Bilingual

The New Normal
12 hours ago
- The 'new normal' is a phenomenon where your perception of normality changes due to the people around you, altering your ambitions and chances of achieving them.
- Event 1 (Serendipity): At age 12, Mitchell joined a BBS for writing game cheats, leading to a business selling cheats for $25/month, earning $400/month as a freshman.
- Event 2 (Opportunity): His programming passion and popular PHP blog led to a job as a Ruby on Rails developer, shifting his focus to building web applications for startups.
- Event 3 (Choice): He chose to move to San Francisco, work at Kiip, and surround himself with tech entrepreneurs, making it normal to pursue passion and start companies.
- Event 4 (Confidence): He left Kiip to start HashiCorp due to Vagrant's popularity, gaining confidence from his new normal to take the leap into entrepreneurship.
APPLE: My Key to Success
12 hours ago
- APPLE is an acronym used by Apple store employees: Approach customers with a personalized warm welcome, Probe politely to understand needs, Present a solution to take home today, Listen for and resolve issues, End with a fond farewell and invitation to return.
- Mitchell Hashimoto attributes the success of his side projects (a passive income business sold to fund HashiCorp, Vagrant, and IRCRelay) to applying the APPLE method.
- Being respectful, welcoming, polite, and attentive to customers is more important than immediate outcomes; the example of handling a cancellation request from user Brian shows probing for issues and presenting a systemic solution rather than a quick fix.
- The best solution goes beyond a simple response; for IRCRelay, Mitchell implemented a change to automatically handle nickname conflicts, demonstrating genuine care for user experience.
- Ending interactions with a fond farewell and invitation to return reinforces good customer relations, even if the customer does not immediately re-engage.
Success may not matter if you aren't doing what you love
15 days ago
- Product market fit is essential but insufficient for startup success; founder market fit is also critical.
- Founder market fit involves cultural alignment, temperament, and personal traits that enable effective communication and connection with target customers.
- It encompasses factors like introversion/extroversion, cultural niche, technical background, location, hobbies, team size, fundraising preferences, and even attire.
- Without founder market fit, founders may lose interest or become frustrated, leading to startup failure even if some success is achieved.
- Founders should introspect to identify trade-offs and ensure they pursue markets they can sustain passion for over the long term (typically 7-10 years).
Halvar's Guide to Entrepreneurship
a month ago
- The author founded two software/SaaS B2B companies: zynamics (bootstrapped, sold to Google) and optimyze (venture-backed, sold to Elastic).
- Key reasons for becoming an entrepreneur include a need for agency, working with great people on challenging problems, alignment of interests, and building products that delight users.
- Target markets are categorized into four types: no market (shop), growing niche (bootstrap), healthy specialized market (mid-sized company), and huge market (venture-backed). Market choice dictates funding strategy and company trajectory.
- Venture capital involves high risk-return tradeoffs; VCs seek outsized returns, which can misalign with first-time founders' risk appetites. Founders should understand VC dynamics, including herding behavior and the importance of momentum.
- Product development should start from customer problems, not technology solutions. Emphasize user and buyer personas, development partners, and creating a product with a great user experience (e.g., '10 minutes to dopamine' rule).
- Hiring should focus on attracting great people through compelling narratives; interviewing should mimic actual work (e.g., take-home exercises). Management requires empathy, avoiding burnout, and fostering open communication.
- Marketing should be content-based to build trust; sales involves managing a funnel with an internal champion. Founders must sell the product first before hiring sales professionals.
- Running a business involves balancing three sheets: financial, technical debt, and personal energy. Cofounder relationships are critical and require open communication and fair equity splits.
- Investors prioritize returns; founders should maintain emotional distance and manage perceptions. Consider getting a coach for psychological support during the high-stress startup journey.
- Exits are common endpoints; aim to ensure all stakeholders feel fairly treated to build trust for future ventures.

entrepreneurship

The New Normal

APPLE: My Key to Success

Success may not matter if you aren't doing what you love

Halvar's Guide to Entrepreneurship