How to think like a startup v3

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

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

Uber started because of a shortage of cabs in Paris

French unicorn Blablacar started because of no space in high speed train

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

Create an environment for creativity - Further future

Create an environment for creativity

Millennials don’t
want to own
anything

Tom McLeod,
OMNI
Stores everything that clutters your
life

Millennials don’t
want to plan
anything and talk
to anyone

Millennials want
to change 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 / Sama

“Make the world better”
Daniel
Flynn
“Thank
you”

If you set your goals
ridiculously high and it’s a
failure, you will still fail above
everyone else’s success
James Cameron (Avatar)

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 $

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
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

#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)

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)

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

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

See you in
Paris
April 11-12
paris.leade.rs
Loic Le Meur
More on my newsletter at
leade.rs/loicnewsletter
facebook.com/loic
twitter.com/loic
instagram.com/loic
loic@leade.rs

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