Collection Of Practical Business Advice

THE SOMEDAY PRINCIPLE: Regard "Someday" as a Lie that Really Means NEVER. Someday is another pacification of "I'm waiting for some condition" before acting. In reality, one new condition replaces the fulfilled one. #1: I'm waiting for the New Year. #2: I'm waiting to finish school #3: I'm waiting for a better job. #4: I'm waiting until the kids move out. #5: I'm waiting for a promotion. #6: I'm waiting to get out of debt. #7: I'm waiting until my vacation

"Focus your energy, guard your time, train your mind, train your body, think for yourself, curate your friends, curate your environment, keep your promises, stay cheerful and constructive and upgrade the world." —Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy's co-founder and founder CEO from 1989 to 2022

“How do you make something for a million people? I don’t know where to start. But if you pick one person, study them, and take their journey, you can actually build something really personal. You can design something and keep iterating until they love it. Don’t stop improving it until that person loves it, and you’re not allowed to move to the second person until the first person loves it. Then you get the second person and keep iterating until they love it. And so on.” -- Brian Chesky

Paul Graham: "You've got to start with a small, intense fire. Suppose you're the Apple 1. I think they made like 500 of those things, right? So all they had to do was find 500 people to buy these computers and they launched Apple. Apple!... You've got to find people who want what you're making a lot, and that's necessarily going to be a small number. But that's ok. That's how these giant things get started. You don't have to do any better than Apple and Facebook... You have to know who those first users are and how you're going to get them. Then you're going to sit down and just have a party with those first few users and focus entirely on them and making them super super happy."

"If you're pre-product/market fit, the best advice I have from that period is: action produces information. Just keep doing stuff. Paul Graham had this great line: startups are like sharks--if they stop swimming, they die. Even if you're not sure what to do, just do anything. Because when you do it, it'll produce some information." -- Brian Armstrong

Mj DeMarco: “Some people represent the life we left behind. At some point you need to decide if those relationships are worth the regression from the you of today, to the you of yesterday. It's a tough decision and often times, not fair. But you are justified.”

When you’re building a new product, you’re often thinking about all the new things people are going to be able to do with it. Now they can do this, now they can do that. But there’s a better question to ask: What are people going to stop doing once they start using your product? They were doing something before, what was it? How did they do the job before your product came along? Habit, momentum, familiarity, anxiety of the unknown — these are incredibly hard bonds to break. When you try to sell someone something, you have to overcome those bonds. You have to break the grip of that gravity. Think about what your product replaces, not just what it offers. What are you asking people to leave behind when they move forward with you? How hard will that be for them? How can you help them overcome everything that’s tugging them in the opposite direction?

4) Entrepreneur = Problemologist. Entrepreneurs solve problems all day, everyday. If you expect to be an entrepreneur yet refuse to face problems, obstacles, and other challenges, update your resume/CV and go back to being an employee. Leave the problems to entrepreneurs. 5) Money = Value. Everyone wants to make money, but oh so few people want to make value. Unless you're a politician, a central banker, or a thief, money is value. If you want to make more $$, be more valuable. A biz that helps millions gives you the best bet to earn millions.

Change the euphimisitic words in your life into their real consequences and you can change your life. 1) Notifications = Interruptions. "Allow XYZ App to send you interruptions?" Hell no. 2) Someday = Never. Whenever you say someday, you're saying NEVER. Face the truth and stop lying to yourself. 3) Luck = Probability Those who preach luck fail to understand probability. Don't pray for better luck, work to change your probabilities so "good luck" becomes more likely and "bad luck" less likely. Luck is for losers who don't act. Probability is for winners who do.

When hiring the first employees for your startup you have to think like a value investor. You’re looking for the human capital that is significantly undervalued by the market. You probably shouldn’t look to hire your brilliant friends at Facebook and Google because they’re already discovered. If they’re willing to join, that’s great. But they’re probably harder to convince.