Your job as an entrepreneur is to become like Teflon for tasks. You should be ALLERGIC to doing stuff and everything should roll off you and be delegated and systematized. Your job isn’t doing, it’s building systems.↗

The PayPal Mafia on Strategy 9 stories (and even more insights) from @mlevchin, @davidsacks, @yishan, @rabois Including: Secrets Pivots Strategic Decisions + More↗

Founder 1: Runs startup for five years. Sells for ~$100M. Makes $30M. Founder 2: Running startup for ten years (and counting). Valued at ~$1B. Founder shares valued at $30M. Which founder would you rather be? /🧵↗

1/ The first 18 months of a startup: After starting my 2nd company in 2019, I decided I would write down useful lessons I learned or re-learned along the way. Some were hard-earned & others required steady focus. A thread that I hope may help other founders starting out 👇↗

6 Things @rabois learned from @peterthiel 1. The value of time 2. The importance of focus 3. The importance of recruiting undiscovered talent 4. M&A opportunities and IPO exits are highly correlated 5. Eschew "general management" 6. The best startups are cults↗

THREAD: I've been very serious about personal development for 10+ years. But not just reading... I've been putting the principles to work as I've grown and sold my business (7 figure exit) and built a real estate portfolio worth $20MM+. Here are a few of my top takeaways:↗

How I run my business 2020 was my 10th year as an entrepreneur. Here are some "rules" I try to follow after a decade of stumbling around building my company. (Not rules for all businesses. Just how I choose to run mine.) A thread 👇👇👇↗

On 5/29/13 (my birthday!), I filed to incorporate Palo Alto Delivery Inc., later renamed DoorDash Inc. It's mostly not my story to tell. But I'll share a bit today about how it started. My goal is to give aspiring entrepreneurs a window into one founding story.↗

A pizza delivery driver turned a $1,000 investment into a $1.45 billion clothing empire. The best part? He did it without ever owning a retail store. Time for a thread 👇👇👇↗

💡 Startup Ideas💡 How do you find great ideas? How do you evaluate them? • @paulg • @sama • @eriktorenberg • @Austen • @cdixon • @lennysan • @shl 7 thoughts from 7 deep thinkers…↗

Firmly believe the most certain path to building a high net worth ($10M plus) is buying a small business at a relatively young age. Here’s a model:↗

software is such a cheat code in the game of business. My first company was a restaurant. One of the worst businesses you can start (everyone told me this, but being young, I told them to kick rocks)↗

The school I want to build: 1) Start writing 2) Build an online audience 3) Start a company in your niche Graduate once you have a profitable business.↗

Buying a business, especially a good one, is hard. But not impossible. And not without risks. Reducing those risks takes a good process, emotional control, discipline, savvy advisors, and relentless hard work. Though just about anyone can do it.↗

I’m biased but @udemy is a true underdog story + thought I’d share details we’ve never shared before. ICYMI, we announced a $50M raise at $2B valuation. Udemy almost died at least 5x. We got rejected by everyone in the Valley. Startups are never a straight line. *Read on*↗

Almost everything I've learned about startups: * Aim to get to cash flow positive early * Don't overly optimize for private market valuations * Build a great team and culture * Make sure the business model *works* * Focus, focus, focus. Dilution of effort will crush you↗

I’ve learned a lot about giving advice over the past 5 years at YC (still more to learn). When I started I had a very formulaic / tactical view of how startups succeed. Over time and after seeing over 1000 startups go through YC that has changed.↗

@tinvaan I would raise maybe $500k, keep the company small for the first year, work closely with users to make something amazing, and otherwise stay off SV's radar. In other words, be the opposite of a scenester.↗

Morals of the @zoom_us entrepreneurial fable:↗

1/ "You can name people who are richer than Rich Barton, but you can’t name very many people who have his track record. You will find very few people in this country who have as many times created something from nothing.” Nick Hanauer. A chapter on Barton: …↗

@eriktorenberg @jrdngonen @dksf @CaseyNeistat @368 YC took off in part because of the lack of education and a playbook for starting a company and raising money. I’m not sure YC would be a fraction of what it is today if it started in 2018. So, which industries today have a simil…↗

If I could force first time entrepreneurs to read one thing before starting a business, it would be this: 1/ “There’s a rule of fishing that’s a very good rule. And the first rule of fishing is: fish where the fish are. The second rule of fishing is ‘don’t forget the first rule↗