Better's Blinkist

What’s in it for me? Learn the secrets to startup success from one of the world’s most prominent venture capitalists.

• why monopolies are actually good for innovation; • why your startup needs to go from "0 to 1," not "from 1 to n"; and • why it’s not that uncommon for a startup founder to have experience building bombs.

24 January, 2020 08:10 Share

To imagine what progress the future will bring, you must be able to view the present differently.

As you can imagine, vertical progress is hard to predict because you have to imagine something that doesn’t exist yet. That’s why you can only predict future progress if you’re able to see the present differently.

24 January, 2020 08:09 Share

After all, the future is by definition different from the present, so to imagine it you can’t just focus on the status quo. If you want to imagine what the future holds, you must be able to view the present critically. The author believes that this is such a crucial ability that, in job interviews, he asks candidates, "What important truth do very few people agree with you on?" Why? Because only a person who can think outside established conventions can see and change the future

24 January, 2020 08:09 Share

The author believes that this is such a crucial ability that, in job interviews, he asks candidates, "What important truth do very few people agree with you on?" Why? Because only a person who can think outside established conventions can see and change the future.

24 January, 2020 08:10 Share

Be the architect of your own future and make a focused effort to attain it.

success is the product of focus, dedication and determination. Fate and luck have little to do with it. After all, if success were nothing but a product of luck, we wouldn’t see serial successes like Steve Jobs or the author, who founded several prosperous businesses.

24 January, 2020 08:06 Share

Start-ups only have one best future – and attaining it demands a concerted effort. Why only one? Because a start-up will only be successful under very specific conditions: there’s only one best market for the company’s product, only one best time to launch it, and so on. In order to strike when the conditions are just right, you must make a conscious choice to pursue the future in question.

24 January, 2020 08:06 Share

Building a successful, profitable company takes years of work.

This is especially true when it comes to profits: it can take years for a start-up to become profitable. But even if the company doesn’t initially make profits, it can still have value, because value is determined by the profits it will make over its entire lifespan. PayPal is a case in point: in 2001, it wasn’t making any profits, and when the author calculated the value of the company back then, he found that most of it came from profits that were expected to come in more than ten years later!

24 January, 2020 08:11 Share

So how can you make your start-up a profitable monopoly? You need to start small and then expand bit by bit. First, understand that you don’t need to be the very best in every business, just your business. So it’s important to define your market as narrowly and specifically as possible. That’ll make it easier for you to become its dominant player

24 January, 2020 08:11 Share

Start-ups need a solid foundation: the right people and culture, and balanced owner interests.

The first key component in this foundation is finding the right people. Typically, start-ups are so small that every single person on the team plays an important role. That’s why, before making an investment in a company, the author not only makes it a point to analyze the skills and vision of the people involved but also their personal connections. He’s seen firsthand what weak personal ties can do to a team. Before co-founding PayPal with Luke Nosek, the author had invested in a company that Nosek had started with someone he barely knew. Eventually, their personal differences took the whole venture down, along with the author’s investment.

24 January, 2020 08:12 Share

Your products will never sell themselves: your team needs to do that.

For example, the author co-founded the data analytics company Palantir, where a single closed sale usually brings in several million dollars. Here, the CEO has to personally do the selling, because clients spending such sums expect a certain amount of personal involvement from the seller’s executives.

24 January, 2020 08:13 Share

But in business, sales is a vital necessity. Many people, especially those enthusiastic about technology, would prefer to focus on product innovation, but innovative products are worthless unless they’re sold. And there’s no product on earth that people will buy without you selling it.

24 January, 2020 08:13 Share

Many cleantech companies failed because they did not consider the seven critical questions every business must answer.

Innovative companies like Tesla typically have answers to almost all of these key questions, whereas most cleantech companies had zero. This is why they failed.

24 January, 2020 08:14 Share

1. The Engineering question: Can you create a true technological breakthrough? Cleantech companies didn’t understand that to prevail over established energy companies, they needed technology ten times better than theirs, not just slightly better. 2. The Timing question: Is this the right time to start your business? Some cleantech companies believed the industry was on the cusp of a period of rapid, exponential advances in, for example, solar-panel technology, and that this would allow them to flourish. But in fact clean

24 January, 2020 08:14 Share

1. The Engineering question: Can you create a true technological breakthrough? Cleantech companies didn’t understand that to prevail over established energy companies, they needed technology ten times better than theirs, not just slightly better. 2. The Timing question: Is this the right time to start your business? Some cleantech companies believed the industry was on the cusp of a period of rapid, exponential advances in, for example, solar-panel technology, and that this would allow them to flourish. But in fact clean technology has advanced slowly and linearly

24 January, 2020 08:15 Share

4. The People question: Can your team pursue this opportunity? Cleantech companies were often run by non-technical executives who had no idea how to build great products.

24 January, 2020 08:15 Share

7. The Secret question: Do you see a unique opportunity that others have missed? At the time, everyone agreed cleantech was going to be huge. But truly successful companies have secrets: they spot opportunities not everyone can see.

24 January, 2020 08:15 Share

Founders tend to be oddballs, but their vision is crucial for any company.

Consider Paypal’s founding team: almost every member was a bit of an oddball. In fact, as teenagers, four of them even had the unusual hobby of building bombs! This kind of originality is important because founders do far more than just start a company: they give it a vision. And this contribution is indispensable; no matter how refined a company’s management strategies are, it must have a vision to pursue.

24 January, 2020 08:15 Share

As this success story shows, even a strong company, if it wants to perform at the highest level, needs the originality and vision of its founder.

24 January, 2020 08:16 Share