How to start a startup( sam altman )
How to start a startup?
- Idea
- Product
- Team
- Execution
Good execution is much harder then good idea.
1. Idea
- Ideas should be Mission-driven. Then you will be able to persuade other people ( your team and investors )
- Start in a small market, and expand quickly.
- Consider the future size of the market, not only the current size of the market. You can change everything in a startup but market. What good for being a student is that you can anticipate which market will grow really fast, because what you and your friends use will become a future. (metaverse??)
- Why now this idea, this particular time, this particular startup?
- Talk to your customers for the first version.
- You should describe your service in one sentence.
- Meet your potential cofounders while you are a student. This is more important then building a startup
- Think first about the market, demand of market.
2. Product
- Before your startup have a great product, nothing else is important.
- If your users like your product, your company will fail. Your users should love your product. It’s more important to build a product that small number of people love, then a product that many people like.
- Thinking of growth before having a product that people LOVE, you’ll probably end up losing your resources.
- Building a good product is hard. Target small users, but it should be loved.
- Don’t use ads for initial users. Find potential users manually, recruit them by your hands. Organic is important.
- Use a feedback cycle. Get user feedbaack, use them for product decisions( What do they like? What would they pay for? What would make them recommend it? ), and get user feedback again.
- Focus on growth, then anything else.
If you don’t achieve above, ANYTHING matters. So, in your early stage, just keep working on great idea, and great product.
