69: Sound, Actionable Advice with Jason Cohen

Advice is not enough; luck, execution, and other pieces are involved

Be honest and know what qualities investors want

Jason characterizes a company as a learning machine that’s constantly failing, not doing the right thing, and has no resources; but has agility to learn and react quickly

Embrace your humanity and smallness; don’t lie about being big

Share the good and bad about your startup journey for others to feel connected to and support it

When making decisions, apply filters to cut out things; constraints are useful

Universal Rule of Success: You’re all in and apply a lot of energy; makes you more productive and fulfilled

Many paths lead to success and failure; pick ones that naturally fit you

A good engineer can build features (not risky), but can they do everything else - probably not (risky); identify how a company’s priorities need to change to address risk

To be sustainable, get help and became an expert in something - not everything

Product success depends on use cases and maturity of company (convince customers how good it is now and will get even better); if product isn’t good, then business won’t last

Jason shares ideas and options regarding Ben’s Tuple product

When bootstrapping, getting money is challenging because you’re not on people’s radar