When Doug Leone got his start
The impact selling secondary shares has on founders
“The founder’s job is to make the receptionist rich”
Mentoring the next generation of investors
Sometimes incredible companies make the founder
The greatest founders Doug has worked with
Providing companies with a running start, but not doing too much
Investing in China
Entrepreneurship in Europe
“Hope is not a plan. Let’s make a plan.
- - - Podium is a venture fund across sports and entertainment, based in Silicon Valley.
Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel from Y Combinatoron the importance of talking to your users, why successful founders are ok with rejection from potential customers, and how protecting your ego by not talking to your users can kill your startup.
To create Rookies Mistakes we asked YC founders: Is there a simple fact you wish you knew when you started your company or a rookie mistake you wish you could take back?00:00:00 - Rookie Mistakes
00:00:36 - Note from YC founder
00:00:59 - Ideas vs Reality
00:01:38 - User surveys
00:02:25 - Charge for it
00:03:20 - AirBnB
00:05:27 - Twitch
00:09:35 - Note from YC founder
00:09:59 - Rejection
00:10:52 - Be scientific
00:13:13 - Note from YC founder
00:13:40 - Real customer
00:14:15 - Sales
00:15:53 - Customer validation
00:17:48 - Trade-off - Employee vs Founder
- - - Podium is a venture fund across sports and entertainment, based in Silicon Valley.
Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports, talks about his approach to business, how he started, sports betting and his role in culture evolving in a discussion with Ben Shapiro.
- - - Podium is a venture fund across sports and entertainment, based in Silicon Valley.
One of the most common questions for startups by investors is about traction.
It's intended to provide insight into adoption, growth, sales, use or potential trajectory of a startup in the current format (knowing that most startups will iterate and adjust).
In recent years, startups have become better at measuring traction metrics, but sometimes, too good, where the information is intended to impress rather than give accurate data.
While tempting to impress, it can lead to startups or investors overlooking problems or challenges that are often easier to solve or fix at the early stage rather.
It's one of many reasons we encourage startups to share the good, bad and yes, even ugly, of any metrics, even if it's not impressive.
Great investors will appreciate reality and startups will benefit long-term.
If you fixate on spreadsheets and traction as an early-stage investor, you’ll annoy good founders. These are craftspeople who love what they do and are trying to build the perfect product for their customer.
If you can put yourself in the shoes of a future customer and appreciate the product, you’re much more likely to recognize and win hot deals.
If you see a company with amazing traction that’s monetizable, has a good founder and is willing to let you do all the spreadsheet analysis you want, ask yourself: “Why am I even getting to see this deal? Why hasn’t a top-tier firm already picked it off at a valuation that’s 10x what I could pay?”
It’s difficult to truly understand metrics
Companies are also getting good at faking and exaggerating traction. At accelerator demo days, companies are trained to present graphs in the best light. They’ll show cumulative graphs rather than incremental ones. They’ll cherry-pick stats. They’ll report explosive growth during an incubator session by selling to their batchmates or doing their sales all at once—these are not sales that are sustainable.
It’s difficult to truly understand their metrics, unless you access their dashboards, know their market and are willing to dig very carefully to separate truth from fiction.
When there’s a hot round and you have no time to decide, that’s when you get taken advantage of with rosy traction stories.
Today, Apple is among the global leaders of any industry, including sports, media and entertainment with Apple Watch, health, fitness, gaming and, of course, the iPhone that has enabled a generation of apps, startups and technology disruption.
Co-founder Steve Wozniak shares the background of the first Apple Computer, how they got started, why it was priced at $666.66 and what actually happened in the Silicon Valley garage in Los Altos, California.
