew up, so long as I enjoyed it.
[5:49] Do what you love doesn't mean, do what you would like to do most this second.
[7:41] To be happy I think you have to be doing something you not only enjoy, but admire. You have to be able to say, at the end, wow, that's pretty cool.
[8:00] You should not worry about prestige. This is easy advice to give. It’s hard to follow.
[10:22] You have to make a conscious effort to keep your ideas about what you want from being contaminated by what seems possible.
[12:18] Whichever route you take, expect a struggle. Finding work you love is very difficult. Most people fail.
[16:46] How To Do What You Love by Paul Graham
[16:34] What Doesn’t Seem Like Work by Paul Graham
[17:16] If something that seems like work to other people doesn't seem like work to you, that's something you're well suited for.
[17:42] Michael Jordan said what looked like hard work to others was play to him. Michael Jordan: The Life by Roland Lazenby. (Founders #212) and Driven From Within by Michael Jordan and Mark Vancil. (Founders #213)
[20:53] How Not to Die by Paul Graham
[23:00] All that matters is to survive. The rest is just words. — Charles de Gaulle by Julian Jackson (Founders #224)
[24:49] You have to assume that running a startup can be demoralizing. That is certainly true. I've been there, and that's why I've never done another startup.
[27:31] If a startup succeeds, you get millions of dollars, and you don't get that kind of money just by asking for it. You have to assume it takes some amount of pain.
[28:17] So I'll tell you now: bad shit is coming. It always is in a startup. The odds of getting from launch to liquidity without some kind of disaster happening are one in a thousand.
So don't get demoralized. When the disaster strikes, just say to yourself, ok, this was what Paul was talking about. What did he say to do? Oh, yeah. Don't give up.
[28:45] Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy by Paul Graham
[30:23] If we've learned one thing from funding so many startups, it's that they succeed or fail based on the qualities of the founders.
[31:15] If you're worried about threats to the survival of your company, don't look for them in the news. Look in the mirror.
[34:10] The cheaper your company is to operate, the harder it is to kill.
[35:43] Relentlessly Resourceful by Paul Graham
[35:43] I finally got being a good startup founder down to two words: relentlessly resourceful.
[37:20] If I were running a startup, this would be the phrase I'd tape to the mirror. "Make something people want" is the destination, but "Be relentlessly resourceful" is how you get there.
[37:40] The Anatomy of Determination by Paul Graham
[37:45] David’s Notes: A Conversation with Paul Graham
[39:50] After a while determination starts to look like talent.
[42:12] Ambitious people are rare, so if everyone is mixed together randomly, as they tend to be early in people's lives, then the ambitious ones won't have many ambitious peers. When you take people like this and put them together with other ambitious people, they bloom like dying plants given water. Probably most ambitious people are starved for the sort of encouragement they'd get from ambitious peers, whatever their age.
[43:21] One of the best ways to help a society generally is to create events and institutions that bring ambitious people together. (Founders Podcast Conference?)
[45:21] What Startups Are Really Like by Paul Graham
[49:00] The Entire History of Silicon Valley by John Coogan
[49:50] Meet You In Hell: Andrew Carnegie Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America by Les Standiford. (Founders #73)
[55:08] You need persistence because everything takes longer than you expect. A lot of people (founders) were surprised by that.
[57:18] Estee Lauder was a master at doing things that don’t scale. Estée Lauder: A Success Storyby Estée Lauder. (Founders #217)
[58:45] What makes companies fail most of the time is poor execution by the founders. A lot of times founders are worried about competition. YC has founded 1900+ companies. 1 was killed by competitors. You have the same protection against competitors that light aircraft have against crashing into other light aircraft. Do you know what the protection is? Space is large.
[1:01:00] Paul on what he would do if he was strating a company today:
If I were a 22 year starting a startup I would certainly apply to YC. Which is not that surprising, since it was designed to be what I wish I'd had when I did start one. But (assuming I got in) I would not get sucked into raising a huge amount on Demo Day.
I would raise maybe $500k, keep the company small for the first year, work closely with users to make something amazing, and otherwise stay off SV's radar.
Ideally I'd get to profitability on that initial $500k. Later I could raise more, if I felt like it. Or not. But it would be on my terms.
At every point in the company's growth, I'd keep the company as small as I could. I'd always want people to be surprised how few employees we had. Fewer employees = lower costs, and less need to turn into a manager.
When I say small, I mean small in employees, not revenues.
[1:05:07] Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #200)
[1:07:00] A Word To The Resourceful by Paul Graham
[1:08:07] We found the startups that did best were the ones with the sort of founders about whom we'd say "they can take care of themselves." The startups that do best are fire-and-forget in the sense that all you have to do is give them a lead, and they'll close it, whatever type of lead it is.
[1:09:00] Understanding all the implications of what someone tells you is a subset of resourcefulness. It's conversational resourcefulness.
[1:11:00] Do Things That Don’t Scale by Paul Graham
[1:11:00] Startups take off because the founders make them take off.
[1:16:00] The question to ask about an early stage startup is not "is this company taking over the world?" but "how big could this company get if the founders did the right things?" And the right things often seem both laborious and inconsequential at the time.
[1:16:00] Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson (Founders #140)
[1:21:00] The world is complicated. It is noisy. We are not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. So we have to be really clear about what we want them to know about us. —Steve Jobs
[1:22:00] Any strategy that omits the effort is suspect.
[1:23:00] The need to do something unscalably laborious to get started is so nearly universal that it might be a good idea to stop thinking of startup ideas as scalars. Instead we should try thinking of them as pairs of what you're going to build, plus the unscalable thing(s) you're going to do initially to get the company going.
Now that there are two components you can try to be imaginative about the second as well as the first. Founders need to work hard in two dimensions.
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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com
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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth
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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth
Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast
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