Quick Notes

Cargo Cult

Relationships

Two categories for partners of successful people

Mature

Take full responsibility
Take criticism receptively

Role of CEO

A CEO has to 1) set the vision and strategy for the company, 2) evangelize the company to everyone, 3) hire and manage the team, especially in areas where you yourself have gaps 4) raise money, and 5) set the execution quality bar.

In addition to these, find whatever parts of the business you love the most, and stay engaged there.

Definition of Execution Quality

Hiring

Offer letter shows a table of how much equity is worth depending on scenarios
Aptitude > experience
Hire someone who has their own drive, who likely will become a founder themselves if given the right timing and opportunity

Employee Retention

Three main ways from Sam Altman's blog

Intrinsic Motivations

I like ranking up in games
I like to build something important and have immediate dopamine from it

Writing

Writing is a great habit from Math
Assignments in Math / lecture notes = knowledge version control / cheat sheet

Being Confident vs Always Humble to Learn

Always be humble and learning, don’t let the selling as an expert get to your other sides

Momentum Tricks

Weekly all-hands meeting
Launch every month
Show goals and metrics all time
Monthly investor updates
Investor dashboard tracking how many leads they referred

Founder Depression

If you ask a founder how her startup is going, the answer is almost always some version of “Great!”

What to do in a bubble

If revenue is mainly coming from startups, the revenue will dry up quickly
Be frugal

B2B Sales

Sales led growth is the default after certain amount of product led growth
Enterprise sales, inbound always trumps outbound, outbound is secondary
Good vs bad customers, qualifying is important to not waste time on bad customers
Good demos are extremely personalized after understanding KPI
Closing deal is only 50% of the sales pipeline