Since I started my blog I mainly wanted to write about topics I wanted to investigate, bringing a sum up of my findings, on the digital transformation for all kind of actors, corporate, startups and even nationwide.
But I didn’t really write for entrepreneurs yet.
Anyone can be an entrepreneur but not everyone is quick learner, deep thinker and a machine of execution.
Basically, like I was mentioning in my book about startup investing, the ability to learn fast and execute fast are setting entrepreneurs apart.
No dilemma about working hard or smart when you try to learn to do both and without getting lost in the day to day challenge and be able to have an overview.
On Internet, that content is everywhere, about entrepreneurship, about startups fundamentals, books to read, entrepreneurs and venture capital players.
Tons of resource. And it’s hard to evaluate if a given article, podcast, video I just found is suited for me, or really make sense with what I should do right now?
When I made my book, that was to make a synthetical summary that explain how to approach angel investing in a practical way.
And should be applied for a business angel or an entrepreneur. Knowing that a business angel mostly is used to be an entrepreneur.
But when it comes to content on internet to explain entrepreneurship. We can do better in terms of organization, can’t we? So, I will attempt to make a simple curated list of entrepreneurship resources.
Think as this page like Kamar-Taj of Dr Strange, with all the knowledge to start practicing the mystic arts of entrepreneurship in the startup world.
Note: Leave the vanity dopamined metrics at the door.
Fundamentals:
First you have to start with some wisdom from Paul Graham. Paul Graham is a programmer, wrote books and built a company that had been acquired by Yahoo.
In 2001, he published some essays that are relevant to the matter. In 2005 he co funded Y Combinator ,the best startup accelerator for me.
Y Combinator have tons of videos, but this selection is a mix of fundamental, basics, practical and effectiveness. You could also waste watching all of them, but be careful of not dreaming be an entrepreneur and become one.
Execution matter.
Before the Startup – Paul Graham
Paul Graham’s Essay:
- How To Start A Startup
- How To Get Startup Ideas
- What We Look For In Founders
- A Word To The Resourceful
- Relentlessly Resourceful
- Six Principles For Making New Things
- The 18 Mistakes Startups Make
- How To Make Wealth
Y Combinator School
Y Combinator (YC) is an American seed money startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch over 2,000 companies, including Stripe, Airbnb, Cruise Automation, DoorDash, Coinbase, Instacart, Dropbox, Twitch, and Reddit…
The company’s accelerator program is held in Mountain View, California and lucky for us, they actually published an interesting sets of instructions online regarding how to operate at the beginning of your venture.
Basics
Lesson 1: How to Get and Test Startup Ideas – Michael Seibel
Your idea shouldn’t be a “great idea”. Actually most of the big success always appeared as weird (intersection of a good and a bad idea).
What matters is the connection with the problem you are trying to solve.
Lesson 2: The Biggest Mistakes First-Time Founders Make – Michael Seibel
Lesson 3: How To Build Product As A Small Startup – Michael Seibel.
Lesson 4: How to get your 10 first customers – Michael Seibel.
Communication
Those two lessons is focus on your communication that you have to adjust if you are dealing with a customer or an investors, are pitching to sell, to raise money or getting critical feedback of users about their problem to keep digging the depth of the problem you are solving.
Lesson 5: How Pitching Investors is Different Than Pitching Customers – Michael Seibel
Lesson 6: How to Pitch your Startup (to an investor) – Kevin Hale
Lesson 7: How to Talk to Users – Eric Migicovsky
Building Product
Building the Product is the most complex thing. How do you decide what you need to prioritize when it comes of a feature for a user ? Do you have enough contextual information about the problem you are solving ? Are you sure it’s not the user telling him the feature he wants ?
Lesson 8: Building Product – Michael Seibel
Lesson 9: How to Plan an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) – Michael Seibel
Lesson 10: How to Find Product Marketfit – David Rusenko
Lesson 11: How to Get Users and Grow – Gustaf Alstromer
Equity, metrics and business
Here is the stuff you can’t mess up.