I know my comment will sound too cynical or not well-received in a startup incubator forum. However, what I observed in common with the founders of the B2B startups I worked on was good networking.
The board members and initial contacts have much to do with the initial clients and the network effect it creates. It doesn’t matter if you have an excellent product. Without the initial boost of early adopters, you’ll struggle to survive. That’s why many founders go to SV or well-known startup incubators: the networking it creates is priceless. Of course, you’ll need to create a valuable product -and that’s the problem of many opportunistic startups leveraging current trends. Many startup pieces of advice I read seem to ignore the fact that you need money and contacts to have visibility in the right places (SV, elite university/circle).
While Paul Graham is a legend and I look forward to learning from his experiences, I believe that people in a position of privilege tend to overlook the advantages that come with their position.
For example, it is true that Steve Jobs started in a garage. However, both Apple founders were living in the epicenter of computing companies at the time. They both worked at HP and had contacts with people at Stanford. If you had built a personal computer in a garage in Latin America at that time, it would have been like a tree falling in the middle of nowhere.
Yes, you are right. The article discusses scaling. I got fixated on the concept of "founder mode" because the article invites a discussion about its meaning. My example involving Steve Jobs doesn’t apply to scaling, but without moving forward from the company's initial stages, there isn't anything to scale. I think initial networking also plays a vital role in decision-making during growth. For example, Steve Jobs' contacts with Xerox Parc greatly influenced the creation of Apple's Lisa, and Mac.
So, a book on "founder mode" could include multiple chapters on leveraging your network to scale your company.
The board members and initial contacts have much to do with the initial clients and the network effect it creates. It doesn’t matter if you have an excellent product. Without the initial boost of early adopters, you’ll struggle to survive. That’s why many founders go to SV or well-known startup incubators: the networking it creates is priceless. Of course, you’ll need to create a valuable product -and that’s the problem of many opportunistic startups leveraging current trends. Many startup pieces of advice I read seem to ignore the fact that you need money and contacts to have visibility in the right places (SV, elite university/circle).
While Paul Graham is a legend and I look forward to learning from his experiences, I believe that people in a position of privilege tend to overlook the advantages that come with their position.
For example, it is true that Steve Jobs started in a garage. However, both Apple founders were living in the epicenter of computing companies at the time. They both worked at HP and had contacts with people at Stanford. If you had built a personal computer in a garage in Latin America at that time, it would have been like a tree falling in the middle of nowhere.