entrepreneurship

Is churn created by “Failure Demand” impacting how you deliver value?

What good goals look like and why.

Top talent is the hardest group to manage

Out of all things I’m asked about, hiring tops the list. From the actual hiring process, to reviews, to motivation and retention strategies, curiosity about hiring is on full charge. There’s a lot to cover, but I’d like to share some thoughts about a moment that doesn’t get enough attention: The end of the first year and the beginning ...

An archive of the best articles from Marc Andreessen’s now defunct blog

Founder & CEO is a common title, especially in tech. It happens to be my title too. I've come to believe it's an impossible title. You're either CEO, or you're Founder. You can't hold both full-time jobs. And unless your company is probably 100+, CEO isn't really a job anyway. It's more of a role someone needs to play occasionally. The...

Reddit is one of my favorite places on the internet. It's like an early version of a metaverse, where people come together to create interconnected worlds, each with its own culture. That interconnectedness is what makes Reddit great, but for the system to work, each community has to conform to the one-size-fits-all mold of a subreddit. One size fits all, but it doesn't fit anyone particularly well. That creates unbundling opportunities.

My top 10 highlights from the book: 1. I may lose once but I never lose twice. 2. He had such an appetite for victory and such a capacity for work that he was bound to succeed. 3. Arnault is an iron fist in an iron glove. 4. He did not stray from his path. Relentlessly he pursued his ascent and seized every passing opportunity. 5. It i...

Gareth Morgan’s Images of Organization is a must-read for those who want to develop a deeper understanding of a lot of the stuff I talk about here. Though I’ve cited the book lots of ti…

What exactly is Amazon? This is the question that has consumed me for the last ten years. I have sold to and bought from Amazon in about as many ways as one person can; I built an auto parts brand …

It is only from doing hard things, the Stoics said, that we learn what we’re capable of. A little over three years ago, my wife and I had the craziest idea we’ve ever had in our lives: to open a bookstore in Bastrop, Texas. Opening a small business is always hard. But opening a small business during a pandemic in a small town in rural Texas? To call it a challenge would be an understatement. We’ve learned a lot…about business, about books, and about what we’re capable of. Last year, I wrote a piece on the lessons we’d learned in our first year of business at The Painted Porch. Now, another year has passed and we have learned a few more…and re-learned some of the ones we thought we’d gotten the first time. I share them here so you can perhaps learn a little from my experiences and hopefully go create something cool of your own out of it. [1] Anything can be a good business if you treat it like a business. Too many indie bookstores are started because people think they’ll be fun…or because they love books. No, you have to be serious. I learned this as a writer: treat it like a job. [2] The bookstore of course is not just a bookstore. It is my office. It is my employee’s office. It is where I record podcasts and film YouTube videos. I rent part of the building to another business (a really cool record store called Astro Records). When you are thinking about taking a big risk, look for little ways to take some risk off the table. Find multiple uses, multiple options so that if one fails, you can still succeed. [3] On the Daily Stoic podcast, Matthew McConaughey gave me a better framework for making big decisions. He told me he’s known in Hollywood as a Quick No, Long Yes. His No’s are quick. But before he says Yes to something, “I give myself about 2 weeks in each frame of mind—Yes I’m in, No I’m out—and then I measure what keeps me up at night.” [4] Keep your eye on the prize. What is success to you? What metrics actually matter to you? Remembering why you did something and how you measure success helps you calibrate your decisions properly. I’m happy enough to be putting books out in the world, making this community better, having a physical space, challenging myself, etc…as long as I don’t lose lots of money, that’s a win. [5] Forget the politics. It’s been interesting to watch people in our small town care a lot about what other people in the small town think. Except this small town isn’t big enough to support a bookstore. When you’re starting out doing things, you get strong opinions from people in your local scene etc. But that’s not who you should be trying to impress, or who matters in the long run. Look outward, onwards. Don’t be stuck thinking small, don’t let the scene you chanced into constrain you. [6] Don’t be afraid to be political though. We delayed opening during the worst days of COVID. We kept up safety protocols even after the state of Texas washed its hands of its responsibilities last year. We did it even though people got mad at us for it, even though it probably cost us business. My conscience is clean and that’s what counts. Keeping your community and your staff safe is good for business in the long run anyway. [7] Beware of mission creep. Our original plan was that we’d have only a couple hundred books, only my absolute favorite books, only the books I put in my Reading List Email. It would only be those books. But the problem is, I’m always reading and discovering new favorite books. So the temptation to add and add and add is always there. In the military, they call this mission creep. It’s hard to predict exactly how things are going to unfold, so there tends to be a gradual broadening of objectives as a mission or battle progresses. If you are setting out on a project, just something to be aware of. [8] For everything you add, take something away. There’s a great story of Mark Parker who, just after he became CEO of Nike, called Steve Jobs for advice. “Just one thing,” Jobs said. “Nike makes some of the best products in the world. Products that you lust after. But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.” “He was absolutely right,” Parker said. “We had to edit.” Because we’ve always done it this way, is not a good reason. Or in our case, because we’ve always carried this book or because it sold well in the past, is not a good reason. We have to edit. [9] Whenever I am at the store, people are excited to see me and ask a bunch of questions. Whenever my wife is there people ask her, “Where are your kids?” No one has EVER asked me that. It’s just a reminder that entrepreneurship is easier for some than others and the whole idea of just pulling yourselves up by your bootstraps is nonsense. Be aware of your advantages and privileges. [10] Speaking of which…something that’s been hard to navigate is all the people who come to the bookstore to see me. On the one hand, it is awesome. But on the other hand, if I give everyone twenty minutes, my day is gone. This means I sometimes have to be rude…but if I am not, then I am rude to my writing, to my family, to myself. [11] If you’re successful, your people should be successful. Nothing feels better than distributing profits or raises to the team. If you don’t take pleasure in that, you’re doing it wrong, prioritizing the wrong things. [12] A few weeks ago, an employee made a bad call [...]

At most companies, people put together a deck, reserve a room (physical or virtual), and call a meeting to pitch a new idea. If they're lucky, no one interrupts them while they're presenting. When it's over, people react. This is precisely the problem. The person making the pitch has presumably put a lot of time, thought, and energy in...

There's a lot of talk right now about smaller, slimmer, tighter teams. Economics are forcing companies to cut back, and what they're finding is progress. Trim the overgrown crown, let the sunshine meet the ground, and all sorts of new life blooms on the forest floor. Even Zuck, master of a megacorp, is noticing it: https://twitter.com/...

Share your calendar(s), and the world will know what you (and your company) values. Where does your time go? How much time do you spend: Talking to customers? Sharing your insights? Reflecting on what you’ve learned recently? “Managing” stakeholders? In 1:1s without your manager? Planning for things far off into the future? Chats with no clear resolution or progress?

The importance of capital allocation As a corporate lawyer, I have been extremely fortunate to meet and to get to know some exceptionally gifted CEOs. Many of these individuals have performed admirably in their respective fields, demonstrating the types of qualities you would generally expect of exe

How I realized the market is always right, and I have no idea what I’m doing.

When I was a kid working in the bread factory, my nemesis was dough. It was sticky and hard to remove and it got everywhere. I got home with specks of dough in my hair. Every shift included a coupl…

What's a concierge minimum viable product for Lean Startup, and how do you make one? Learn how to build the right concierge MVP here.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Hi friends, ​ What a wild thing to watch Write of Passage grow. We started the year ...

The Basecamp and HEY cofounder discusses the power of short-term thinking, his framework for startup longevity, and the key thing he looks for when hiring remote.

“You can add $13 000 in revenue in 1 week. The best part? You can do it without even touching your product. Steal my pricing tactics that have brought easy sales for 50 startups:”

I was lucky enough to spend the weekend with some very successful people. My friend Shaan Puri put together a group of 24 entrepreneurs, rented a few big Airbnbs and scheduled a chef and rented a basketball court in Raleigh NC. There were a few billionaires and famous people. A handful of folks...

We simply copy an existing and functioning machine and then focus on modifying one or maybe two of the moving parts

(Credit: Wired magazine. ) Time to read: 50 minutes We touched down in Las Vegas only three hours before, but we were already back in the plane and flying home to San Jose on a brisk winter day in …

# 5 Build In Public Myths that need to die Building in Public is a popular trend these days among indie hackers to get initial traction on their product...

The Thiel Fellowship gives $100,000 to young people who want to build new things instead of sitting in a classroom.

An MBA in VCs, Marketplaces, And Early-Stage Investing

An MBA in VCs, Marketplaces, And Early-Stage Investing