11 best advice on starting a business

Absrtact: Stanford University is the heart of Silicon Valley and the soul of innovation, where many great technology companies have been nurtured and nurtured, and the famous Silicon Valley elites often come back to preach. The Stanford University program for start-ups is one of Silicon Valley's

Stanford University is the heart and spirit of innovation in Silicon Valley, where many great technology companies have been nurtured and nurtured, and the famous Silicon Valley elites often come back to preach. The Stanford University program for start-ups was attended by some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley. The first day of class was overcrowded, and in the first lesson how to start a startup, the famous investor Sam Altman revealed to the students the secret of how he created the 1 billion-dollar unicorn in the Y-combinator incubator, and discussed with him, There is also the co-founder of Facebook and Dustin Moskovitz, founder of collaboration tool Asana.

Here are the 11 best tips they give about starting a business after enrichment:

1. Never open a company in order to open a company. There is much easier way to get rich ... The first is to have a clear hobby (passion), the second is to open the company

Both cite an example of a very bad money-making strategy to start a startup. Moskovitz gives a picture of a wise man who, at a 1 billion-dollar company, would make more money for 100th employees than he did with his own company (or more).

Given the high rate of failure of startups and the amount of time and effort that it takes to get out of a successful exit, there are other quick shortcuts for smart people to become millionaires.

For example, if you work for a company that is valued at 10 billion dollars in Dropbox, it is possible to get 1 million dollars for the top salary of the number 100th employee. Start-ups, by contrast, are valued at 100 million of billions of dollars as founders to get the annual salary.

2. The world needs you to do it. If this is not what it needs, do what the world needs you to do.

Moskovitz again emphasized the importance of the founder's passion for his ideas. Unless you feel strongly that you cannot live without making such a product, you will not be able to survive the company's difficult times, and you will never find an employee who is willing to follow you.

3. Most great companies start with great ideas, not through pivot ... If you look at the records of those pivot, they don't become great companies.

Altman does not think that only the founder of the common-thinking founders will eventually be the winner. He says a major pivot transition is almost always a failure. Pivot often succeeds only when the direction is closer to the problem that the founder was trying to solve.

4, must have the idea first, second is opens the company ... If you have a few good ideas, choose the one you want most.

Yes, there are always a lot of problems you want to solve. But focus is the most important thing, and the question you can't stop thinking about is what you should focus on.

5. You need a market that can become bigger in 10 years ... This is one of the biggest systemic mistakes investors have made, considering the growth of start-ups, without taking into account the growth of the market.

Peter Thiel suggested that the enterprise should form a monopoly. Occupy the entire market. The only way to create a monopoly is to occupy the largest share of a market that will become bigger within 5-10 years.

6, generally speaking, the development of things best also you need ... Because you can better understand the problem, rather than go to the customer to talk.

Self-evident。 Many start-ups in Silicon Valley were born to solve the founders ' problems. Altman that this is almost the only way a good start-up can start.

7. If you do something that can't be explained, it's almost certain that what you're doing is too complicated.

Keep it simple, stupid.

8. For any start-up, it is more important than success to know many potential co-founders

To be a butterfly. It's hard to start a company without an entrepreneurial friend. Facebook, PayPal and Google all have very good co-founders, and many of them meet in social situations.

9. The founders of the truly successful startups told their early experiences that their stories were almost the same: sitting in front of the computer, knocking on the code, sitting next to the client talking about the product, without him.

Altman's advice is that the founders should not recruit media teams or salespeople in the early days. Good founders do everything to better understand products and customer needs. You can look at the many successful serial entrepreneurs who are able to afford all the support they need, but are still close to listening to customer complaints.

10, can develop a few people love most people like things better

To strengthen the company through Word-of-mouth, customers need to love your products, like not enough.

11. The best ideas always seem frightening at first ... A really good idea is not worth stealing.

YC founder, Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial godfather Paul Graham, once said that the greatest ideas are frightening. Most of the obvious intriguing ideas have been realized by big companies. So what's left for startups is the seemingly crazy, but actually incredibly brilliant ideas.

For the full video of the first lecture, see below: