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Month: January 2019

Investor Stories 105: Why I Passed (Tusk, Bahat, Ascher)

by Nick Moran

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured:

Bradley Tusk Roy Bahat Brian Ascher

Each investor highlights a situation where they decided not to invest, why they passed, and how it played out.

 

To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes.

Also, follow us on twitter @TheFullRatchet for updates and more information.

Investor Stories 105: Why I Passed (Tusk, Bahat, Ascher)

by Nick Moran

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured:

Bradley Tusk Roy Bahat Brian Ascher

Each investor highlights a situation where they decided not to invest, why they passed, and how it played out.

 

To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes.

Also, follow us on twitter @TheFullRatchet for updates and more information.

Managing Technological Innovation, Spring 2019 Syllabus

by Jerry Neumann
This post is by Jerry Neumann from Reaction Wheel

Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research IEOR 4998                                                                                                      Jerry Neumann Spring 2019                                                                  […]

How To Be Successful

by Sam Altman
This post is by Sam Altman from Sam Altman

I’ve observed thousands of founders and thought a lot about what it takes to make a huge amount of money or to create something important. Usually, people start off wanting the former and end up wanting the latter.

Here are 13 thoughts about how to achieve such outlier success. Everything here is easier to do once you’ve already reached a baseline degree of success (through privilege or effort) and want to put in the work to turn that into outlier success. [1] But much of it applies to anyone.

1. Compound yourself

Compounding is magic. Look for it everywhere. Exponential curves are the key to wealth generation.

A medium-sized business that grows 50% in value every year becomes huge in a very short amount of time. Few businesses in the world have true network effects and extreme scalability. But with technology, more and more will.  It’s worth a lot of effort to find them and create them.

You also want to be an exponential curve yourself—you should aim for your life to follow an ever-increasing up-and-to-the-right trajectory. It’s important to move towards a career that has a compounding effect—most careers progress fairly linearly.

You don't want to be in a career where people who have been doing it for two years can be as effective as people who have been doing it for twenty—your rate of learning should always be high. As your career progresses, each unit of work you do should generate more and more results. There are many (Read more...)

How To Be Successful

by Sam Altman
This post is by Sam Altman from Sam Altman

I’ve observed thousands of founders and thought a lot about what it takes to make a huge amount of money or to create something important. Usually, people start off wanting the former and end up wanting the latter.

Here are 13 thoughts about how to achieve such outlier success. Everything here is easier to do once you’ve already reached a baseline degree of success (through privilege or effort) and want to put in the work to turn that into outlier success. [1] But much of it applies to anyone.

1. Compound yourself

Compounding is magic. Look for it everywhere. Exponential curves are the key to wealth generation.

A medium-sized business that grows 50% in value every year becomes huge in a very short amount of time. Few businesses in the world have true network effects and extreme scalability. But with technology, more and more will.  It’s worth a lot of effort to find them and create them.

You also want to be an exponential curve yourself—you should aim for your life to follow an ever-increasing up-and-to-the-right trajectory. It’s important to move towards a career that has a compounding effect—most careers progress fairly linearly.

You don't want to be in a career where people who have been doing it for two years can be as effective as people who have been doing it for twenty—your rate of learning should always be high. As your career progresses, each unit of work you do should generate more and more results. There are many (Read more...)

179. Sales Mastery & Storytelling at Scaling Startups (Craig Wortmann)

by Nick Moran

Craig Wortmann of Sales Engine joins Nick to discuss Sales Mastery & Storytelling at Scaling Startups. In this episode, we cover:

-Craig's background and how he became involved in the early stage tech community.

-You've spent a lot of time looking at how companies make this difficult transition from the scrappy, do-it-all world of "Entrepreneurial Selling" to a "Professional Selling" organization. Talk to us about what you've observed and how companies struggle in this transition.

-When is the right time to transition from 'guerilla selling' to a more organized, professional process?

-When we had Tae Hee Nahm on the program he talked about three different types of sales leaders at different stages of a startup. At the beginning it was a Davey Crocket- like individual, an independent explorer who will find their own path through the wilderness... then at the growth stage, Braveheart individual- someone with that warrior spirit and finally at the scale stage he looks for the Dwight Eisenhower-- someone with political savvy to align all the sales folks and move in the right direction... do you agree or disagree and how does your philosophy differ?

-What do you do when a top performing salesperson won't use the tools, align with the culture or conform to processes.

-How do you handle it when the product is broken... it's clear that the offering is lacking and the issue is not with sales.

-How about situations where one is selling something that doesn't exist?

-Storytelling... I see founders fail at (Read more...)

179. Sales Mastery & Storytelling at Scaling Startups (Craig Wortmann)

by Nick Moran

Craig Wortmann of Sales Engine joins Nick to discuss Sales Mastery & Storytelling at Scaling Startups. In this episode, we cover:

-Craig's background and how he became involved in the early stage tech community.

-You've spent a lot of time looking at how companies make this difficult transition from the scrappy, do-it-all world of "Entrepreneurial Selling" to a "Professional Selling" organization. Talk to us about what you've observed and how companies struggle in this transition.

-When is the right time to transition from 'guerilla selling' to a more organized, professional process?

-When we had Tae Hee Nahm on the program he talked about three different types of sales leaders at different stages of a startup. At the beginning it was a Davey Crocket- like individual, an independent explorer who will find their own path through the wilderness... then at the growth stage, Braveheart individual- someone with that warrior spirit and finally at the scale stage he looks for the Dwight Eisenhower-- someone with political savvy to align all the sales folks and move in the right direction... do you agree or disagree and how does your philosophy differ?

-What do you do when a top performing salesperson won't use the tools, align with the culture or conform to processes.

-How do you handle it when the product is broken... it's clear that the offering is lacking and the issue is not with sales.

-How about situations where one is selling something that doesn't exist?

-Storytelling... I see founders fail at (Read more...)

Schumpeter on Strategy

by Jerry Neumann
This post is by Jerry Neumann from Reaction Wheel

It’s Friday and I’m procrastinating, so here you go. Let’s talk about Joseph Schumpeter. Good old John Joseph Jingleheimer Schumpeter, as he wasn’t called. Schumpeter once wrote in his diary that he aspired to be the greatest economist, horseman, and lover in the world1. I can imagine the women and horses edging away nervously. Luckily […]

Investor Stories 104: Lessons Learned (Fontana, Kimmel, Farmer)

by Nick Moran

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured:

Ash Fontana Wayne Kimmel Chris Farmer   Each investor illustrates a critical lesson learned about startup investing and how it's changed their approach.

To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes.

Also, follow us on twitter @TheFullRatchet for updates and more information.