This book offers mentorship and insights from Uri Levine, a co-founder of Waze and Moovit, on how to build a successful business. It emphasizes the importance of identifying and solving the biggest problems faced by consumers and disrupting inefficient markets. The book covers various aspects of the startup journey, including fundraising, hiring and firing, understanding users, reaching product-market fit, scaling up, going global, and deciding when to sell. Levine shares practical advice and real-world examples from his own experiences, making the book a valuable resource for entrepreneurs, startup founders, CEOs, and other business leaders.
This book tells the untold story of Netflix's origins, from its inception in 1997 to its initial public offering and beyond. Marc Randolph recounts the challenges, failures, and successes of building a disruptive startup, including pitching his idea to his business partner Reed Hastings, dealing with server crashes on launch day, and the infamous meeting with Blockbuster. The book offers insights into entrepreneurship, covering topics such as idea generation, team building, and handling success and failure.
Atomic Habits by James Clear is a practical guide that teaches readers how to create good habits and break bad ones. The book emphasizes the importance of small, incremental changes that can lead to significant improvements over time. It introduces the Four Laws of Behavior Change: make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying for creating good habits, and the inverse for breaking bad habits. The book also focuses on the concept of identity-based habits, where changing your habits is tied to changing how you view yourself. Clear draws on insights from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to provide actionable strategies for personal and professional improvement.
Uri Levine is the co-founder of Waze, the world’s largest community-based traffic and navigation app, acquired by Google for over $1 billion. He’s also founded nine other companies, been on the board of 20 companies, and advised more than 50 companies. He’s most recently the author of Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution: A Handbook for Entrepreneurs, hailed by Steve Wozniak as the “Bible for entrepreneurs.” Uri is dedicated to creating impactful startups that solve real-world problems and has seen everything from failure to moderate success to big success. In our conversation, we dig into:
• Why falling in love with the problem is key to startup success
• The phases of the startup journey and how to navigate them
• Why firing is more important than hiring
• How Waze iterated to achieve product-market fit
• Tactics for telling a compelling story when fundraising
• Much more
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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-uri-levine
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Where to find Uri Levine:
• X: https://twitter.com/urilevine1
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/uri-levine
• Website: https://urilevine.com/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Uri’s background
(02:50) Falling in love with the problem
(09:03) Signs this is a big enough problem
(10:54) The importance of passion
(12:06) A pivot example
(14:01) Where to find startup ideas
(21:57) Finding product-market fit at Waze
(29:45) The different phases of a startup journey
(36:47) What investors don’t want to hear
(39:53) Fundraising tips
(48:02) How to make your presentations stronger
(50:32) A wild fundraising story
(53:46) Firing and hiring
(59:50) The 30-day test
(01:04:12) Understanding users
(01:12:10) Talking to the right users
(01:15:36) Lightning round
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Referenced:
• Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution: A Handbook for Entrepreneurs: https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Love-Problem-Solution-Entrepreneurs/dp/1637741987
• Waze: https://www.waze.com/
• Ben Horowitz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/behorowitz/
• Ben Horowitz quote: https://quotefancy.com/quote/1635284/Ben-Horowitz-As-a-startup-CEO-I-slept-like-a-baby-I-woke-up-every-2-hours-and-cried
• Michael Jordan quote: https://www.forbes.com/quotes/11194/#:~:text=I've%20lost%20almost%20300,that%20is%20why%20I%20succeed.
• Steph Curry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Curry
• How Airbnb Used Word of Mouth to Change the Travel Industry Forever: https://truested.com/story/airbnb
• Space Mountain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Mountain_(Disneyland)
• How Netflix builds a culture of excellence | Elizabeth Stone (CTO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-netflix-builds-a-culture-of-excellence
• Steve Wozniak on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wozniaksteve/
• Uri’s post about the conference in Guatemala with Steve Wozniak: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/uri-levine_jewishnewyear-speakers-book-activity-6980089544079486976-0ADa/
• Leonardo da Vinci quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9010638-simplicity-is-the-ultimate-sophistication-when-once-you-have-tasted
• Geoffrey Moore on finding your beachhead, crossing the chasm, and dominating a market: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/geoffrey-moore-on-finding-your-beachhead
• Nana Korobi Ya Oki: https://ikigaitribe.com/vlog/nana-korobi-ya-oki/
• That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea: https://www.amazon.com/That-Will-Never-Work-Netflix/dp/0316530204
• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones: https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/0735211299
• 8 Great Chess Apps for Beginners and Grand Masters: https://www.wired.com/story/best-chess-apps/
• Pontera: https://pontera.com/
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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
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