I realized most of the really interesting advice is negative. Don’t. So… don’t try to “disrupt” an existing industry: instead, try to fill a need that nobody else knows exists. Don’t get overwhelmed by uncertainty. Don’t diversify. Don’t hire consultants. Don’t have part-time employees (“Ken Kesey was right: you’re either on the bus or off the bus.”) Don’t pay your CEO too much and don’t pay staff lots of cash instead of stock. Don’t have a board of more than three to five people. Don’t offer incremental advances. Don’t bother launching a new technology unless it is “an order of magnitude” or “10X” better than what exists today. Don’t play little ball—swing for home runs. Don’t listen to the mainstream. Don’t be afraid of the unknown. Don’t try to be a big fish in a big pond before you’ve been a big fish in a small pond. Don’t start a company with people you don’t really like. Don’t neglect sales and marketing. And, my favorite bit of advice: Do not, under any circumstances, create a complex or confused organization. “The best thing I did as a manager at PayPal,” Thiel writes, “was to make every person in the company responsible for doing just one thing. Every employee’s one thing was unique, and everyone knew I would evaluate him only on that one thing.”
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 22:45:34 +0000
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