Founders always have the urge to find shortcuts around things. That’s actually a strong sign of entrepreneurial spirit. But, it’s only a skill, just like any other skill. It can’t be used to get around everything in entrepreneurship.
The last few days in startup twitter-verse have been dominated by one man - Soham Parekh. He’s an engineer from India who took up multiple parallel jobs at YC startups, and moonlighted. Basically, he took up jobs at each of these startups and didn’t properly contribute to anyone. All the rewards, and none of the risk.
A founder told me today: I reach out to 3000 people a month. I have about 1 client conversation a day. I don’t have enough revenue from these clients. I am converting only 1% of the outreach into qialified leads and even fewer into customers.
‘If I had the money and the connections that the Zepto Founders had, even I could build it. In fact, I don’t understand what’s cool about Zepto. I can probably make something that is truly world changing. Not just 15 minute delivery.’
Founders face a Thousand Battles at their startup every month. A thousand. From small ones like tiny bugs in their code to large ones like “How do I make money?”
Youtube is the second largest search engine in the world. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and other social media platforms are all video first. LinkedIn too has a video first strategy.
Everyone’s heard of Freud and Jung. Anyone who’s seen popular psychotherapy being performed, knows that it’s based on their works. Their approach is primarily that of “cause” and “effect”. Everything that is wrong with you today is because of something that happened to you in the past.
The word ‘Culture’ is thrown about a lot in startups. Most people think of ‘Culture’ as the perks and benefits provided to employees. I think of culture as the morals and value upon which the entire business runs.
The AI deceleration movement isn’t new. With every step change in technology, we’ve had people with vested interests protest.
In business, there are no correct answers. Nothing can be objectively the best response to a situation.