The Wisdom Wall

“And I think that's really the value of being more public in your fundraise, It helps you cast a wider net, which then you ultimately find the perfect match, the perfect marriage, and you end up, I think, um, really getting a sense for your market prices. That's the other thing that you benefit tremendously from is…”

“You know, it's true that since we did raise in public and we were successful, we've had some imitators and some copycats, but none of them really have affected us. You know, it was a little bit of like, oh, should I have Been so public about our success when I see all these, you know, imitators and companies, they've…”

“They can convince themselves that they're actually meaningfully moving toward product market fit by just sitting in the room and coding all day. Most of the time, that time is wasted. You know, it's not getting you any closer to the insights you need to building a business and building a product people love.”

“investors are very good at selling. So you should be careful. There's very few questions you can ask an investor, uh, that you're going to get to the core truth. Uh, compared to talking to their references and, and certainly talking to back channel references are, are very, very important.”

“I think founders will be really honest with other founders. So don't be afraid to, you know, you're thinking about taking a term sheet from an investor. Look at, you know, all the other people they're on the board with and just reach out to the CEOs of those companies. They'll respond. You know, I've had, I think a…”

“And usually when you ask somebody their first instinct, and you ask them in this hypothetical, you get to some truth that you might not otherwise get when you ask about strengths and weaknesses.”

“If I look back at the things that I did at Optimizely, my last company, the vast majority of my time and effort was wasted. What really mattered was like getting two or three things right. That ultimately led to our success.”

“They actually wouldn't want me to just blindly follow their point of view. They want to be heard. They want to know that their point of view matters, that I'm hearing it, but more than anything, they want to make sure that I'm following my gut. I'm making the best decision I think is for the company”

“first-time founders think that the best way to get their team to follow them is to be liked, but really second-time founders recognize that the best way to get their team to follow them is to win, so that's more important than being liked in the moment, and the people who you disagree with and you ultimately end up…”

“Again, a good reason why bootstrap founders probably are successful is they're not surrounded by these people. You know, you end up just, you're forced to talk to users because you probably haven't hired that customer support person, and you hear the pain from the customer support, and so you go build that feature.”

“so many technical founders, especially people who've worked at big companies, end up making the mistake of thinking that the value that they're creating is in the sophistication of their technology, not the problem it's solving.”

“if you're forced to write that demo script, uh, before you start building, it makes you think about the use cases, the demos, uh, or that, that, that would demo nicely. And I think that clarifies, that focuses you back to the main thing. It focuses you on what actually matters in the product. Uh, and which actually…”

“actually soliciting that input early in the process is way better than sort of coming down from Mount Sinai with these golden tablets of like, this is what we're going to do. Because both your own psychology is going to, is going to be a hindrance. And, um, the people that just won't be as bought in, you know, you want…”