Startup Playbook By Sam Altman

A great blog:Startup Playbook, from Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator.

Following are the notes I took when reading the blog.

The Idea

• Clear & Concise
• Targeted users
• How to be a monopoly
• Market
• Prefer something new to something derivative

A Great Team

• Unstoppability, determination, formidability, and resourcefulness.
• Have the ability to get things done no matter how hard it is.
• One founder knows product, service; One founder knows sales and marketing. Can be one person.
• Have a good co-founder > Be a solo founder > Have a bad co-founder

A Great Product

• Talk to user -> get feedback -> improve the product.
• "Do things that don't scale"
• Break things into small pieces and iterate and adapt as you go.

Great Execution

Growth

• Growth and momentum are key to execution.
• Have a single metric that the company optimizes.
• Extreme internal transparency around metrics.
• Don't need to worry too much about fast growing with a lot of un-optimization.
• Think about problem in massive scale.

Focus & Intesity

• Don't do next thing until you dominate the first thing.
• Fast move in what you do.

Jobs of the CEO

• Set the vision and strategy for the company.
• Evangelize the company to everyone.
• Hire and manage the team.
• Raise the money.
• Set the execution quality bar.
• Stay engaged in the business you love the most.

Hiring & Managing

• Try avoid hiring.
• Generous with equality, trust & responsibility.
• Go after people you don't think you'll be able to get.
• Spend a lot of time on recruiting.
• Don't compromise the quality of people you hire.
• Invest in becoming a good manager.
• Fire quickly.

Competitors

• 99% of the time, you should ignore competitors.
• Worry about internal problems.

Making money

• Watch cash flow obsessively.

Fundraising

• Raise money when need it. Having too much money is almost as bad as not having enough money.
• Have a good company.