Insight
A startup's first 10 hires dictate culture for all future employees
“The first 10 hires you make for your company, their strengths will be what the next 10 hires emulate. And that just keeps on propagating. And similarly, their weakness, their weaknesses will then be the same weaknesses that are generally emulated by, or things…”
Insight
Amazon is structurally ineffective for niche product discovery
“Amazon's actually really bad for that, especially for discovering new products, because Amazon services, you know, the best hairbrush, not the best hairbrush for Shetland ponies, right?”
Insight
Early startup hustler skill sets fail to scale with company growth
“Frequently, the people that are great at the beginning stages, because they were just hustlers you still want them at the later stages, but that skill set is insufficient, right? And especially as the CEO or as the founders, you can only have so many people re…”
Insight
Founders should avoid placing mercenary employees in charge of multi-year initiatives
“So with your foundational people, you can invest heavily in them, both from a compensation standpoint, equity is especially, but also just from investing your time and giving them ownership over things that you need to be working well for a very long period of…”
Insight
Overlooked candidates make better startup employees than top university graduates
“A lot of times if you can spot those people and you can invest in them, they will turn out to be much, much, much better than the top guy for your company because they have this, they're hyper loyal to you for giving them the opportunity investing in them.”
Insight
Candidates claiming expert status are too inflexible for early-stage startups
“When somebody talks to me about how they're an expert at something, I really don't want to work with them because it means that they're not going to be flexible going forward.”
Opinion
Most first-time founders hide operational and financial problems from employees
“I think most founders, or many founders, especially first-time founders, frequently try to hide problems the company is going through, you know.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Amir Elaguizy built an online poker bot that made hundreds of thousands
“My first profitable venture was actually a poker bot that I wrote myself with one of my best friends that made a few 100,000 dollars playing poker on the internet.”
Insight
Amazon margin compression prevents e-commerce merchants from building distinct brands
“Marketplaces like Amazon and just increased competition on the internet in general are driving margins lower for e-commerce merchants. They're making it harder to differentiate or build a real brand because, I mean, I don't even know who I buy my things from a…”
Disclosure
Cratejoy CEO Amir Elaguizy personally meets every job candidate
“I personally do all the recruiting. I'm heavily involved in interviewing, and I personally meet every candidate.”
Insight
Waiting to show perfect work is fatal in a startup environment
“They don't want to show anybody anything they're doing until it's perfect, right? And that's death in a startup. You have to be moving fast. You have to get the right thing out as quickly as possible, which means showing people things when they're half built a…”
Insight
Most leaders couch feedback so heavily that employees miss the point
“I think that most leaders when they're giving feedback to a team member are couching their words with so much qualification that the team member doesn't really hear them.”
Insight
The hardest part of founding is being judged on uncertain decisions
“The hardest thing is being judged when trying to navigate an extremely uncertain decision process. So everybody has an opinion, but you're the only one who actually knows how much, you know, money and each decision will leave you within the bank and that the v…”
Insight
Startups should include families in events to build long-term support
“Involve your family. So I bring my wife and son to company events and game nights, and I always have, and I encourage my team to do the same. Because you will be sacrificing for your company if you have any level of traction. And there'll be that, they will be…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Market Zero reached 56% monthly online poker player penetration before acquisition
“In any one-thirty-day period, 56% of poker players would visit our website.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Market Zero hit a growth ceiling due to US online gambling laws
“The only way for us to expand the business from then on was to start doing things like taking bets. And to do that, we would have to violate U.S. Laws or leave the country, and that wasn't really an option for us.”
