atul jha

Today I spent listing to Paul Graham in the how to start a startup series lecture. Paul is fucking awesome, full of fun, honesty & blunt in giving an opinion. We need more such motivators in our startup ecosystem.

My notes from his lecture:

1. Listen to your intuition
2. Work with people whom you respect and have known long enough.
3. Understand your user, make something people really want  & that is how your startup will grow.
4. Success of your startup is not fundraising.
5. Starting a startup during college is not a good idea.
6. An idea & co-founders is what college can provide.
7. Domain expertise is what will give you an edge over others when you are building your product.
8. If you work on things you like you don’t have to force yourself 4 being efficient.

Moving on to how to startup series class, I spent time watching Lecture 13: How To Be A Great Founder by Reid Hoffman

My notes for his class:

1. Network network network.
2. VC always tends to invest in company with co-founders as they compliment each other.
3. Right place to start a right business like finance related startup makes more sense in Mumbai.
4. Go talk to smart people and listen to their suggestions on your idea.
5. You have to be both flexible and persistent.
6. You have to be both confident as well as cautious.
7. Listen to feedback, criticism
8. Data as well as vision are important for your product.
9. Be smart & take intelligent, focussed risk.
10. Solve short term vision immediately, but do keep eye on your long term vision.
11. Product needs to go out in the market ASAP its ready, product distribution is key.

Moving on to how to startup series class, I spent time watching Lecture 9: How to Raise Money and Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway and Parker Conrad had an  interesting take on it.

Some of my notes from the class:

1. Build something awesome which pulls  VC to you.
2. Most VC invest in team, past success of the founders & product.
3. If you have a prototype of product ready, some paid customer & solid co-founders getting money is easier.
4. Getting a VC funding is easier than acquiring customers or hiring 20th employee.
5. Most VC has a strict policy not to invest in competing companies.
6. Keep a valuation real for first raisisng round.
7. Don’t dilute too much in the initial round of raises.
8. Always take money from VC who has partners with your product line, good connections for business development and  for later stage funding.

I know everyone is watching, reading, following @sama course how to start a startup. Today spent sometime watching Brian Chesky, founder Airbnb, he shared interesting story about Airbnb, how it started and all.

I am keeping this notes for myself, if it helps someone else good karma gets added on me.  🙂

• An idea is important but so is execution.
• Failing for 100 times does not mean your product suck, it means not everyone are going with your vision.
• It is not easy to get funded for a crazy idea, you will fail more often but you have to keep trying.
• Culture is like a DNA for successful company.
• Most successful companies hire candidates who maps to their culture.
• Sometimes its good to take bigger blow for short term rather getting decimated from roots.
• Its really important to have co-founders who compliment what you are lacking.