Things I wish I did before starting a company

When I think about the process I had when starting a company for the first time, I realize how much luck was involved. I might’ve even benefited from my naiveté but I didn’t do nearly enough.

Here are the things I wish I did…

Study the history of previous successes & failures. Understanding the market incumbents is critical to seeing the distance you’ll have to go but also where there are many opportunities to exploit. The Wright Bros made safer planes while testing to avoid dying like their predecessors.

Prototype & learn the technology from 1st principles. There are a lot of opportunities to test why things are the way they are. We built a new kind of db which changed our trajectory. Could things be better if: The internet was 5x faster? Compute was 5x faster? New APIs exist?

Talk to optimistic devil’s advocates. Don’t waste time on jaded naysers. It was usually demoralizing for me. If the person can’t admit their gap of knowledge/too confident put a discount on their opinion regardless of status. Attempt to dispute claims of merit afterwards.

Be scrappy & test marketing/positioning with no product by using ads, landing pages, and real data to see if there’s any demand. Make a button that, when pressed, tells the user it’s coming to test demand. Don’t let this conclude not doing your idea. It’s just a data point.

I wish I did analysis of the total addressable market with a reasonable sense of revenue I could earn. I got lucky. Don’t convince yourself that getting 1% of the market will make you rich. Believe you have a good chance to upend & conquer all of it with grit & cleverness.

Read a lot of books: I’ve been surprised how the way one industry works has lessons that can be reused to do something novel in another. For example: lots of concepts of biology can be applied in computing.

Write down the reasons why you think something is going to be a huge opportunity. Actually see if you can validate those assumptions from first principles. It’s okay if you can’t validate everything but this step will make you more honest vs over-confident.

Don’t over analyze your plans over the next 12 months. Validate that the problem & a possible solution exists. I had a lot to learn even though I was a customer 1st. Plans will radically change. If plans don’t change, body check whether you’re learning & accepting new info.

Lastly, try to remember: you can’t possibly do this company 24/7 for next 5–10 years if you don’t feel passionate about the idea. I lost a lot of sleep due to excitement. Don’t do it just for the 💰, do it cuz you want to will it into existence in the world cuz it’s important