Startup, Please

Startup Please

Igor Kostyuchenok

Table of Contents

Preface

Product

Summary

Founding Team

A Hacker

A Hippie

A Hustler

Funding

Summary

Selling

Summary

Hiring

Protect Your Team

Support Your Team

Loyalty

Same Values

Behavioral Patterns

Inspiration

Let Them Make Mistakes

Let Them Show Off

Listen

Gossip

Firing

In a nutshell

Title Page

Cover

Table of Contents

Preface

Startups are hard. Successful startups are even harder. Don’t let you tell otherwise. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would be a successful entrepreneur.

All successful startups are product oriented. All successful products are customer oriented, even if the initial customer is the entrepreneur himself.

Startups are all about growth, explosive growth. Once your company stops growing exponentially year on year, you cannot consider it being a startup anymore – you moved into the category of established companies or you went out of business, which is way more likely.

If you hear the word startup and think FAANG and perks – you do not know anything about startups and you probably do not want to start one or work for one.

Startups are not about perks, off-sites, IPAs or gender wars. Startups are about blood, sweat and tears.

Startup is about constant grind, consistency and stamina. Startup is neither a sprint nor it is a marathon – startup is a fartlek – a long run consisting of short high-intensity intervals and short slower paced ones. Startup is about being able to fall and stand up over and over again.

If none of the above is something you can live with – do not join a startup and do not start one – you will definitely fail.

Why do people start companies then? The answer is very simple – because they cannot do otherwise. You have founders, who want to change the world and founders, who ride the current hype wave and want to make money. You have people, who cannot stand the bullshit and politics of big corporations and crazy scientists, who have been working on their idea for years and got discovered by a VC. All of them have different motivations but they have at least one thing in common – they are ready to sacrifice their time, health and their relationships to bring their idea to life.

No product is created in a vacuum. You will always have competition. The competition will be fierceful. If you want to truly make it, you have to be at the very top. Only a monopoly doesn’t need compete – don’t let you tell otherwise.