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Sam Altman's advice on building a successful startup

Sam Altman's advice on building a successful startup

Sheldon Bishop
April 09, 2024

Good morning! This is The Zero to One. Equipping you with the best tools, resources, and actionable tactics to take your startup to the moon. Think of us as your guilt-free Netflix binge alternative.

Here’s what’s in store for you today:

ICYMI: 0 to $100M+ helping entrepreneurs launch profitable businesses.
Sam Altman on the secrets to building a startup.
Videos and articles to take your business to the moon.
Opportunities for you and your business to take advantage of.
Top tools for your business.
Cool jobs currently open in the startup world.

ICYMI ⏮️

Last week I deep-dived AppSumo, the two-sided marketplace promoting weekly deals on awesome products that help you grow your business.

In the 14 years since launch AppSumo has helped 1.5M+ entrepreneurs save over $550M on the best products.

Read it to see how AppSumo reached over $100M in revenue helping entrepreneurs build profitable businesses.

The secret to building a startup and why startups can beat big corporates

I came across this old clip from YCs startup school, where Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI talks about how to succeed in running your startup.

It’s an awesome video and the YC startup school series is a must-watch if you are running your own business. Here is my summary of the video:

The secret to startup success

The degree to which you succeed can be approximated to how often people spontaneously tell their friends about it.

Think about the most popular products

Building a product like this requires a few key features (I’ve highlighted the ones I resonated most with):

Easy to understand: You need to be able to explain what you do in a few words.
Market with exponential growth (or soon to see growth): Identify a market that will grow every year that you can grow with.
Ambitious vision: These are interesting projects to work on. It will be easier to get talent to want to be associated with this type of vision.
Team: Other than picking the right market and building the right product is the most important thing you do. When growing a company you will go from building a product to building a business - and this is about finding the right team.
Idea generators: You need a few people who are really good at coming up with new ideas - even if most are bad.
Bias towards action: Startups often win by moving very quickly. You want people who are able to act with less certainty and can adapt when things go wrong.

Why startups win

It’s hard for startups to beat big companies, but there are recurring reasons why they do:

One no versus one yes: At a big company if you want to implement a new idea, you will need to get the approval of everyone up to potentially even the CEO - one no can kill your idea. But in a startup, all you need is one yes and you can execute.
Fast-changing markets: Startups can iterate and move much quicker. Their advantage lies in agility and speed. The more a market is changing, the bigger this advantage becomes because a big company will change slower than you will.
Platform shifts: For example, the iPhone App store - startups could go all in on something in an instant, whereas big companies take a while to turn the ship.

Videos or articles to help your startup go from Zero to One 📽️

How to start an ambitious company (link)
16 Rookie errors to avoid when pitching VCs (link)
How to launch a profitable course (link)
How fast should your newsletter be growing? (link)

Founder Opportunities 🛎️

Y Combinator (YC) S24: Taking place from Jul-Sept 2024 in San Francisco, the world’s preeminent startup accelerator, YC, is now accepting applications to their Summer 2024 batch. Some of their past investments include Stripe, Twitch, Airbnb, Reddit, and Zapier. The deadline to apply is 22 Apr (link)
Founders Inc: Investing the first check (up to $150k) into founders building emerging tech. The program is aimed at helping you transition from builder to founder (link)
Techstars Anywhere Remote Accelerator: Since 2017, Techstars’ original remote-first accelerator program has supported companies innovating across any industry. The program runs from Sep-Dec with three in-person meetups in various cities. The deadline to apply is 22 May (link)
Techstars Boston Accelerator: The program leverages the experience of the Boston ecosystem to accelerate the growth of disruptive innovations in the areas of health tech, sustainability/climate/AgTech, and AI. The program runs from Sep-Dec. The deadline to apply is 22 May (link)