How to think like a
startup Loic Le Meur

How do startup entrepreneurs find
ideas?

“In the beginner’s mind there
are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few” - Shunryu Suzuki

Meditation and mindfulness is popular
in Silicon Valley and now in Davos

Provide benefit to the customer
- anything else is a waste Learning to see waste and then systematically eliminate it

“I am still learning.” -
Michelangelo, at age 87

Airbnb started because of a
shortage of hotel rooms in San Francisco

Uber started because of a
shortage of cabs in Paris

Ryan Hoover, Product Hunt Started
just from an email list Gathered a small community of people addicted to new products

Naval Ravikant, Angel List Weekly
email of curated angel investors

Craig Newmark, Craigslist Request and
Gives from Craig’s friends

Jamie Siminoff, Ring Tried 3
different ideas in his garage Struggled to find initial funding Now approaching 1,000 employees

The Ring founding story

Create an environment for creativity
- Further future

Create an environment for creativity

Create an environment for creativity

Create an environment for creativity

Create an environment for creativity

Millennials don’t want to own
anything and care about improving the world

Improve the world “I just
wanted more electric cars on the road” - Elon Musk

“Make the world better” “All
business should make the world better” - Leila Janah LXMI

They don’t care about copying
...and making it better

Instagram stories
and Snapchat
stories

Snap's Spectacles are the beginning
of camera-first future

SV entrepreneurs surround themselves with
investors who provide more than $

Teams are remote, own the
business and don’t feel like employees Mix of highly experimented professionals and very creative millennials Matthew Mansfield Dami Dina Kevin Wolf Jean-Jacques Borie “We’re too slow and too old in this company”

SV entrepreneurs launch their product
really fast

"If you're not embarrassed by
the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late" - Reid Hoffman

Entrepreneurs iterate quickly

Entrepreneurs break the rules Travis
Kalanick and Uber got sued non stop but kept going Uber and Airbnb were illegal from day one in many places but kept operating

Entrepreneurs make everything transparent

Even your own company is
rated

Entrepreneurs acknowledge issues and respond
quickly

Elon Musk turns a tweet
into a company wide change in 6 days

Elon Musk turns a tweet
into a company wide change in 6 days

#1 Advantage of a start
up... Speed

“We’re going in full throttle.
That ought to keep those fighters off our back.” - Luke Skywalker

Speed is the #1 competitive
weapon Rapid product beats competition Rapid results builds team morale which leads to more success Rapid results generate more interest Rapid results increases valuation (NFX Guild)

Always keep
momentum.

- Henry Ford The competitor
to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

Set the time, not the
output What product can I build in: 3 months? (Directhit, Xfire) 8 days? (Hot or Not) 30 days? (Jiff) 1 month? (Meerkat) (NFX Guild)

Twitter’s MVP

Linkedin’s MVP

Facebook’s MVP

Google’s MVP

How startups win No QA
No Usability Studies No Focus Groups No Politics No Endless Debates No Board of Directors No Bus Dev Deals No PR No Marketing Spend No Budgeting Process (NFX Guild)

“At Google X, we embrace
failure.” - Astro Teller

Most Startups Fail

Entrepreneurs fail fast

And pivot

Startups ranked by number of
years from founding to $1 billion valuation

Flickr should have built Instagram
but they did not move fast enough

Entrepreneurs work with an ecosystem
of developers

Twitter decided developers weren’t so
important anymore

Entrepreneurs Embrace wikipedia style volunteer
collaboration Slush and their 2,200 volunteers

Entrepreneurs challenge the current players
by re-inventing the model Metromile charges insurance protection per mile

Entrepreneurs constantly reinvent their business
Uber selling data Tesla next?

Thanks! Loic Le Meur More
on my newsletter at leade.rs/loicnewsletter facebook.com/loic twitter.com/loic loic@leade.rs